Thursday, April 19, 2012




The Communication Effectiveness and Noises Case Study in Workplace

Communication is very central to organizations. Effective communication can lead to the success of working team. This essay will analyse the reasons why effective communication is very important to work groups. An example of poor communication will be discussed with each component of communication model to explain if there are disruptive noises in communication.

Importance of communication to work groups

A work group is a group that interact primarily to share information and to make decisions to help each group member perform each other's area of responsibility. It is a form of group interaction; therefore, good communication is necessary for each group member to help each other to achieve their target and result in communication satisfaction by controlling, motivating, expressing emotion and informing work groups.

Therefore, effective communication is very important to the function of work groups because it can lead to their performance. From the result of research model testing by Johnston, Reed, Lawrence and Onken 2007, communication satisfaction can affect organizational outcome. However, it is an indirect way. That is communication satisfaction (Listening and expression satisfaction) will have positive relationship with group processes (Planning, decision-making, confidence-building). Thus, the group processes also have a positive relationship to organizational performance.

Communication model and noise

According to Lindblom 1990, Communication of a message involves the transmission of a code that is perceived and then interpreted by another sensory system; therefore, the communication process model consisted of source, message, encoding, channel, decoding, receiver and feedback.

In my workplace, "Morning Talk" was in the form of live speeches. Everyday, before start working, everyone from each department had to get together in front of the plant. CEO and line managers would take this opportunity to communicate policies, production and customer information. Sometimes, the representative of employees would have a chance to update the production data or customer problems to other staff. However, it could be poor communication due to "disruptive noise", a barrier to effective communication. Communication process and noises will be explained in relation to the component that seemed to have noise problems.

Channel effectiveness

Morning Talk is an example of a formal channel which was established by organization and transmitted messages that are related to the professional activities of member. Moreover, this is the kind of live speech which was not the highest in terms of the channel richness of the effective of channel. Although lots of information can be transmitted to receivers and managers could expect feedback, Morning Talk was not very personal direct communication which is highest in the effectiveness.

Source and receiver effectiveness and communication apprehension

Moreover, CEO and other managers were original sources who could send the massage directly to employees as receivers; they could listen to the information directly from the original source. However, the noise might be from communication apprehension which is anxiety in oral communication. Some people were anxious when they have to make a speech in front of the group. Some important message that needed to be sent could be missed since they were too nervous when they are speaking.

Effective massage

The messages in the factory "Morning talk" were about the data of production, customer information and safety awareness. They were very useful since everyone would understand the problem in other functions of company and came up with solutions together. For example, to deal with messages about customer complaints, production staff needed to help sale person to solve the problems.

Message encoding and the language

Managers might encode their thinking to the massage in technical language. Some language was not general but used in production or marketing terms. This can become noise since many people who were not production staff might not understand them and one who was not in marketing area might find it difficult to interpret the message from sale staff.

Massage decoding and selective perception and emotion

The ability of employees to decode the message became noise because it depended on their selective perception which is up to their experience, background and personal characteristics. Production staff might have interpreted the message about customer needs differently from sale staff. When complaint of customers was raised, production staff might think that it was not a big matter but the sale persons considered it as a serious problem. Moreover, not everyone had the same emotion. Sometime, managers talked too long and the weather was hot. Many people might feel frustrate and have difficulty understanding the message.

Feedback

Feedback could be done immediately if someone had a problem or did not understand the message. CEO and other managers could ensure that everyone understood the messages clearly in Morning Talk.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Punlapat_Chareonvan

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