effective communication
Simply, we can define communication as “sharing of ideas or feelings with others.” Communication takes places when one person transmits information and understanding to another person. There is a communication when you respond or listen to someone. Movements of lips, the wave of hands or the wink of an eye may convey more meaning than even written or spoken words. The basic elements of communication process include communicator, communicatee, message, channel and feedback.
- Communicator is the sender, speaker, issuer or writer, who intends to express or send out a message.
- Communicatee is the receiver of the message for whom the communication is meant. The communicatee receives the information, order or message.
- Message, which is also known as the subject matter of this process, i.e., the content of the letter, speech, order, information, idea, or suggestion.
- Communication channel or the media through which the sender passes the information and understanding to the receiver. It acts as a connection between the communicator and the communicatee, i.e., the levels of communication or relationships that exist between different individuals or departments of an organization.
- Feedback, which is essential to make communication, a successful one. It is the effect, reply or reaction of the information transmitted to the communicatee.
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Submitted by admin on Thu, 2006-12-07 07:30.
executes its task when it appends to propelling the consumer from one level to another in the communication field; cognizance of the product existence, knowledge of the features and advantages, balanced or arousing certainty of the benefits. Finally, this activity turns into sale. Advertising aim is to execute certain parts of communication job with greater economy, speed and volume.
Mail order advertising moves a prospect through the entire cycle of communication spectrum. It can shift a reader from unawareness to cash-in-advance or cash-on-delivery sale. In consumer package goods, advertising can carry the major part of the marketing communication work load; from awareness right up to action, i.e., products sold through self-service stores.
In industrial goods, advertising is a harmonizing strength of communication, and personal selling is the dominating force of communication. In door-to-door selling, advertising has no role of promotion and personal selling can sell the products to consumers in a few minutes of persuasive selling.
In essence, advertising goals are expressed in terms of communication spectrum. There is a controversy in the advertising world regarding objectives of advertising as a means of communication.
Communication programmes may be action oriented. Mail order advertising is a case where the underlying objective is action, i.e., to secure sales. However, advertising to reduce after purchase doubts and anxieties of buyers particularly in the purchase of costly durable goods such as homes, cars and major appliances, has no objective of securing action., i.e., sales. Such advertising is not action-oriented. It wants to give information or change attitudes. It has only the goal of communication.
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Advertising aims must be sloping around the communication process. Communication tasks are building up brand alertness, altering consumer thoughts, colligating pleasing ideas with products, and communicating customer about product dimensions and properties.
The elemental determination of advertising is to assist sale probability of a product or a service. Advertising as a promotional technique augments tendency to purchase, moving the prospect gradually towards the product to make a purchase decision. Of course, advertising is only one of several communication forces. It actuates the buyer through consecutive stages such as awareness, comprehension or recognition, conviction and action. Advertising objectives may be divided into four stages of commercial communication which are explained below: -
- Cognizance: The prospect must be informed about the subsistence of the brand or company in the market. Awareness is the bare minimum goal of advertising. The buying process starts after informing the consumer about the product or service.
- Conception: The prospect must understand what the product is and what it will do for him. The apprehension level indicates that people are not only aware of the brand or company but they also know the brand name and can be familiar with the package or trademark. But they are not yet influenced that they want to buy.
- Conviction: The prospect must be mentally convinced to buy the brand or the product. The convinced level shows brand preference and intention to buy the product in the near future.
- Action: the prospect takes meaningful action. Purchase decision is duly taken. These four goals of ad in communication terms are measurable results.
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Upper communication means the flow of information from the lower levels of the organization to the higher levels of authority. It transfers from subordinate to superior as that from worker to foreman, from foreman to company manager, from company’s manager to general manager and from general manager to the chief executive or the board of directors. In this way, the upward communication makes a chain
Upper communication includes judgments, estimations, propositions, complaints, grievance, appeals, reports etc. It is very important because it serves as the response on the success of downward communication. Management comes to know how well its policies, plans, strategies and objectives are adopted by those working at lower levels of the organization.
It keeps the management informed about the progress of the work and troubles faced in executions. On the strength of upward communication, the management amends its programs and strategies and makes further plans. It is needed in all type of organizations, whether big or small. It serves the following purposes: -
- To create communication receptiveness.
- To produce a sense of belongingness through active participation.
- To assess communication efficiency.
- To boost employee morale.
- To make improvements in managerial decision making process.
- To coordinate efforts.
- To know ideas of each individual in the organization.
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Oral communication is direct face to face communication between two or more persons. In oral communication, the sender and receiver exchange their thoughts or ideas verbally either in face-to-face discussion or through any mechanical or electrical device like telephone etc.
When it is face to face, the person conveying can ask questions or sometimes when the communication is not understandable in a proper manner, he can elucidate its meaning. Oral communication is generally possible where there can be either a direct contact or message to be conveyed is of impermanent nature. Meetings and conferences, lectures and interviews are some examples of oral communication. This type of communication has certain advantages over written communication, which may be enumerated as follows:
- It has the distinct advantage of being quick and prompt. It provides the opportunity to both the transmitter and receiver of the message to respond directly.
- Oral communication facilitates close contact and thus promotes mutual exchange of thoughts, information, understanding and support.
- Oral communication through direct contact undeniably inculcates a sense of self-importance in the subordinates, which successively acts as an inspiring element.
- It also helps in bringing a responsive and supportive morale among employees of an organization.
- Oral communication further allows the superior to make a rapid evaluation of subordinates action as well as reaction to any message transmitted. This obviously assists the superior to diminish and prevent differences and revamp plans and policies according to the need of time and conditions.
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The real meaning of communication is getting the receiver and the sender tuned together for a particular message. Communication takes place when one person transfers some understandable data to another person. It also includes the exchange of thoughts, opinions, sentiments, facts, and information between two or more persons. Feedback is very important as it assures that your message should be properly conveyed to the receiver.
The essential features of an effective communication system are keys for productive communication. The chief principles or characteristics of an effective communication system are as follows: -
- Clearness and integrity of message to be conveyed.
- Adequate briefing of the recipient.
- Accurate plan of objectives.
- Reliability and uniformity of the message.
- To know the main purpose of the message.
- Proper response or feedback.
- Correct timing.
- Use of proper medium to convey the message properly.
- Use of informal communication.
The following are some important guidelines to make communication effective: -
- Try to simplify your thoughts before communicating your message.
- You must analyze the intent of each and every message.
- Consider the overall physical setting whenever you communicate.
- You must discuss with others, where appropriate, in planning communication.
- Be careful while communicating, of the overtone as well as basic content of your message.
- Take the opportunity to suggest something of help or value of the receiver.
- Follow-up your communication.
- Prepare yourself for transmitting the message in a proper way.
- Be sure your actions support your communication.
- Seek not only to be understood but understand.
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Effective communication is crucial for the success of an organization. Communication takes place when one person transfers data and understanding to another person. An effectual communication is one which is properly followed by the ‘receiver of the message and his feedback is known to the ‘sender’ or transmitter. The below are some points that may be taken to lessen communication barriers for making it more valuable: -
- It is very important to be familiar with the ‘audience’ for whom the message is meant. The message to be communicated must be clear in the mind of the communicator because if you don’t comprehend an idea, you can never convey it to other person. The message should be adequate and apposite towards the communication purpose.
- In order to avert semantic barriers, the message should be conveyed in easy, concise and understandable language. The expressions or signs chosen for communicating the message must be suitable to the reference and understanding of the recipient.
- To make business communication effective, the structure of the organization must be sound and suitable to the requirements of the organization. The management should make efforts to make communication process more effective and understandable.
- To avoid creditability gap, management must guarantee that their procedures and activities are in accordance with the communication. Communication is not complete unless the reply or response of the receiver of the message is received by the sender or communicator. The success of communication can be evaluated from the reaction. Therefore, feedback must be bucked up and examined.
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Communication through words may be in writing or oral. Written communication entails transmission of message in black and white. It mainly consists of diagrams, pictures, graphs, etc. Reports, policies, rules, orders, instructions, agreements, etc have to be conveyed in written form for proper functioning of the organization.
Written communication guarantees that everyone concerned has the same information. It provides a long-lasting record of communication for future. Written instructions are essential when the action called for is crucial and complex. To be effectual, written communication should be understandable, brief, truthful and comprehensive. The main advantages and disadvantages of written communication are as follows: -
Merits of written communication
• It ensures transmission of information in uniform manner.
• It provides a permanent record of communication for future reference.
• It is an idealistic way of conveying long messages.
• It ensures little risk of unauthorized alteration in the message.
• It tends to be comprehensive, obvious and accurate.
• It is well suited to express messages to a large number of persons at the same time.
• It can be quoted as legal evidence in case of any disputes.
Demerits of written communication
• It is costly and time consuming.
• It becomes difficult to maintain privacy about written communication.
• It is rigid and doesn’t provide any scope for making changes for inaccuracies that might have crept in.
• It is very formal and lacks personal touch.
• It boosts red-tapism and involves so many formalities.
• It may be represented in a different way by different people.
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The importance of communication in the context of modern industrial set up is enormous. It is essential for decision making and planning. It enables the management to secure information without which it may not be possible to take any decision. The quality of managerial decisions depends upon the quality of communication.
Communication is a primary requirement for making decisions. In its absence it may not be possible for the top management to take any decision. Information must be received before any meaningful decision can be made. The big organizations are designed on the basis of specialization and division of labor. Coordination is a must for the efficient functioning of an enterprise. Coordination requires mutual understanding about the organizational goals, the mode of their achievement and the inter relationships between the work being performed by various individuals and all this can be achieved through communication only.
An efficient system of communication enables the management to mould the attitude of the subordinate. Most of the conflicts in business are not basic but are caused by misunderstood motives and ignorance of the facts. Communication is essential for quick and systematic performance of managerial functions. It is the basis of direction and leadership. It is an influencing process. By developing the skill of communication, a manger can be a real leader of his subordinates. A good system of communication brings them in close contact with each other and removes misunderstanding.
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Informal communication arises out of all those channels that fall outside the formal channels and it is also known as grapevine. It is established around the societal affiliation of members of the organization. Informal communication does not follow authority lines as in the case of formal communication.
Informal communication takes place due to the individual needs of the members of an organization and subsists in every organization. Normally, such communication is oral and may be expressed even by simple glance, sign or silence. Informal communication, is implicit, spontaneous multidimensional and diverse. It oftenly works in group of people, i.e. when one person has some information of interest; he passes it on to his informal group and so on.
An organization can make efficient use of informal channels to fortify the formal channels of communication. It acts as a valuable purpose in expressing certain information that cannot be channeled via the official channels. It satisfies the people desires to identify what is happening in the organization and offers an opportunity to express dreads, worries and complaints. Informal communication also facilitates to ameliorate managerial decisions as more people are involved in the process of decision-making.
Inspite on many advantages, informal communication has certain disadvantages. Informal communication contains facts, deceptions, rumors and unclear data. The informal channels of communication may transmit completely imprecise information that may harm rather than help an organization. In addition, it is impossible to fix the responsibility for its origin or flow of information. However, for the efficient working of any organization both formal and informal communications are required.
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Submitted by admin on Wed, 2006-11-08 10:32.
Communication is considered to be an essential human skill. The ability to communicate effectively has become one of the major skills of a successful manager. An organization without proper communication network is derisory and imperfect. The main objective of communication is to grease and assist the organization. It helps management in planning effectively and controlling efficiently.
The chief aim of communication is to effect change in someone, i.e., to shape action or to secure inactiveness in the total interest of a business enterprise. It is a flux that binds people together in an organization. It can be considered as the inspiring force resulting to industrial harmony and can be a device for ascertaining and taking remedial action to ensure the achievement of the desired goals.
Communication helps business to reach its goal and keep all business transactions in line. Without communication, nothing is possible. The main purposes of communication are given below: -
• To keep employees informed.
• To provide employees with guidelines and directions in connection with their duties and responsibilities.
• To solicit information from workforce which may assist organization?
• To make each & every employee interested in his respective job and in the work of the company as a whole.
• To convey management interest in the personnel.
• To lessen or avert labor turnover.
• To encourage each and every employee with personal pride in being a member of the company.
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Submitted by admin on Wed, 2006-11-08 10:29.