Communication

QSB2413 Management Science

Introduction• Poor communication is a common problem in many

workplaces.• Leaders sometimes become so focused on meeting

deadlines and demands that they fail to share vital information with employees, ignore input and choose ineffective channels for conveying key messages.

• Experience leaders know this can result it poor performance, costly mistakes, low morale and turnover, frequently of the best employees.

Introduction• Managers must understand the importance of

building and sustaining human relationships through interpersonal communication.

• Studies show that managers spend 66 – 90 % of their time communicating.

• If they do not understand the processes involved in good communication, their best plans can fail.

Communication Complexity

• Every day, you will face communication challenges such as getting and giving correct information, developing strong working relationships, attracting new customers, working in teams, solving disputes, giving feedback, instructing others and creating communication networks.

• All this requires communication effectively and understanding the complexity of communication.

Communication Complexity

• Communication is the process that managers use to interact with subordinates, peers, supervisors, customers, suppliers, the general public and others.

• The ability to communicate well is a critical skill in determining managerial success.

• This ability involves activities including reading, listening, writing, speech making and using symbolic gestures.

• All these communication activities become more complicated with the integration of technology, increased diversity and more globalization.

Communication

• Communication is a process in which one person or group evokes an identical or common meaning in another person or group.

• The meaning becomes shared by, or common, to both people, or both groups.

• Communication is a process of exchanging verbal and non verbal messages.

• Defining communication is relatively simple, but achieving effective communication is complicated and difficult.

Objective

• The objective of communicating is to create some degree of accurate understanding among the participants.

• Again, communication skills are essential for managerial success.

Why communication is so important?

Importance of Communication• Communication promotes motivation by

informing and clarifying the employees about the task to be done and how to improve their performance.

• Communication is a source of information to the organizational members for decision-making process as it helps identifying and assessing alternative course of actions.

Importance of Communication

• Communication helps in socializing, cannot survive without communication.

• Communication assists in controlling process. It helps controlling member’s behavior in various ways.

• Effective communication helps an organization increase profits by helping everyone understand the overall strategy and how to coordinate all the parts.

Importance of Communication

• Successful communication results when the receiver of the message understands the exact meaning that the sender intended.

(common / identical meaning)

Components of the Communication Process

• To improve the quality of communication, managers must understand how the process of communication works.

• The communication process begins when an individual or group has an idea or concept and wishes to make that information known in someone else.

Noise

Noise

Noise

Feedback

Communication Process

• Include the sender, channel, message, receiver, feedback and noise.

• Sender initiates the communication process by encoding his or her meaning and sending the message through a channel.

• The encoding process translates the sender’s ideas into a systematic set of symbols or a language expressing the communication’s meaning.

Communication Process

• The result of encoding is the message.• Messages are the coded symbols that are

intended to give a particular meaning to the information or data.

• They are thoughts and feelings that the communicator is attempting to elicit in the receiver.

• Sometimes messages are conveyed in ways that can be interpreted very differently.

Communication Process

• Once the encoding is accomplished and a message emerges, another issue arises.

• How can this information be transmitted to the receiver?

• The answer depends in part on how the message has been encoded.

• If the message is in the form of a written report / computer storage, it can be transmitted by mail, or electronic devices (such as e-mail, fax, website).

Communication Process• The channel is the carrier of the message by

which the message is sent.• Organizations provide information to members

through a variety of channels, including face-to-face communication (oral message), websites (written report), phone conversations (oral message), group meetings (oral message), memos (written report), policy statements, rewards systems and etc.

Communication Process

• Communication channels must be chosen carefully to deliver the appropriate message in the right way to the right people.

• The improvement in technology has made the message possible to send and receive messages thousands of times faster than before.

• The receiving person or group must decode, or make sense of the information.

• Decoding involves the translation of received messages into understood meanings.

Communication Process• Communication feedback (can be oral, facial

expression, written) refers to the process of verifying messages and attempts to ensure that the message that was decoded is what the sender really meant to convey.

• Feedback is way to troubleshoot and avoid communication failure because it provide preliminary information to the sender.

• Through feedback, communication becomes a dynamic, two-way process.

Communication Process

• Noise is any internal or external interference with, or distraction from the intended message.

• Noise can caused distortion in the sending and receiving of messages due to physical conditions (imperfect or incomplete information of the written report / email) and emotional states (frustration) that make communication more difficult.

• Noise can occur during any stage of the communication process and reduces the probability of achieving common meaning between sender and receiver.

Interpersonal Communication

• Managers communicate in a variety of ways, such as oral, written, non-verbal and technological communication.

• Oral communication consists of all forms of spoken information.

• Managers prefer face-to-face and telephone communication compared to written communication because it permits immediate feedback. (Oral presentation)

Interpersonal Communication

• Written communication includes letters, memos, policy manuals, reports, forms, e-mail and other documents used to share information.

• Writing down a message and sending it as a letter or memo enables a precise / accurate statement to be made, provides a reference for later use and provides an official document for the organization.

Interpersonal Communication

• Nonverbal communication involves all messages that are non-language responses, such as eye-contact (looking down), appearance (confident) and facial expressions.

• Technological communication is a broad category of communication that continuously changing and is rapidly influencing how, when and where managers, and everyone, communicates. (such as tweets, e-mails, teleconferences – video conferencing and the Internet - websites)

• Employees can work from home – Internet and phone.

Why managers communicate?

Because …

• To motivate, inform, control and satisfy social needs.

• Motivational communication serves the function of influencing the behavior of organizational members.

• Communication is intended to motivate must be designed to influence employees to work toward the accomplishment of organizational goals.

Because …

• Communication has an informational purpose when it provides facts and data to be used for decision making.

• Managers give employees information that they need to perform tasks and employees inform managers of their progress towards meeting their objectives.

• Communication serves a control function, guiding and coordinating so multiple goals and tasks can be pursued.

Because …

• Managers communicate to satisfy social needs.• Communication fulfills social needs relating to the

emotional and non-task-oriented interactions that occur in every organization.

• This communication may not directly affect the performance of organizational tasks, but it serves important needs and can influence how employees feel about their work conditions and how connected they are with others at work. (valuable / importance to the organization)

Barriers to Effective Communication

Barriers

Cross-Cultural Diversity• Individuals from different cultures may encode

and decode their messages differently.• They have different behaviors, styles and ways of

looking at things.• The greater the differences between the sender’s

and receiver’s cultures, the greater the chance of miscommunication. (different departments, different companies, different countries)

Barriers

Trust and Credibility• A very important barrier to effective communication is

lack of trust between the sender and the receiver.• Managers can develop trust in their working relationships

with subordinates by being “trust-worthy” by making promises and keeping promises (do not telling lies).

• Warren Buffet, a highly respected and successful investors, says that part of his job is to tell people what to expect and what not to expect (honesty and his success – everyone trusts him about investment decisions).

Barriers

Information Overload• The increasing use of technology in organizations

often leads to information overload, when the amount of information that one can process is exceeded.

• Everything is just data until or unless it has some meaning or is useful.

• Sort and analyze the data to turn it into useful information.

BarriersLanguage Characteristics• Many words are imprecise (not accurate).• For example, a manager tells a subordinate to do this task “right

away”.• Does the manager mean for the subordinate to drop what he or

she doing and work on the new task immediately?• When two individuals are using different meanings or

interpretation of the same word, a communication barrier exists.• Internet jargon, such as LOL, BRB, WTH, BFF (avoid)• Construction jargon ??? Hand gestures?**Jargon – specialized language of a professional / occupational group

Discussion• In construction industry, project managers and

site supervisors have to communicate with different types of people, such as clients, QS, Architects, suppliers, contractors, foreign workers, site workers and etc.

• What are the common communication ways they use?