N E E D O F E F F E C T I V E O R G A N I Z A T I O N A L C O M M U N I C A T I O N S Y S T E M

CURRENT SCENARIO

Generally communication is considered as medium for exchanging information, feelings, thought and ideas. As a skill, communication is supposed as property of individual. It is common believe that an organization having workers with good communication skill would be efficient communication at organizational level. Due to this believe, organizational capacity to communicate (within and outside) could not get its due importance. Purpose of this article is to emphasize properties, importance and challenges of good organizational communication system,

In 1947, Nobel Laureate Herbert A. Simon wrote about "organizational communications systems", saying communication is "absolutely essential to organizations". W. Charles Redding played a prominent role in the establishment of organizational communication as a discipline. In the 1950s, organizational communication focused largely on the role of communication in improving organizational output. In the 1980s, the field turned away from a business-oriented approach to communication approach- means everything an organization is doing is communication. Even in commercial business organizations, activity like selling is communication between buyer and seller through the marketed commodity. Hence selling is considered as output of communication. Similarly voting may be considered as communication between political parties, candidate and voter. It shows, efficient communication system means efficient organization.

Organizational communicational system means a system through which an organization administer message passing between individuals (Government filing system is part of communication system). It is useful for any organization in creating better coordination of individual components or units. For research organization, such communication system is essential because research is intellectual activity which strengthen through discussion and sharing. Unfortunately, most of research organizations, around us, are lacking such system. Following picture depicts some snap shots of a organization with inefficient communication system in spite of having efficient researchers having good communication skill at individual level

1. Organization is working in area of socio economic development. It has high repute (ranking) due to large number of publication in reputed journals and magazines. This organization has renowned researches and have well furnished chamber for them. They all keep busy in their work till late night.

2. They have good contact and communication within their own domain. They are well versed with terms used in their domain but are not efficient in translating it to language of common person. They feel investing their time for cultivating such skill will not be very productive.

3. Once a researcher leave the organization, it is difficult to trace his existence except few research paper (done by him) and his photos.

4. Every researcher keeps its data with himself. Organization does not know what type of data it has. Collecting, cleaning, and organization data is responsibility (and individual property of researchers). There is no authenticated Databank at organization.

5. Organization knows about researchers innovation as much as the outside world (through his published paper) Organization do not have any memory how this innovation came out.

6. Staff and researchers do not know strength, weakness and constraints of others. Hence, many times, there is hot discussion in identifying and resolving factors affecting timeliness and quality of project taken by organization.

Although communication system are generally missing at organizational level but researchers are using communication tools at internet. Researchers use google and can search any topic through out the world. However, their organization does not provide any search engine, which may trace work done in particular area by other (previous) researchers in their organization. Similarly organization do not provide organizational Wiki. Why research organizations are not giving much importance to effective communication system? Perhaps they think such tools are very difficult to develop and maintain and are very costly. It is not true. Due to open and free source code, such communication environment may be created. Challenging task is designing the system as per need of organization.

Whether establishing new communication system supported by latest Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facilities of Content Management System and Knowledge Management System or Databank is sufficient? No.. Many communication tools are available but are not as utilized as it should be. For example goggle doc may be used for collective writing, ReframeIt may be used for collective reading and annotating, Delicious may be used for collective book marking but these tools are not much utilized. Availabilty of communication tools are not sufficient. For creating good users with efficient communication system, organizations should adopt proposed believes, efficiency norms and working styles at individual as well as at organizational level.

A comparative picture of current believes, norms and working style vs. propsed one is as follows

Current system Proposed system Efficiency is measured with external and mechanical view as ratio of output and input.

Efficiency is measured with external and internal view both. Internal view of efficiency is potential utilized out of total available potential. For using this view of efficiency, well defined deliverables (in small pieces of time) organized through structured monitoring system will be needed.

Emphasis on output. Only output is documented, analyzed and archived (may not be properly organized)

Emphasis on struggle to achieve marked output. It is documented and discussed. It is organized and archived by using current ICT facilities in such a way that it can be easily tracked and extended. It is asset of organization

Measure worth of output as how it is useful to its stakeholders.

Measure worth of output how much sharable, extendable, actionable and organisable by stakeholders

Producing things without identifying fundamental questions (gaps) for which

Everyone in organization gives emphasis on identifying good questions in the boundary of

Current system Proposed system organization is established their organizational agenda. Answers may

come from anyone at anytimeNo peer review. Peer review gets proportionate importance as

authoring and properly documentedPublishing through printed material either in hard or soft copy

Publish through videos, animation, web based contents along with printed material

Believes that individuals posses knowledge (like materials) and its value exist in absolute

Consider that knowledge gets its value through sharing, connection and organization

Believe that innovation is responsibility of people at higher ups

Provide mechanism to trap every idea of innovation emerging at any level to any people in organization

Group discussion without structure Well defined structure for group discussionNo process documentation for different regular output of organization

Clear process documentation (or mechanism) for regular output

COMMUNICATION BARRIERS

A number of variables influence the effectiveness of communication. Some are found in the environment in which communication takes place, some in the personalities of the sender and the receiver, and some in the relationship that exists between sender and receiver. Following are some of barriers in establishing effective communication system

Lack of Planning: What needs to be communicated, how, and when is not properly thought out and planned.

Wrong Assumptions: Leaving out relevant details in the communication assuming that receiver is already aware of it.

Language: Language barrier occurs not only as a result of different languages, culture, etc but due to language of different subjects. Language and symbols used by economist may not be understandable for experts outside of subject area.

Information Overload: Too much of information also results in poor communication. Useful information mixed with additional information requires additional effort to separate the two. In addition, right information can get mixed up with similar wrong information and cause confusion and errors.

Hierarchy: Differences in status and power also affect willingness of the individuals to communicate and the nature of information communicated.

HOW EFFICIENT OUR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM IS?

Apart from sending and receiving a particular type of message, this article may be used for measuring efficiency of communication system of organization. Where this article will be placed so that it can be easily tracked whenever reforming the organization will be agenda. Tracking is not the only issue. Other issues are sharing, commenting and extending the article. An efficient communication system will provide a structured place for this article where peers may put their comment and see comment of others. They can also see current administrative status of this idea.