Memo Ellen Moore

11. Chapter. Communication

Communication: The transfer and understanding of meaning. Communications serves four major functions within group or organization:

• Control (Like organizations have authority hierarchies and formal guidelines for employees like job descriptions).
• Motivation (Clarifying employees what they must to do and how well are they doing it).
• Emotional expression (by communication employees express their feelings and fulfillment of social needs).
• Information (communication provides data needed to identify and evaluate choices.

Comunication process: the steps between a source and a reciever that result in the transfer and understanding of meaning.  Key parts of comunication process:

• The sender  and Encoding:

• The sender initiates message by encoding a tought.

• The message

• Is the actual physical product of the sender encoding.

• The channel

• The medium trough message travels (a.e. speech, text, gestures, etc.)

• The reciever

• Person whom message is directed.

• Decoding

• Symbol translation into understendable form.

• Noise

• Comunication barriers that distort the clarity of the message.

• Feedback

• Check how succsefull comunication has been. It determines whether understanding has been achieved.

Direction of communication:

Communication can flow vertically or laterally. Vertical dimension is subdivided by downward or upward communication.

• Downward communication: Communication that flows to one level group or organization to a lower level. Usually used to assign jobs, goals, provide instructions, etc.

• Managers must provide answer why?
• Downward communication has one way nature.

• Upward communication: flows to a higher level in the group or organization. Used to provide feedback to higher-ups, inform about progress toward goal, relay current problems, etc.

• As manager responsibilities expand upward communication is difficult because managers are overwhelmed and easily distracted. Hard to engage.

• Lateral communication: when communication takes place among members of the same work group/same level.

• Saves time and facilitates coordination.
• More often informally made.
• From manager viewpoint can be or good or bad. Such communication with occurring with management’s knowledge and support can be beneficial. But can create conflicts when the formal vertical channels are breached.

Organizational communication:

Formal organizational networks can be complicated, including hundreds of people and a half-dozen or more hierarchical levels.