CHAPTER ONE
COMMUNICATION -AN OVERVIEW
1.1. Meaning of communication
Communication is a two way process of exchanging thoughts, ideas and feelings between people
in a commonly understandable ways.
Communication is considered effective when it achieves the desired responses or when it has an
effect on the receiver. Successful business persons and professional communicators owe a large
part of their success to their ability to minimize potential misunderstanding and effectively
communicate with others.
1.2. Significance of Communication
i. Communication is the lifeblood of an organization. Because organization by definition is
a group of people working together to achieve a common goal, its effectiveness requires a
great deal of interaction.Without communication an organization cannot function. People
in organizations exchange information, ideas, feelings and proposals, make decisions,
plans, policies, rules, contractual agreements which all require effective communication.
ii. Communication is important in our career and personal life. Our jobs, promotions and
personal reputation often depend on the success or failure of our written and oral
communications. Especially if your job requires mainly mental work, your success will
be strongly influenced by how effectively you communicate your knowledge, ideas,
proposals, reports etc.
iii. In some jobs, communication skills are the main responsibilities. The following are some
instances where good communication skill is given emphasis.
Public relations
Customer relation
Labor relations
Sales
Teaching etc.
1.3. Communication in Management and Administration
Communication is part of the three major skills needed by managers (human skills, conceptual
skills, technical skills). All managerial roles and functions require effective communication.
Although the degree and amount of the communication differ among each of the roles, functions,
and skills, all of the above require effective communication skills. The vision, mission, goals,
strategies, and philosophies of the organization need to be effectively communicated with
employees, shareholders, customers, the general public and so on. Researches indicate that
members of management spend 60-90 percent of their working days communicating with others
i.e., speaking, writing, reading or listening.
CHAPTER TWO
COMMUNICATION PROCESS
2.1. Elements of Communication
The process of communication involves a number of events and issues, which include:
1. Sender 5. Feedback
2. Message 6. Noise
3. Channel/medium 7. Environment
4. Receiver
The above elements or issues interact in five different activities to produce full cycle of
communication. These are:
1. The sender has an idea
2. The idea becomes a message
3. The message is transmitted
4. The receiver gets the message
5. The receiver reacts to the message and provides feedback to the sender
The above contents of communication can be shown using the basic model of communication.
2.2. Model of Communication
Environment
SENDER RECEIVER
_________________________
Channel
Message Encoded Message Decoded
Message Decoded
Message codes
Feedback Decoded Feedback encoded
Feedback Encoded
Feedback codes
Frame of reference
Frame of reference
Environment
The Communication model.
1. The Sender- the sender is the source of the message. Sender is also receiver of feedback.
The sender has an idea, to transmit however; the idea is influenced by his/her frame of
reference.
Two things must take place for the sender to send a message.First, the sender must be
stimulated. Some type of stimulus triggers a thought which intern initiates the desire to
communicate.
A stimulus can be either internal orexternal.An internal stimulus is a stimulus which
emanates from within the sender himself while external stimulus is a stimulus that
triggers senders from outside.
The second condition to be fulfilled for the sender to send a message is motivation.
Because a stimulus alone may not be enough to trigger communication, sender needs to
be motivated to encode and send a message.
The sender needs to be influenced by some factor that he/she will get something if he/she
sends the message or losses something if he/she does not. Frame of reference is the
background and experience of the communicating parties. The sender and receiver can
communicate only if they have the same background.
2. Message- this is the content of the communication. Message is an idea, thought, feeling or
emotion that is organized or composed by the sender. The symbols that represent the
message are called codes. There are three basic communication codes.
i. Nonverbal codes- are all intentional or unintentional codes other than words or
written materials by which a person transmits a message. They include such things
as facial expressions, movements of hands, eye contact, clothing and other body
gestures, which can represent nonverbal communication.
ii. Language codes- are either spoken or written words used to communicate ideas
and thoughts.
iii. Paralanguage codes-are the verbal elements that go along with spoken language
including the qualities of voice as tone, pitch, rate, volume, and emphasis.
3. Channel – refers to the physical transmission of the message from the sender to the
receiver. Some commonly known communication channels are:
a. Face to face discussion
b. Letter, memo, reports, manual
c. Telephone, fax, telegram, telex
d. Computer, internet, e-mail
e. Radio, television, video disk
f. Newspapers, magazines
The choice of an appropriate channel depends on the following factors:
The importance of the messages (response needed)
The type, number and location of receiver
Urgency of the message
Cost of the channel
Whether a permanent record is needed
Whether formality or informality is desired
Size of the message
Whether the receiver is inside or outside the organization.
4. Receiver- refers to listener, reader, or viewer of the sender. The receiver is also called
audience. We receive message from the environment through our senses. The receiver has to
decode the message before receiving. Decoding is the process of transferring the message in
the way that the receiver understands the content of the message. The receiver is most likely
to receive a message accurately if:
There is no physical interruption of the message.
The receiver’s mind processes the message as the sender intends (theyshould have the
same frame of reference).
5. Feedback- refers to the verbal and visual responses to a message. Feedback is theonly
means a sender can know whether or not messages sent are interpreted asintended. The
success or failure of communication is indicated with the feedbackreceived from the
receiver
Advantages of feedback
Increases employee understanding and performance and minimizes mistakes.
Increases employee satisfaction with the job because of the opportunity to ask or make
suggestions.
Disadvantages of feedback
Feedback is difficult to extract or elicit
Feedback is time consuming. It takes time to make sure that everyone understands the
message.
Feedback may cause people to feel psychologically under attack. When feedback seems
negative people often become defensive.
Ways to improve feedback
a. Tell people you want feedback.
b. Let them know that you consider feedback not only useful but also necessary.
c. Use silence to encourage feedback
d. Ask questions for more clear feedback
e. Watch for non-verbal responses
f. Use statements and sentences that encourage feedback. Use such words as really,
interesting, aha, etc. and nodding head.
g. Reward feedback. Thank people for their question, comments, ideas, and compliment
6. Environment – includes the time, place, physical and social settings in which the
communicators find themselves.
7. Noise- anything that interferes with communication and distorts or blocks a message is
noise. Noise can be external or internal.
External Noise- includes distractions in the environment such as the speakers’ poor
grammar, phones ringing, people talking, room temperature, poor lighting etc.
Internal Noise- refers to conditions of the receiver himself such as a headache,
daydreaming, lack of sleep, pre occupation of mind with other problems, lack of
knowledge about the topic etc.
2.3. Barriers to communication
Barriers to communication are disturbances, obstacles, and roadblocks which hinder effective
communication. Barriers to communication block the effective transmission of the messages
from the sender to the receiver. There are different barriers to communication which include:
1) Semantics-these are barriers which arise because of the different meanings that different
words have in different contexts. The same word may have one meaning in the mind of the
sender and a different meaning in the mind of the receiver which can block the
understanding between the two.
2) Motivation and interest –our interest to send or to receive a message can determine the
effectiveness of communication. The more we are interested, the more we will be motivated
to communicate. Lack of interest and motivation in either sending or receiving message is
an obstacle for communication.
3) Perfunctory attention – this is a difference between speaking and listening capabilities of
the communicating parties. If the speaking speed is more than the listening speed, the
receiver may not grasp all the messages of the sender. Similarly if the listening speed is
more than the speaking speed, there will be an idle time between listening and speaking that
will make listener divert his/her attention to other ideas.
4) Source credibility- the source of the message often determines the accuracy and reliability
of the information. Messages which originate from incredible sources often creates barrier to
communication. People often associate personality of communication to the credibility of
their messages.
5) Filtering and serial distortion –filtering is selecting and identifying relevant and irrelevant
information. Filtering usually depends on the nature of the communicating parties. In the
process of filtering information to get only relevant ones, people often forget or ignore
important messages which should not be ignored.
Serial distortion is the loss of the content of a message as it passes from one person to other.
As message passes from one person to other person, it losses some of its content and finally
when it reaches its final destination, most of its original content will be lost. Especially
when message passes from top level of an organization to lower level down the hierarchy, it
loses its content at every step.
6) Hidden agenda – sometimes people express what they want through other forms without
directly speaking or writing it, i.e. they express their real message by being tactful or
diplomat. This is barrier to communication since the receiver may not clearly understand
what the sender wants to express.
7) Hoarding- this is a barrier which arises because of the feeling of superiority of some people
on their positions. People sometimes feel that they are so important to “play God” because
of the central position they assume. This feeling makes them reluctant or careless inpassing
essetial information to concerned parties. It hinders the right amount and quality of
information that the receiver needs at the right time. This is often seen in the different levels
of an organization.
8) Information overload- information which exists beyond the processing capacity of aperson
often leads to barriers to communication. This is because as information is excessively
available, it needs too much time for sorting and analyzing and in this process very
important information can be omitted or distorted, which becomes barrier to
communication.
9) Organizational culture- the style of leadership in organizations, the type of social
relationship and other organizational factors highly affect the movement of information in
the organization. E.g.- An autocratic type of leadership is a strong barrier to
communication since the message often flows in one way and there is little or no free
circulation of information
10) Language-different terminologies and words may not be clearly understood by
communicators. Especially some international, professional and technical words and
expressions are difficult to understand and this creates barrier to effective communication.
E.g. computer languages, terms on machines, electronics etc.
11) Disorganization of ideas and statements- lack of appropriate coherence, unity and
development of ideas and statements in a message is barrier to communication since the
receiver may to identify the main idea of the message and finally end up in confusion.
12) Perceptual Difference- the sender and the receiver may look at the same idea from
different angles and according to their own understanding. Since different people may have
different viewpoints misunderstanding is likely to arise between the communicating parties.
There are also other barriers which block the free flow of the message from the sender to the
receiver. These include: noise, time pressure, distance, lack of feedback, emotions, and biases
etc.
