Improving Personal and Organizational Communication

Improving Personal and Organizational Communication

Be it organizational or personal, here are the major two different kinds of communication; Impersonal: one-way communication mainly used for facts, policies, instructions, notes, etc. Interpersonal: Two-way communication i.e. discussions, arguments, open forum, etc.

Before we can improve communication, we must first discuss communication filters. Communication filters are, but not limited to, semantics, emotions, attitudes, role expectations, gender bias, and non-verbal messages. Semantics: the study of the relationship between a word and it?s meaning. Envelope has particular meaning, pretty much everyone knows what an envelope is or would be. Now job satisfaction on the other hand can mean many different things to many different people. This ability of words meaning different things to different people can be a huge problem when communicating. Emotions: strong emotions can limit or prevent people from making good decisions when communicating. Attitudes: are beliefs backed by emotions. They can be a huge barrier when communicating much the same way emotions can be. Role expectations: influence how people expect themselves, and others, to act on the basis of the roles they play (i.e. a manager may talk down to an associate because of ?position of power.? An employee may not take a new manager seriously due to the fact that the new manager was promoted within the company and used to work with the employee.) Gender bias: men and women tend to color the messages they receive from people of the opposite gender strictly because of the other person?s gender. Non-verbal messages: ? messages without words.? (i.e. when you make a face that is contradictory to a statement ...

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...d horizontal channels carry messages between departments, divisions, managers, or employees on the same organizational level. There are also informal channels, which are usually gossip, or more commonly, ? The grapevine.? The formal channels usually use impersonal communication, and the informal use very interpersonal communication. When using the formal channels of communication, which is usually ?one-way? and impersonal communication, try to avoid all filters and send clear concise messages. Also, organizations should encourage an upward flow of communication. Becoming more popular these days are companies that institute some form of interpersonal communication. These companies are setting up company wide meetings, outings, anonymous employee hotlines, surveys, and other forms or forums for employees to voice their opinion without risk of retaliation.