Poor Communications and Conflict

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Recommended: Communication is the life blood of organization

Is most conflict in an organisation is caused by poor communication? If we had perfect communication would conflict cease?

Consider for example, an e-mail asking for some information “yesterday” to stress how important this request is. The sender thinks e-mails are great as they travel at the speed of light and spell things out in black & white. The recipient may consider that if its in a e-mail then it can’t be that urgent because servers can loose, misdirect or delay an e-mails transmission. They may also consider that as the information was wanted “yesterday” its already too late to be effectively utilised. Both parties saw the same communiqué, neither read the same message. Each will blame the other for failing to communicate properly and conflict may result. E-mail flame wars are a high tech twist on whispering campaigns. And like the system of claims & loyalties in a feudal states the smallest e-mail spat can spiral out of control with careless use of the C.C. and B.C.C functions.

Drucker (1977)says that there are four fundamentals of communication:

communication is perception of the recipient not the utterance of the instigator

communication is expectation in that recipients will heed only what they are expecting to hear

communication makes demands of the recipient that they become someone, do or believe something

communication and information are different and largely opposite - yet interdependent

Employees need to know a number of things such as what is expected of them, how they are performing and how can they advance. If these are not communicated, on a regular basis, then role or expectation conflict will develop and motivation decline as the employee is berated for failing to meet the goals their superiors [are convinced they] assigned them.

But if this is all the communication they receive they may begin to feel like machines. According to Pearson & Thomas there are three levels of communication that employees need, these being: Must know discussed above. Should know which includes significant staff changes and company/market developments. Then could know which although having no operational impact makes life more interesting. Office gossip is only a could know but probably the communication that really binds a company together. Barring security, legal and share price sensitive data everyone should...

... middle of paper ...

...’s healthy. If people fight each other openly in your presence for what they believe in that’s healthy. But keep all the conflict eyeball to eyeball [as opposed to back stabbing]

Towsend,R

Orders flow down a company hierarchy. Communication of the understanding of such flows upwards. Crosswise people share information on getting things done often in contravention of policies

Employees need direction, information and entertainment accurately and truthfully delivered by both the formal and informal company chains of communication.

References

DRUCKER, P (1977) People and Performance The best of Peter Drucker on Management: Heinemann.

DRUCKER, P (1974) Management Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices: Butterworth.

PEARSON, B & THOMAS, N (1991) The Shorter MBA: HarperCollins

TOWSEND, R (1988) Further up the Organisation: Harper & Row

Bibliography

BUHLER, PM(1999) Supervision, Vol. 60 Issue 2, p16, 3p

KREITNER, R et al (1993) Organizational Behaviour: McGrawHill

PUGH, DS (1971) Organization Theory: Pelican

PUGH, DS & HICKSON, DJ (1964) Writers on Organisations: Penguin

THOMAS, AB (1993) Controversies in Management: Routledge

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