Posted by Written by: Florian Wierzchowski
The exchange of information within a company is crucial to its smooth and efficient operation. Operating a company on the basis of a lack of information, false information or at least outdated information is an unnecessarily risky activity, exposing the company to costs, sometimes even pointless, and all this despite the best intentions of everyone involved. A lack of adequate information is consequently a waste of resources – time, money, materials. And yet, it is necessary to communicate strategy, objectives, policy, current circumstances, events, activities, results, plans, because otherwise people will not understand the context and directions of activities, and commitment will not be generated. Without special attention to communication, none of the basic functions of management – planning, organising, motivating and controlling – will be fulfilled effectively. Correct communication is the lubricant for all management mechanisms. The better the communication, the better the mechanisms function and adapt to the situation.
Therefore, this risk of lack of or poor communication must be managed and eliminated. In a way, it is forgivable when there is no up-to-date knowledge or information in the organisation at all, because this information has not yet reached the organisation. It is a situation where we do not know that we do not know. It is worse when the information or updated information is already in the organisation, but it is not spread and does not reach the right people in time – both the decision-makers and those who carry out the decisions made. It is a situation where we already know, but others do not. This is the problem I want to address is the levelling of knowledge within the organisation.
Firstly, to be effective, communication should be ongoing. What does this mean? It means fast enough – we require different response times from flight controllers, others from accountants calculating annual results. In the face of a plethora of information, important information should be filtered first and communicated deep into the organisation to the addressees. If, based on this information, existing decisions are changed or cancelled by us, this should be communicated together with the transmission of the information, so that the person does not have to guess. Secondly, when the information is in the important and urgent category, it is necessary to ensure that it has effectively reached the addressee, i.e. that the addressee has read the information. For example, in such a situation, it is not enough to send an e-mail hoping that the recipient will do something because he or she is only waiting impatiently for the e-mail. It should be assumed that this is not the case and an attempt should be made to contact them directly, e.g. by phone/sms obtaining confirmation.
In large organisations, information is communicated at morning operational meetings, also known as briefings or operatives. During such briefings, managers pass on key information and guidance to each other in terms of company or department operations, as well as receiving reports of problems. An important tip is to keep these meetings short and to the point, i.e. properly moderated. There is no time for chatter at them.
The problem of interpersonal communication is a broader issue and does not only concern companies and management. The elements of this issue are the sender, the message (information), the receiver and the noise. The sender, is the person transmitting the message (information) and the receiver, is the addressee of that message. Given that we all have slightly different ideas about the meaning of individual words, let alone complex statements, the recommendation for correct communication is to make sure that the recipient of the message has correctly understood the communicated information, as imperfections may be on the part of both the sender and the recipient. Added to this is the ‘noise’, i.e. any interference accompanying the communication – so-called distractions. It is therefore a good idea to ask the recipient not only whether he or she understood the message, but also how he or she understood it. Let the recipient say it in his or her own words. Then we can be almost certain that the information we are communicating will serve its purpose.