Structure for Organizational Communication Essay

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New Communication Structure for an Organization

Communication skills are crucial to the survival of people and organizations throughout the globe. Actually, people and organizations increasingly depend on communication skills in order to achieve goals, meet needs, and realize expectations. The significance of communication is the survival of mankind is demonstrated in the rapid technological advancements, which are geared towards improving communication across geographical boundaries. For organizations, communication is the premise through which workers perform their respective jobs and responsibilities towards the achievement of established organizational goals and objectives. This paper outlines a proposal for the establishment of a new communication structure in an organization based on important concepts. In this case, the author examines five vital concepts for effective communication in an organization. Effective communication in an organization is realized through establishing an appropriate communication structure based on important concepts for successful communication.

Background Information

The modern working environment comprises diverse individuals from varying cultures, educational backgrounds, race/ethnicity, and religion. This significant diversity is attributable to increased globalization that has enhanced interactions between people from different places in the world. Despite these differences, these individuals work together towards the achievement of common organizational goals and objectives. The ability of these individuals to effectively collaborate towards realizing the common goals and objectives is affected by several factors, particularly communication. As a result, communication plays an important role in an organizational setting given the increased diversity. Without effective communication processes, organizations are characterized by increased dissatisfaction, numerous complexities, declined productivity, and organizational conflicts.

For organizations to ensure the effectiveness of internal and external communication processes, the establishment of suitable communication structures is necessary. According to Trenholm (2011), an organization is likely to become more efficient and effective when communication succeeds (p.202). On the contrary, when communication fails, individual members and the organization experience tremendous challenges and suffer. An organizational communication structure helps in establishing appropriate measures to ensure communication processes are effective and succeed relative to desired goals and objectives.

In essence, the quality of organizational communication is directly linked to the type of communication structures established by the organization. While individual members in an organization usually communicate, suitable communication structures help in ensuring effective communication regardless of the position and status of the individual members. This implies that communication structures provide the basis for organizational members to easily participate in organizational tasks and achieve desired goals. Moreover, communication structures within an organization define the tone and mode of communication between individual members.

Organizations usually examine several considerations when determining and establishing communication structures. One of the most important factors when establishing a communication structure in an organizational setting is organizational structure or culture. In this case, organizations with highly stratified structures tend to utilize formal communication structures while smaller organizations tend to rely on informal and relatively concise communication structures. Secondly, organizations must consider the various work teams because different work teams work better with different communication structures. Third, organizational processes and operations influence the kind of communication structures established depending on whether the communication is urgent or not.

Concepts for Successful Communication in an Organizational Setting

Apart from the previously mentioned considerations, the establishment of a communication structure for an organization requires understanding of concepts for successful communication in an organizational setting. These concepts also act as vital relational communication skills that help in promoting effective communication within an organization. There are numerous concepts for successful communication in an organizational setting that must be considered when creating a communication structure. Some of these important concepts for an organization to consider include

Active Listening

The first important concept for successful communication in an organizational setting with regards to a communication structure is active listening. This concept is not only vital for relational communication but it's also fundamental for effective communication. According to Kandlousi, Ali & Abdollahi (2010), an effective communication structure helps employees to focus on the speaker through actively demonstrating verbal and non-verbal listening skills. In this regard, a good communication structure promotes and ensures active listening given that speakers would like respondents to show active listening. In an organizational context or setting, active listening enables employees and manager to understand organizational goals and objectives and perform tasks that are geared towards the achievement of these objectives. Therefore, one of the most important elements or concepts that should be embedded in a communication structure is active listening. This implies that the organization's management should ensure its members are trained on how to demonstrate active listening in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational process.

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Without active listening, an organizational communication structure will be ineffective because information will not be transmitted effectively.

There are several important aspects of active listening that individual members in an organization should understand and demonstrate. The first crucial aspect of active listening is posture since an active listener should portray a suitable posture when receiving information. An individual's posture when receiving information is crucial towards his/her understanding of the message being communicated. Secondly, active listening involves maintaining eye contact with the listening though not in an intimidating manner. Given the likelihood of eye contact to be intimidating, the listener should combine it with smiles in order to encourage the communicator or speaker. The other important aspect of active listening is facial expressions since they indicate the level of understanding of the message. Therefore, when establishing a new communication structure for an organization, it's important to consider these active listening skills or signs in order to ensure effective communication.

Conflict Resolution

The second important concept for successful communication in an organizational setting is interpersonal conflict resolution and management skills. The nature of the working environment shows that conflicts are inevitable, especially because of the demographic differences of organizational members. Generally, individual members of an organization are likely to experience conflicts while working because of the differences between them. Given the likelihood of conflicts to occur in an organizational setting, creating suitable interpersonal conflict management mechanisms is important towards ensuring effective communication. Therefore, the proposed new communication structure for an organization should assist the organization to understand and effectively respond to conflicts that occur. Without suitable mechanisms for handling conflict, the working environment becomes toxic and generates numerous difficulties for members to perform their tasks effectively. The increased diversity of today's working environment implies that conflict resolution mechanisms must reflect existing cultures in the organization.

The proposed communication structure should ensure that employees are properly trained on interpersonal conflict management skills. This would require collaborative processes like conflict coaching and mediation, which help lessen relational and financial costs of unresolved conflict in the workplace (Brubaker et al., 2014, p.357). When communicating, organizational members should be aware of some important components for creation of a safe working environment that is free from conflicts. Communicators should not assume that their truth is the general truth, should not force everyone to agree with their ideas, should not assume that people view things in the same way, and should show concern for other people's concerns. To this extent the communication structure will provide suitable mechanisms and skills for resolving interpersonal conflicts and promoting good relationships in the workplace.

Formal and Informal Communication

A good communication structure for an organizational setting considers formal and informal communication processes in an organization. The new communication structure for the organization will focus on creating a balance between formal and informal communication processes within the organization. The need to create a balance between these two types of communication is because of the fact that one cannot function effectively without the other. In essence, relational and organizational communication usually involves formal and informal communication processes that go together towards realization of desired goals and objectives. As previously mentioned, hierarchical organizations utilize formal communication structures while smaller organizations tend to increasingly rely on informal communication structures.

Formal communication provides an opportunity for the management to communicate to employees as well as employees to communicate with each other regarding important issues relating to organizational operations and processes. Some of the most commonly used tools for formal communication in an organizational setting include emails, speech, letters, and meetings. On the contrary, informal communication helps in creating mechanisms through which employees and other organizational members can express their feelings regarding the workplace and overall operations. Without informal communication, it is relatively difficult for individual members in an organization to freely express their feelings and opinions regarding work processes and operations.

In light of this description, formal and informal communication is an important aspect of communication in the work setting. Actually, informal communication is utilized as a platform to strengthen formal communication and enhance the overall performance of the organization. Therefore, the communication structure will create avenues for formal and informal communication within an organization. In this case, formal communication will be utilized to provide official information or messages to organizational members while informal communication will be utilized to fortify formal communication.

Organizational Culture

Every organization has a culture, which is demonstrated through the way organizational members interact and communication, information….....

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