Communication refers to the process of sharing of ideas, views, thoughts, ideologies and beliefs of an individual with another person or group. It is derived from the Latin word called 'communis' which means common (Chesher and Kaura, 2012). In this regard, business communication refers to the process where information is shared amidst people prevailing within and external to a company for the purpose of commercial benefit of an organisation. This report is based on Sports Love which is an independent sports and leisure based business situated within London, UK. This assignment is divided into two assessments. The first assessment consists of challenges and barriers to communication, effective strategies to overcome barriers and the ways in which communication is affected by culture. The second assessment consists of literature review and analysis and discussion about the principles as well as purpose that need to be considered by HR. Also, it includes characteristics of effective listeners and speakers.
1) Barriers and Challenges to Communication
Communication is a process that involves exchange of ideas and perceptions to make it common among people. It lays out foundation and is the key to success of a business. Communication is a procedure which plays a crucial role while building relationship with employees or while coming in direct contact with customers (Kotz, Kozubowski and Podgorski, 2012). With regards to this, Sports Love is a company which is highly concerned about the ineffective communication that is taking place across the organisational premises owing to a number of barriers and challenges that act as a hindrance to this formal and essential process. The challenges associated with communication are described below:-
Listening: This is the prerequisite to effective communication within an organisation. At times, the director of Sports Love become unable to find out time to give ears to the thoughts and opinions of employees owing to stress and work pressure. This acts as a reason for poor communication within the entity and hampers their overall performance.
Technology: Over years, technology has advanced and this assists in facilitating the communication process in an organisation. However, in Sports Love, this may act as a challenge owing to lack of technical skills and competence to make use of the new technology in the right manner. This leads to disagreements within the company.
Barriers of Communication
Barriers may act as hindrances and hamper the process of communication with Sports Love. In this regard, such barriers are explained below:-
Semantic Barriers:These are concerned with the barriers associated with the process of encryption and decryption of a message which may take place owing to misuse of words.
Psychological Barriers:These are largely concerned with the behavioural characteristics as well as emotions of the receiver and sender (Kwok and Yu, 2013).
Organisational Barriers: These type of barriers generally arise owing to issues in organisation policies, structure, rules etc.
Personal Barriers: These are associated with the personal issues of sender or receiver which may acts as a barrier in effective communication.
These barriers may affect the employees of Sports Love and thus the HR director has to implement such strategies that may assist in reducing or overcoming these barriers.
2) Strategies to Overcome Barriers
As already discussed, there are a number of barriers which hinder communication in an organisation. Thus, management of Sports Love should develop strategies to deal with each of the communicational barriers, as described below:-
To Overcome Semantic Barriers: These barriers can be tackled by making use of a language that is easily comprehensible and such that the meaning of words are clear and common for all (Meimaris and Vafopoulos, 2013). Also, the sender can filter the message before transmitting it to the receiver.
To Overcome Physiological Barriers: Emotional stability is the key to overcome these barriers. When receiver as well as sender has control over their sentiments (such as anger, pride, anxiety, sadness), they will be able to easily understand the other person's perceptions thereby communicating effectively.
To Overcome Organisational Barriers: By building a healthy connect with employees and customers, these barriers can be effectively tackled. Also, such barriers can be overcome by making use of grapevine channel of communication within Sports Love. This will lead to an orderly conduct with the organisation.
To Overcome Personal Barriers: One must keep the personal and professional life separate so as not to let the personal barriers affect the corporate life of personnel.
3) Ways in which Culture Influences Communication
In the rapidly changing and dynamic corporate era, culture of an organisation largely impacts upon communication. The ways in which this influence can be seen are discussed below:-
Corporate Culture Changes: As a company is a composite of varied types of individuals who have diverse educational and cultural background, this tends to enhance the chances of issues arising across the organisational premises (Aijaz and Aghvami, 2015). Owing to this, employees may become unable to comprehend the language spoken by other people and reach at wrong conclusions. Thus, taking into this account, the HR department of Sports Love should provide training to workforce and enforce a language that is perceivable by everyone.
Revision of Organisational Policies: A company needs to devise and develop such policies which are in accordance with the dynamic environment and culture of the enterprise. In Sports Love, when director implement changes within policies, this may cause resistance within employees. Some individuals restrict the change while others encourage it. This causes conflicts amidst the workforce and at times, hamper the process of communication.
1. Principles and Purposes to be Considered while Developing Communication Strategy
According to the perspective of Nagle and Müller (2017),it is essential that an organisation takes into account certain principles while devising a communication strategy. These principles are, namely, clarity, attention, consistency, adequacy and informality. It has been observed that effective communication is the key to success of a company as it lays down the foundation for creating healthy relationships. Further, the communication strategy implemented by a company should facilitate the exchange of ideas, beliefs, thoughts and ideologies in a language that is perceivable by all the employees. The purpose of a communication strategy within an organisation is to make sure that there is adequate and relevant coordination as well as cooperation amidst the personnel (How to write an internal communications plan and strategy, 2018). This assists in ensuring that there is no miscommunication between management and workforce and thereby work is being carried out in a specified manner. The strategy should be in accordance with the principle of consistency which demonstrates that interaction within the confines of entity leads a clear and consistent message formulated for everyone. On the contrary, according to the point of view of Berkenkotter and Huckin (2016), major communication principles for an organisation are flexibility of the channels, interaction taking place in a formal manner as well as the ability to transmit message within the specified time limit.
2. Characteristics for Becoming Effective Listeners and Speakers during Meetings
According to the point of view of Brownell (2015), an individual should possess an eye contact and maintain right body posture in order to become an effective listener. Further, they should make use of non verbal cues so as to indicate that they are active during the discussion and listening properly to the speaker. Effective listeners keep on asking questions or take initiatives to engage in discussion so as to ensure that they have perceived the right understanding of agendas in the meeting. Further, as per the views of Baccarani and Bonfanti (2015), it is essential that individuals do not try to interrupt other personnel while they are expressing their opinions. In order to become an effective speaker, personnel should possess confidence and passion to establish a right connect with other persons and to engage them in a meaningful conversation. Further, it is essential that individuals listen and understand what the other people in meeting are saying so as to grab the opportunity to express one's own opinions and perceptions. A number of times, reflecting on what one gained out of the exchange of information taken place within a meeting assists in demonstrating that someone is an effective speaker.
Analysis And Discussion
Sport Love is an independent sports and leisure business running in London. It has been analysed that the HR director of company is largely concerned about the poor communication that is prevalent within the organisational premises. It is examined that this has been continuously causing inefficiencies and imply an adverse impact on customer experience. Working takes place in three shifts and business is staffed for 24 hours. The major issue noticed is that the workforce as well as the management of Sport Love is multinational, thereby possessing diversities. English is not the first language of many individuals which cause inefficiencies in the communication process.
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1. Effective Principles and Purposes Behind Organisational Communications
Owing to ineffective communication prevailing within Sport Love, it is imperative that the directors of this organisation devise and implement an optimum communication strategy which provides assistance in facilitating faster and easier exchange of information. During this process, a number of principles should be considered by the HR director of company to make sure that post the execution of this strategy, employees are able to interact feasibly. Further, owing to the presence of diverse workforce, the risk of linguistic barriers rise across the organisational premises and tend to serve as a hindrance in effective communication. This gives rise to the need for devising an optimum communication strategy. This will ensure that the messages and necessary information is easily transferred between individuals and there is consistency as well as flexibility of data. By abiding by principles of communication such as the clear description of data, accuracy and comprehensibility, entity can ensure a clear interaction taking place between personnel and management. If you are worried about Politics dissertation topics at the best price.
2.Characteristics for Effective Listening and Speaking to Enhance Practice of Communication
It has been analysed that communication is the key to orderly conduct within a company. There is inefficient communication prevailing in Sports Love which gives rise to the need of gaining an understanding of the traits to become effective listener and speaker so as to enhance practice of communication. In this regard, personnel within this company should pay attention to the views and opinions of other individuals so as to increase their knowledge base. Also, they should make use of non verbal cues like gestures, postures, eye contact, body movements, facial expressions to execute effective exchange of information within the confines of organisation.
3. Evaluation of Own Written and Oral Communication Skills in a Business Context
It has been evaluated by me that I am quite good at written communication, however, I am always concerned about my verbal skills. Drawing upon the feedback given b my peers and seniors in Sport Love, I have acknowledged that I clearly demonstrate my opinion in case of descriptive communication. This owes to my high knowledge with regards to grammar, style of writing and punctuation that should be used in a formal business document. The content penned by me is easy to read and understand by my colleagues. Although I have excellent written communication skills, I am not able to effectively present work in front of others in business meetings verbally. I am often found hesitating while having a conversation with my business associates and colleagues at the time of delivering business presentations. I am not able to make use of voice modulations and verbal pauses while presenting my views in front of the Board.
From the above discussion, it has been concluded that designing and formulating an effective communication strategy is essential to enforce uniformity and consistency across organisational premises. Also, it has been evaluated that effective communication channels must be used by management to enable smooth exchange of information. In addition to this, it has been comprehended that there are various principles which guide the development of communication strategy such as transparency, consistency, clarity, adequacy etc. This facilitates faster delivery of important messages within the organisation. Read more about business communication by Regent college.
Books and Journals
- Nagle, T. T. and Müller, G., 2017. The strategy and tactics of pricing: A guide to growing more profitably. Routledge.
- Berkenkotter, C. and Huckin, T. N., 2016. Genre knowledge in disciplinary communication: Cognition/culture/power. Routledge.
- Brownell, J., 2015. Listening: Attitudes, Principles, and Skills (Subscription). Routledge.
- Baccarani, C. and Bonfanti, A., 2015. Effective public speaking: a conceptual framework in the corporate-communication field. Corporate Communications: An International Journal. 20(3). pp.375-390.
- Chesher, M. and Kaura, R., 2012. Electronic commerce and business communications. Springer Science & Business Media.
- Kotz, S., Kozubowski, T. and Podgorski, K., 2012. The Laplace distribution and generalizations: a revisit with applications to communications, economics, engineering, and finance. Springer Science & Business Media.
- Kwok, L. and Yu, B., 2013. Spreading social media messages on Facebook: An analysis of restaurant business-to-consumer communications. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. 54(1). pp.84-94.
- Meimaris, M. and Vafopoulos, M., 2013. Knowledge-based semantification of business communications in erp environments. In Web Information Systems Engineering–WISE 2011 and 2012 Workshops (pp. 159-172). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
- Aijaz, A. and Aghvami, A. H., 2015. Cognitive machine-to-machine communications for Internet-of-Things: A protocol stack perspective. IEEE Internet of Things Journal. 2(2). pp.103-112.