Ineluctability of Interpersonal Communication Skills in Business Consortium
Preface
Communication is a process whereby information is encoded and imparted by a sender to a receiver via a channel/medium. The receiver then decodes the message and gives the sender a feedback. Communication requires that all parties have an area of communicative commonality. There are auditory means, such as speaking, singing and sometimes tone of voice, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch, eye contact or by using writing.
Communication is thus a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding. This process requires a vast repertoire of skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating. if you use these processes it is developmental and transfers to all areas of life: home, school, community, work, and beyond. It is through communication that collaboration and cooperation occur.
Why Business Needs to be Communicate…
Communication Skills [1,3] are integral part of business organization of any class. Evidence of the importance of communication in business is found in numerous surveys of executives, recruiters, and academicians conducted in recent years. Without exception, these surveys found communication ranking at or near the top of the business skills need for success. Typical of these surveys is one by Robert Half International of the 1,000 largest employers in the United States. This study found that 96% of the executives reported that today’s employees must have good communication skills to get ahead.[1] [1] Brun, J. P. (2010). Missing pieces: 7 ways to improve employee well-being and organizational effectiveness. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, page 68-75
A recent study of skills and competencies needed by accountants strongly supports the value of writing, speaking, and listening. Similar results were found in an unpublished survey made by the Jones Graduate School of Management, Rice University. The deans of the programs surveyed reported that they see communication as one of the greatest teaching priorities of an any management program. These words to job seekers in The Wall Street Journal lend additional support to the importance of communication: “To stand out from the competition, you must demonstrate the unwritten requirements that are now most in demand: leadership and communication skills…”
The communication shortcomings of employees and the importance of communication in business explain why you should work to improve communications skills. Whatever position you have in business, your performance will be judged largely by your ability to communicate.
Introduction
Interpersonal Communication [2,8] is the process of transmitting information and common understanding from one person to another, which is very essential for the success of any organization. Therefore it should be effectively handled to make sure the attainment of the organization’s goals. Vardaman and Halterman outline communication within the organization because the flow of knowledge, materials, perceptions and understandings among the assorted stakeholders of the organization, all the methods, media and means of the communication, all the networks, channels, systems of communication or organizational structure, all the person – to – person interchange or interpersonal communication. They includes all aspects of communication and create it comprehensive, as a result of it advises that there's thus plentiful things ar occurring within the organization.
Interpersonal communication may be a term typically applied to verbal and nonverbal interfaces in one-on-one or some small-group settings. “People skills” and “soft skills” ar terms typically accustomed label someone’s social competency, although the word “soft” appears to be associate degree inappropriate word to explain skills which may potentially cost you your job. If viewed from another perspective, that these should be “hard” skills too because they are difficult to learn and their impact on your career and personal life is huge.
Interpersonal communication effectively works on four basic principles. These principles inspire the workings in real world of social communication. They are basic to social communication and play nice importance in building the effectively of organizations. These principles are
- Interpersonal communication is inescapable
- Interpersonal communication is irreversible
- Interpersonal communication is complicated
- Interpersonal communication is contextual
In different words, communication doesn't occur in isolation. There are different context of communication. One of them is Psychological context, which describe the existence of employees and what they bring to the interaction. Employee’s desire, needs, values, personality, etc., all may be considered form psychological context. Another framework is Relational, which concerns employee’s reactions to the other employees. The Situational context deals with the psycho-social "where" people are communicating.
Role of social communication in a corporation is sketched out into the following:
- To understand the organizational goal [10,14] and need to achieve it through collective efforts.
- Understand the client’s and stakeholder requirements and balance their demands.
- Identify new opportunities in the market and formulate strategies to achieve business goals.
- To improve collaboration with in teams to achieve project’s vision & mission.
Impact of solving the inter-personal challenges to the leaders can be emphasized in below key points:
- Continuous communication of organizational goals and objectives to the employees effectively.
- Mentoring the employees in tough times and help them out in their challenges.
- Resolution of conflicts between the employees and diffuse stressful environments and hostile situations.
- Helps leaders to efficiently train the employees on both technical and soft skills to get the job done.
- Enables business leaders to develop the business through sales, acquisitions by effectively communicating to stakeholders, customer, employees and colleagues.
- Managers can improve and build trust at work place and cooperation from employees through effective inter-personal and communication skills
- To study the importance of communication
- To understand the main forms of communication in business
- To be aware of communication networks in business organization
- To be acquainted with barriers in communication [16,17,20]
- To study the business environment and role of communication skills
- To design observational study for the barriers in communication in business organization
- To prepare the questionnaire and stages for interviews of the targeted group for data collection
- To analyze and interpret the data and thereby suggesting the nuances of improving interpersonal communication skills
Hundreds of express and implicit definitions of communication are revealed within the communication and connected literatures to be used by students and practitioners making an attempt to explain, predict, and understand communicative phenomena. These definitions vary round the common language definitions, with variations looking on individual intellectual interests and general intellectual trends. In this chapter we shall try to view the diverse definitions and models of communication, theories of communication, interpersonal communication, and communication in business, offered by different writers and scholars from various fields serving as representative sample of ideas about communication from a wide range of disciplines. Some quotes on Communication by today’s Business People:
“Communication is the most used skill in almost every job. How you communicate your accomplishments to others is a reflection of the quality of your work. Sure, you must know how to do your tasks to accomplish great results but that is only a portion of professional success. Good communication skills are required to report your results to others, persuade colleagues to take action and (most important at review time) sell your success to management.
Indian Communication Theories
In recent years communication scholars in India and Shri Lanka have made efforts to develop the theories of communication. According to I.P.Tewari (in his 'Indian Theory of Communication', Communicator, New Delhi, March 1992,pp.35-38), the Indian theory of communication forms a part of Indian poetics; and can be traced to the period between second century B.C. and first century A.D. In the works of Bhrata, it hinges on the concept of 'sadharanikaran' which is quiet close in meaning to the Latin term- communis, commonness, from which the word 'communication' is derived.
J.S.YAdava (in his 'Trends in Communication Research', Paper presented at the National Seminar on Communication Research: Trends and Priorities, New Delhi: Indian Institute of Mass Communication Research, 1984) points out that the term was first used in the tenth century by Bhattanayaka in a commentary on the Natya Shastra to explain the sutras related to rasa. Bhattanayaka emphasized that the essence of communication lay in achieving commonness and oneness. Yadava draws out two implications or resonances of the term, sahridaya, literally of one heart. He believes that the term is synonymous with 'identification' and 'simplification' – the identification of communicator with the receiver through the process of simplification.
Mahatma Gandhi, for example, achieved the identification with the masses through 'simplification' of his message, the common religious symbols he employed, and above all, the utter simplicity of life. At the community level, Yadava notes the saints, sufis and brahmins of old propagated religious and cultural values through simplifications and illustration. He sees this practice continuing today in the conversation and traditional media of rural folk throughout the Indian sub-continent. The dimension of sadharanikaran seems to have become the common heritage of the Indian people.
Communication is the essential flux that binds the individuals together in group activities. It is as necessary to an organization as blood stream to a person. It is the foundation of sound management. It is the mechanism through which human relations are developed. Citing the importance of communication for managers, Peter F. Drucker says, “The manager has a specific tool: information. He does not handle people; he motivates, guides, organizes people to do their own work. His tool, his only tool – to do all this is the spoken or written word or the language of numbers.” It indicates that communication is then life blood and the foundation stone of the successful working of an organization.
Why Good Communication Is Good Business
Why is communication important to business? Couldn’t we just produce graduates skilled at crunching numbers? [5] Wilson, D. (2005). New perspectives in applied Communication. Ibadan: SterlinHordan Publishers, page no 67 Good communication matters because business organizations are made up of people. As Robert Kent, former dean of Harvard Business School has said, “In business, communication is everything.”
Methodology
The present research work is made on the basis of data collected from primary and secondary sources. The data is collected from the targeted group ranging from students of management or professional courses, academicians, executives business personnel and managerial task force of the organization in the setting up the work plan.
The data is collected on the basis of questionnaire, interviews and observations made through the reading on the same. The data is presented through simple classification and with the help of percentage, average, correlation and association. The language used in the work is also simple and lucid. One of the essential tasks in carrying out research is to select the sample. Sample selection is undertaken for practical impossibility to survey the population. By applying rationality in selection of samples, we will generalize the finding of our research. Thus, for retrieving the data for this research, samples from three categories have been chosen.
- Faculties of various colleges - Engineering, Pharmacy, Management, Diploma, Medical colleges across Gujarat. These are the people whose attitude towards language or communication skills matters as they shape the “would be” business people.
- Students of various colleges – Engineering, Pharmacy, management, Diploma Medical colleges across Gujarat. This is the mass that would be the contributors of organizations in the future and thus, their view point / attitude / understanding towards communication skills really matters.
- Professionals (from various field) like, Engineers, Doctors, Managers, Insurance agents, Chemists, Lab assistants, Shop keepers, Hotel Managers, Government Officers and Employees etc. These are the people who actually can directly relate the interpersonal relationship of communication skills with their actual experience at work / job/ profession or in an organization.
The sample that we have chosen can give us the valuable data to taste our hypothesis to reach out to some concrete conclusion.
The questionnaire is designed in such a way that it would present before us the language behavior/ views on language behavior/ reactions to the given communication environment situation/ communication in an organization/ attitudes stated by our samples from three categories. Comparison of responses among these three categories may give us some hint about the how communication skills and its relationships are perceived by them in their respective fields in present scenario in the context of their various organizations.
Results and Discussions
Major Challenges to structure Effectiveness The challenge for businesses organizations looks simple: align and interact employee’s work force to a clearly expressed strategy. However, this can be a challenge to attain. It needs an entire, coordinated effort to place an oversized variety of building blocks or key parts in situ. The key parts of structure effectiveness ar required to encourage worker engagement within the organizations. Employee engagement influences the clients’ expertise and, ultimately, the complete performance of an organization in terms of efficiency and profitability. [7] Nwosu, I & Ekwo, U. (1990).Mass Media and Marketing Communications. (Principles, perspectives and practices). Enugu: Dek Computer Technologies, page no 92
As it is known that, a key element is to align organizational employees with the organization’s strategy by helping employees to understand the role they play in achieving success, and placing employees on their jobs with the organization. Alignment of strategy is achieved through a “fit-for objective” structure, talented leadership, and operative people systems and culture.
Integrating efforts through these aras can cause additional extraordinarily engaged workers World Health Organization are eager and capable of serving the organization to realize its goal. However, excusable structure effectiveness desires vital attention be paid to all or any of those parts. Focusing attention on only one component while not the others won't give long engagement. [8] Greenbaum, H.(1974). The Audit of structure communication, Academy of Management Journal. Pp739- 54
There are a number of processes that need to be in place to ensure leaders are supported to take action and that the right changes occur and are embedded within the organization. [9] Lunenburg, F.C,& Irby, B. J. (2006). The principalship: Vision to action. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage, page no 282. These processes include:
- Communication process that reaches all key stakeholders and clearly covers the why, what, when, and how.
- Developmental process to ensure leaders has the knowledge and skills to take action.
- Leadership support that ensures resources and energy are aligned with the strategy. Process for communicating the findings quickly and transparently.
- Process for effectively cascading engagement initiatives throughout the entire workforce.
- Process for measuring success and return on investment.
- Process for business leaders to report progress and draw ideas and support from their leader and peers.
Inter Personal Communication and Organizational Effectiveness Interpersonal Communication can be an effective tool for motivating employees of the organization involved in various activities. [10] American Public Human Service Association (2012).A Guidebook for Building Organizational Effectiveness Capacity: A Training System Example, Washington, DC: page no 269 Appropriate communications provide employees with feedback and reinforcement during the effective organizational change.
The key purpose of social communication is assertion, thus the most critical tactics in effective interpersonal communication are assertion strategies. These are the means that support employees to maintain their respect, satisfy their needs, and defend their rights without manipulating, dominating, abusing, or controlling others. Effective social communication needs different workers to try and do one thing, perhaps to change their own behavior or to ask them to do things for others. Because of this, a dedication among employees comes from high degree of self-esteem and an acceptance of oneself. As everyone is not able to assert herself or herself and get the other to do something.
Appropriate social communication therefore is creating express what structure workers admit different workers of the organizations. It recognizes their rights as specific and the rights of other employees also. When it requires, an employee expert in interpersonal communication can stand up for their rights, disagree and present another points of view without being unsettled or putting the other employees depressed. In contrast, an employee weak in interpersonal communication feels threatened in such situations and behaves with aggressive rather than with assertive behavior. [12] Peterson, D. B., & Hicks, M. D. (1996).Leader as coach: methods for work and developing others. Minneapolis: Personnel Decisions International, page no 87
Our findings give us an impression supporting the hypothesis that the study of communication skills and its mechanism is consciously understood by everyone for creating good business environment in an organization. Indeed it can be concluded that Interpersonal communication is the lifeblood of an organization.
In the present era, all are, more or less, aware of the barriers and hindrances in interpersonal communication at the organizational level and thereby learning the aspects of effective communication for congenial business milieu. [13] Saunders, R. (1999). Communicating change. Harvard Management Communication. Letter, 8(1), 35–36.
It is also obligatory for all the business personnel to develop a set of interpersonal communication skills for smooth functioning through the different modules and stages to develop the communication. Our samples are very much conscious about the way in which they handle interpersonal communications in their respective fields. Thus, we can conclude the Communication Skills are integral part of business organization and have strong relation with the success of any business organization.
“Communication is essential,” says Mr Mark Federighi, National Manager of Business Development, E & J Gallo Winery, “to building trust and teamwork among employees. To become a successful leader, you must have a good team. Just look at Michelangelo. He didn’t paint the Sistine Chapel by himself, but with the help of his team. It is considered one of the best works in history. It’s all about the team”.
Conclusion
Interpersonal communication in recent years has been consistently placed high as an important requirement for conducting successful job performance in the organizations. It looks reasonable to determine that one of the most impeding forces to organizational effectiveness is a privation of effective communication. Moreover, good interpersonal communication skills are very important to employees for making a successful organization.
The main consideration to this study is the capture of respondents ‘perceptions of effectiveness of interpersonal communication at a single point in time. The organizations performance depends on leader’s interpersonal skill in change implementation over the life of an organizational affectivity. This work intends to identify that key point of interpersonal communication is assertion, thus the most critical tactics in effective interpersonal communication are assertion strategies. The people strong in interpersonal communication can stand up for their rights, disagree and present different points of view without intimation or putting the other employees down for making the organization more effective. [14] Trahant B,(2008), Six Communication Secrets of Top -Performing Organizations, The Public Manager, 2008, p68-75
The present work is intended to perceive the inside out of interpersonal communication in business organization and importance of becoming an effective business communicator in this “information economy”. Many of the changes in today’s dynamic workplace revolve around processing and communication information. Flattened management hierarchies, participatory management, increased emphasis on work teams, heightened global competition, and innovative communication technologies are all trends that increase the need for good interpersonal communication skills in business organization.
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