First off, I’ll be raising query: What is communication? You may be picturing a group of people gossiping, or even two persons talking on the phone. Simple! But really, there’s more to it. Communication does not only cover the act of discussing a topic to the other person. It's broader. How? Well, I’ll be tackling about it, so stay with me, alright?
Merriam-Webster dictionary simply defines communication as an act or process of using words, sounds, signs, or behaviors to express or exchange information or to express your ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. to someone else. Note the words sounds, signs and behaviors. Most of the time, we generally think that communication involves words but we barely recognize that every sounds we produce and every actions we do, it will be interpreted by other people. We’re like indirectly saying something to them without us knowing, and even them being aware of it. In order to understand it more, I’ll give an example. Let’s say there is this couple that has been together for 2 years. In their first year of dating, the guy continually give surprises to her partner, but then stops in the long run. The boy intentionally acts uninterested, and so the girl will interpret it that the guy wanted to break up. With this, there is communication. The guy sent his message through his actions, and the girl was able to recognize and understood it. That’s what we call body language. But I’m not saying to be too sensitive, paranoid and overreact. It doesn’t mean when your crush gives you a candy, he’s actually saying he likes you. No, we still have the clarification of message, which will be part of what I will be discussing next. For the meantime, I’m just saying that we should be aware that actions could serve as words.
Now, since we have already recognized that communication is very broad, let’s chop the elements to be considered in communication. We have the sender, message, mode of transmission, receiver, decoding, feedback and clarification of message. I’ll link these six with regards to management. First, management is defined as working with and through people to accomplish a common mission. In here, management is being referred to as a purposive activity, working with and through people, so that the main objective of the people involved is attained. How will they do this? One word answer: communication. For an instance, the boss is the sender of a message, wanting to command his employee. It will be transmitted to the employee, the receiver, through a phone. The employee will then decode it but he will further ask since he wanted to clarify his task. That’s what should happen ideally. What about barriers?
Barriers to communication are ample. These involve structural, semantics, technical, people and outcome. In the structural barrier, we have the organization’s design, size of the physical plant, number of employees and managers and etc. In semantics, it is associated with denotation (dictionary meaning of the word) and connotation (individual’s perspective of the word). With technical barriers, it covers those defect in the equipment, in the medium and in the environment. Example is when you’re at a party and you’re trying to talk to someone. There may be miscommunication since of too much noise. For the people barrier, it includes the individual difference in background and views. Lastly for the outcome, this is when the receiver cannot perform the required task. So all of the things mentioned should be critically considered if we really want to say we have a successful communication.
As I have already delineated this topic, I’ll be now ending my blog. To conclude, I’ll repeat the meaning of management: “Working with and through people to accomplish a common mission.” How? Through successful communication.
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