Stages of communication -

• Step 1: Ideation – The communication process begins when the sender has an idea to be
communicated. The idea will be influenced by complex factors surrounding the sender.
The sender must begin by clarifying the idea and purpose. What exactly does the sender
want to achieve? How is the message likely to be perceived? Knowing this information
provides a higher chance of successful communication.
• Step 2: Message Encoding – The idea must be encoded into words, symbols, and
gestures that will convey meaning. The sender must be careful to choose words, symbols
and gestures that are commonly understood to reduce the chance of miscommunication.
Therefore, a sender must be aware of the receiver’s communication skills, attitudes, skills,
experiences, and culture to ensure clear communication and understanding.
PROFESSIONAL AND BUSINESS
COMMUNICATION

Module – I

Workplace Communication
What is communication?

• “Communication,” which is etymologically related to both “communion” and

“community,” comes from the Latin ‘communicare,’ which means “to make common” or
“to share.”

• Process concerning exchange of facts or ideas between persons holding different positions
in an organization to achieve mutual harmony.

• The term communication process refers to the exchange of information (a message)

between two or more people
Importance of communicating effectively-

• Getting Jobs You Want - Effective communication will make it possible for you to design
a powerful résumé, compose a persuasive application letter, interview with poise and
confidence, and get the job you want.

• Gaining Promotions - Moving ahead in your career depends on communicating your

technical competence to others and maintaining effective relationships with them.

• Providing Leadership -Your ability to motivate and help others achieve rests on your
understanding of human nature and on mastering communication skills.
• Being Productive on the Job - Work performance is enhanced by your ability to listen
effectively, speak clearly, and write competently.

• Relating Positively to Others - Successful business and personal relationships depend on

mutual trust and respect; communicating ethically, with concern and compassion, is
essential.

• Assuring the Success of Your Organization -Your organization will succeed only if it
has the support of its constituencies—support that comes from effectively communicating
with customers or clients about the organization’s products or services.
• Step 3: Transmission: Choosing the medium to transmit the message is the next step in
the communication process. Messages can be transmitted in a verbal, written, or visual
manner.
• Step 4: Decoding – When the message reaches the receiver, the message must be decoded
into its intended meaning. Therefore, the receiver must translate the words, symbols, and
gestures as the sender intended. Successful decoding is more likely when the receiver
creates a receptive environment and ignores distractions. It helps receivers to understand
both verbal and nonverbal cues, avoid prejudging the message, and expect to learn from
the communication.
• Step 5: Feedback – A vital part of the communication process is feedback. Feedback
occurs the sender and receiver check to ensure the message was understood as intended.
Feedback is a shared responsibility between the sender and the receiver and can be verbal
or non-verbal. For example, the sender can elicit feedback by asking, “Do you have any
questions?”
• Barriers to effective communication: Physical, Social-
psychological, Cultural, Language and Organizational-
Physical barriers may prevent an individual from being able to interpret non-verbal cues. This is more
common in communication methods relying on technology rather than face-to-face. Other physical barriers
include:
• Old or broken equipment or office phone systems used for communication
• Uncomfortable temperatures
• Background noise
• Poor lighting
• Communicating close to the time of your break/ lunch/ end of work hours
• Large work areas or working in an area that is physically separated from colleagues
• Closed doors
• Large geographic distances between the sender and the receiver - communication is usually easier over
shorter differences
Socio-psychological barriers to communication refer to obstacles that employees in an
organization face while communicating with one another because of differences in social or
psychological factors. Socio-psychological barriers to communication include:
• Background, upbringing, professional status, language, ethnicity, and religion
• Emotion
• Opinions and attitudes
• Difference in Status
• Distrust and Premature Evaluation
Cultural barriers can interfere with communication in a variety of ways:
• The norms of communication vary between cultures, such as, personal space. It's important
to find common ground in these situations.
• People may form assumptions based on stereotypes of the other person's culture (cultural
noise).
• Work cultures differ between companies which means you have to adapt to your
company's culture to communicate effectively.
Semantic and language barriers may include:
• Language differences between the speaker and the listeners
• Difficulties in understanding unfamiliar accents
• Uses of: jargon, unfamiliar/regional expressions, specialist abbreviations, slang, technical
terminology
Organizational barriers refers to the hindrances in the flow of information among the
employees that might result in a commercial failure of an organization. These barriers may
include:
• Negative Organizational climate: The main aspect of organizational climate that acts as
communication barrier is the negative attitude of top management. Negative attitude of top
management discourages communication initiative of the employees.
• Absence of communication policy: Well-designed communication policy encourages
communication in the organization. In the absence of such policies, employees fail or
hesitate to communicate.
• Excessive authority layers: Excessive authority layers acts as a severe impediment to
successful communication. In the case of excessive authority, layers, information reaches to
its final destination passing through several hierarchical levels. As a result, information may
be distorted or lost. Excessive authority layers also causes delay in communication.
• Filtering: Filtering implies willful distortion of information. This problem usually arises in
upward communication. In upward communication, employees tend to pass only those
messages that create positive impression about them.
Guidelines to Overcome Communication Barriers-

• Clear organizational policy: Organization should have adequate, clear and explicit
communication policies. Such policies will reduce confusion and promote the flow of
communication.
• Provision for feedback: In order to make communicate effective, massagers should actively
seek feedback from subordinate. Feedback reduces the chance of misunderstanding and
disparity between the messages sent and received.
• Reorganization: In order to create a favorable communication climate, complex
organization structure should be reorganized. Reorganization may involve reducing authority
layers and establishing clear authority and responsibility relationship.
• Management development: For improving communication skills, management
development is necessary. This development is possible through delegation of
authority, decentralization, arranging seminars and workshops, providing training on
computers and other electronic means of communication.
• Orientation: Orientation refers to introducing the newly appointed employees with the
company mission, goals, policies, rules and regulations, procedures etc. This can greatly
enhance the effectiveness of communication in the organization.
• Promoting informal relationship: Informal relationship can play a vital role in promoting
communication. Hence, management should use informal communication channel along
with the formal channels.
• Selecting proper media: Effectiveness of communication largely depends on
appropriateness of media. Therefore, media should be selected considering some factors
such as importance of message, communication environment, knowledge of the receiver
etc.
• Communication training: To make the employees efficient communicator, organizations
can arrange various training programs for them.
• Reducing information overload: Commutation system becomes defective if more
information flows at a time than its necessity. To resolve this problem, only necessary
information should be conveyed. Moreover, separate messages should be communicated
after certain interval.

• Communication Audit: According to Howard H. Greenbaum, one way to improve

communication in organization is to conduct a communication audit. Communication audit
means examining and evaluating communication networks, communication functions and
communication principle.
Goals of organizational communication-

1. Receiver understanding
2. Receiver response
3. Favorable relationship
4. Organizational goodwill
Receiver understanding-
Core factor:
• The message must be so clear that the receiver understands it as the sender means it to be
understood.
To develop a clear message, the sender must consider the following four issues:
Receiver Characteristics
 Message form and content
 Receiver feedback
Communication barriers
Receiver response-
Core factor:
• The wording of the message should encourage response
The receiver response may be:
Positive
Neutral
 Negative
Favorable relationship-
Core factor:
• To establish a strong business relationship, the sender and the receiver should relate to
each other in three important ways:
➤ Positively
➤ Personally
➤ Professionally
Some of the ways the sender can create and maintain a favorable relationship:
• Stressing the receiver's interests and benefits
• Using positive wording
• Doing more than what is expected
Organizational goodwill-
Core factor:
• It stresses benefit to the organization
Communications reflect positively on the quality of the company's:
o Products
o Services
o Personnel
THE END