The Methods of Business Communication
These are specific approaches or practices which are grouped under or emerge from the Communication Systems. A management consultant or expert expects organisations to choose their communication methods to match their needs.
Therefore, in discussing methods of communication in an organisation, one is concerned with a vital factor which influences the overall work environment of the organisation and plays a primary role in facilitating its effectiveness. We are, indeed, dealing with the important issue of democratization of control and the extent to which this factor is a necessary requirement for success in a business. In highlighting, in the remainder of the discussion, the principal methods of communication, we are inviting you to help your present or future s to choose a combination of methods which you honestly perceive as possessing the capacity of ensuring the effectiveness of the organisation.
- Downwards (or Vertical) Communication
This is what is referred to as “hierarchical” communication or communication along what is referred to as the “chain of command”. As the appellation indicates, communication originates most of the time at the top and flows to the bottom, and the bottom – when not performing the primary role of receiving instructions or directives – participates in communication at the explicit invitation by the top to provide certain missing links in the communication chain. Such civil service clichés or expressions as “send through the right channel” or “send to the appropriate quarters” are offshoot of the downward pattern of communication relationships.
It remains popular in organisations because it is easy and clear-cut and, of course, because of sheer inertia against change, but it has the serious shortcoming that it stifles initiative and commitment and enthrones notions of superiority and subordination which are much subject to misapplication. However, to optimize its usefulness, excessive rigidity in its application is to be avoided, so that inter-personal and inter-group interaction within the larger group can be encouraged to augment hierarchical authority.
- Briefing Groups (Hierarchical)
Informal briefing constitutes the major mode of commonplace official communication within any organisation. However, when we speak of “Briefing Groups” as a recognised method of communication in an industry; we are talking of a systematised arrangement under which small groups of workers in an organisation are invited to meetings, formally convened at agreed regular intervals, for the purpose of being informed of matters affecting the organisation. Here, the meetings become institutionalized events to which workers look forward for receiving information about matters of concern to them.
- Joint Consultations (Hierarchical)
“Briefing Groups”, like “Hierarchical Communication” of various kinds, are “downwards” communication. In opposition to these, “Joint Consultations” are “upwards” communication. They are a set-up by which management, rather than inform the staff of its decisions (as essentially it does in “Hierarchical communication” and “Briefing Groups”) goes out to seek the views of the staff on management’s plans for introducing changes and, so, to obtain the staff’s contributions to such plans before definite decisions are taken.
Joint consultations are associated with large organisation s and are, therefore, established on the basis of much higher staff strength than Briefing Groups. Thus, staff strength of one thousand employees is regarded as the unit staff level for one Joint Consultative committee, so that a committee is usually established on a plant, factory or office complex basis. In exceptionally large organisations, it becomes necessary to set up regional, national and international committees, each of which is fed with members from its immediately subordinate group.
There is, however, no reason whatever why smaller organisations should not institute joint consultations on the basis of participation of all staff or representation by one committee member of only a small fraction of staff. One can easily conceive of a retail shop of ten employees being organized into a joint consultative committee on the basis of total participation. In a case of this kind, briefing sessions and joint consultations can, of course, be merged into meetings for management both to inform staff of planned decisions, as well as seek their suggestions on such decisions.
- Specialised Committees (Lateral/Sideways/Horizontal)
These are panels of specialists on different aspects of the work of an organisation set up to advise management on the running of their specialized fields. Company groupings and multi-line department stores are relevant here: while one committee advises on house furnishings, another could advise on chemicals.
Their value lies in their essential function of bringing about sideways or lateral communication to augment the vertical communication (downwards and upwards) of Briefing Groups and Joint Consultations. However, they tend to function routinely except in organisation s with widely separated branches in which it is necessary to convene formal meetings of the specialists. In the latter case, specialized committees have often come under criticism for being time-consuming, over argumentative and insufficiently consensus-oriented, a posture that often leads to the exigency of voting for decision-making, which is a procedure that carries risks for the best interests of profit-oriented organisations.
- Surveys (Lateral/Sideways/Horizontal)
These are investigations, conducted periodically, either at regular intervals or once a while, to find out areas of an organisation’s work on which different sections of the staff require more information.
Usually, an expert within the organisation or hired from outside prepares a questionnaire to invite anonymous and voluntary responses of staff to enquiries related to relevant issues. The questionnaire provides choices of answers and spaces for comments on areas on which precise responses are not possible. On the basis of the analysis of the responses to the questionnaire, an information bulletin is prepared for dissemination to the staff in circulars, house journals or at briefing sessions.
- House Journals (Diagonal)
House journals carry information on the personal circumstances of staff and on the social position of the organisation. It attempts to project the organisation as a set-up which, besides its abstract profit interests, is also an association of human beings subject to personal, family and social needs. Hence, weddings of staff, naming ceremonies, leave experiences, overseas holidays and others of similar personal nature are reported in house journals. One could say that house journals carry information which enhance the human image of the organisation, but which the organisation has no particular obligation to convey. Bulletins, notice-boards and newsletters – written media illustrated with photographs and diagrams, and more recently, films and closed-circuit television – supplement house journals for covering information on the peripheral areas.
- The Grapevine or Popular Gossip (Diagonal; Lateral; Open/Franchise)
What is popularly referred to as the grapevine is an informal system of lateral communication carried on in person-to-person conversations on the shop-floor, during coffee or lunch breaks and on similar occasions, as well as in unofficial bulletins, news-sheets and industrial magazines.
Application and Weaknesses
It is distrusted and frowned upon by management because its contents are subject to much distortion, but management should take advantage of its accessibility to disseminate its own less important information. If authentic and reliable information can be received through the grapevine, the tendency to indulge in harmful rumour will be kept to a minimum. Management which is in the habit of “keeping sealed lips” over matters that are really of no serious account – an attitude which many management personnel assume in the false belief that it enhances their importance and gravity of outlook in the eyes of the rank and file – should not blame staff for resorting to injurious rumour for conjecturing the thinking of management.
CONCLUSION
We should have noted from the unit that communication in an organisation (such as a business enterprise) functions in a kind of web that operates by certain principles. We must be conscious of this web nature of organisational communication and endeavour to fit ourselves into it in any organisation in which we might find ourselves functioning.
In the article, we have discussed the Factors, Systems and Methods of business communication. The Systems refer to the patterns generally adopted in organisations in internal person-to- person or unit-to-unit communication (i.e., the lines along which communication normally flows). Similarly, the Methods of communication refer to the specific approaches within each system which are used in the application of each system. All the three elements define the matrix within which organisational communication takes place. It is important to understand them, so that we can see organisational communication, not as a haphazard affair, but as a well organised undertaking which employees ought to try hard to promote.
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