Poor Communications and Conflict Essay -- Functions of Communication

Is most conflict in an organisation is caused by poor communication? If we had perfect communication would conflict cease? tump over for example, an e-mail asking for some information yesterday to stress how important this request is. The sender thinks e-mails are great as they travel at the revive of light and spell things out in black & white. The pass capturer may consider that if its in a e-mail then it cant be that urgent because servers can loose, misdirect or delay an e-mails transmission. They may also consider that as the information was wanted yesterday its already too modern to be effectively utilised. Both parties saw the same communiqu, neither read the same message. Each will blame the other for failing to communicate by rights and conflict may result. E-mail flame wars are a high tech twist on whispering campaigns. And like the system of claims & loyalties in a feudal states the smallest e-mail spat can spiral out of control with careless use of the C.C. and B.C. C functions. Drucker (1977)says that there are four fundamentals of communication communication is perception of the recipient not the utterance of the instigator communication is expectation in that recipients will heed only what they are expecting to hear communication makes demands of the recipient that they become someone, do or believe something communication and information are different and largely opposite - yet interdependent Employees need to eff a number of things such as what is expected of them, how they are performing and how can they advance. If these are not communicated, on a regular basis, then role or expectation conflict will develop and motivation decline as the employee is berated for failing to meet the goals their superiors are convinced they assigned them. But if this is all the communication they receive they may begin to feel like machines. According to Pearson & Thomas there are three levels of communication that employees need, these being Must know dis cussed above. Should know which includes profound staff changes and company/market developments. Then could know which although having no operational impact makes life more interesting. Office gossip is only a could know but probably the communication that really binds a company together. Barring security, legal and share price sensitive data everyone should... ...s healthy. If people drive each other openly in your presence for what they believe in thats healthy. But keep all the conflict eyeball to eyeball as contrary to back stabbing Towsend,R Orders flow down a company hierarchy. Communication of the understanding of such flows upwards. Crosswise people share information on getting things through with(p) often in contravention of policies Employees need direction, information and entertainment accurately and truthfully delivered by both the formal and informal company chains of communication. References DRUCKER, P (1977) People and Performance The best of Peter Drucker on M anagement Heinemann. DRUCKER, P (1974) Management Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices Butterworth. PEARSON, B & THOMAS, N (1991) The Shorter MBA harpistCollins TOWSEND, R (1988) Further up the Organisation Harper & Row Bibliography BUHLER, PM(1999) Supervision, Vol. 60 Issue 2, p16, 3p KREITNER, R et al (1993) Organizational Behaviour McGrawHill PUGH, DS (1971) Organization Theory Pelican PUGH, DS & HICKSON, DJ (1964) Writers on Organisations Penguin THOMAS, AB (1993) Controversies in Management Routledge