A Willing Organization:  Communication

By:  J. L. Bodine

One major barrier to effective communication in an organization is often overlooked.  This barrier is the readiness of the environment and employees to receive communication and its direct impact on the motivation for employees to continue to openly communicate.  If employees are not motivated to communicate, communication will suffer. 

This article will discuss the details of this specific communication barrier and outline some specific methods to actively address this within an organization.

Communication within an organization is a very in-depth topic.  Many books have been written on how to communicate more effectively in a business setting.  While the method of communication, delivery, employee ownership and executive sponsorship are very important aspects of learning to communicate as an organization, this willigness issue can undermine the best intentions and supporting theory. 

The willigness barrier begins to occurs at the exact time of communication.  It involves two actors: the communicator and the receiver.  At a much deeper level, it involves the willingness of the communicator to continue to openly communicate.  An example scenario:

An employee in a flower shop meets with two new vendors about potential savings in purchasing carnations. Jane is a respected employee in a small shop.  She works with one full time peer and the owner.   Meeting with these vendors is in-line with her normal scope of responsibilities; but, is also above and beyond work.  At this Flower shop, it is expected that the employees communicate updates via email as they do not often work together.  Normally, Jane who likes to communicate would compose an email with all the details about the two vendors and her decision.  However, lately everytime she communicates details she is greeted with suspicion and concern from her fellow co-worker.  As a result of follow up emails, she spends a lot of extra time explaining her actions and things her co-worker should understand if she had read the original communication in detail.  Jane is diligent and needs her time to get work done.  Frankly, it would be easier for Jane to continue doing her above and beyond work without communicating these details.  

In the above scenario Jane has reached the critical barrier in communication implementation- the willingness of the receipent to understand the communication and not let pre-exsisting feelings come into play within the communication action.

In larger companies then the flower shop example above, this failure to receive communication appropriately can also appear where the politics of the company can cause the receivers to react negatively to the communication and perhaps even unintentionally, the communicator.  It often becomes a "shot the messenger" scenario.  A last damaging example can be a manager who may literally hinder an employees ability to get other work done by micro-managining through questioning of the communication.  Suppose Jane's owner did not ever work with carnations and Jane had expertise in this area.  If Jane were to communicate, and Jane's owner were to respond with numerous uneducated and bring me up to speed type questions- why would Jane want to continue to communicate.

The examples above are extreme cases, but all too often employees will choose to keep something quiet rather then to share the information and then suffer the consequences whether they be extra work, unnecessary questions, or suspicion around intent.

What Can Be Done?

The first step in correcting or decreasing this barrier is recognizing the behavior and working against this in an organization.

Managers- Just because an employee sends an update or communication does not always mean they are looking for your direction and more importantly more work in that area. 

All Employees- must read their emails, attend communication meetings and generally be an active participant in communication.  Questions should not serve as a way to pass the "hot potato" (action item) back to the communicator.

Organizationally recognize and institutionalize as a value the need to communicate and keep people in the loop.  This cross communication is extremely valuable if done correctly.  Jane's peer may be sourcing Iris's and she may benefit from knowing that Joe's Flowers has a hidden cost of each bundle, as reflected in Jane's update. 

The continued success of communication at any organization involves much more then willingness to communicate and knowing how to communicate.  It really comes down to each employees decision to continue to communicate openly.