There is a need today for special pleading in the cause of communication. Progressive managers everywhere recognize it as a basic skill of management. They know that it is not an independent activity, but an essential part of everything that the manger does. Executives have become painfully aware how often carefully laid plans and programs have found on the rocks of faulty communication. That's way so many executives are asking, “What can be done throughout the company to establish and maintain a sound system of communication? What can I personally do to help my employees become better communicators?”
To be effective communicator, a communication program must meet the following requirements:
Express the needs and character of the organization
It makes a difference whether the company is small or large, old or new, manufacturing or retailing, centralized or decentralized, union or nonunion. It makes very great difference whether the company has a tradition of secrecy or freedom of information, of authoritarianism or democracy. Every communication is judged in the context of a company's traditions and practices. That is why it is so risky to copy someone else's communication program, no matter how successful it was.
Communication grows best in a climate of trust and confidence
Managements that have a record of keeping faith with their employees, reporting the facts honestly, and listening sincerely don't have to depend upon high-pressure indoctrination or slick handouts. An employees knowledge that he has free access to information is more important than any specific information we can give him.
Communication should form an integral part of each executive's job
Though personnel specialists can advise the line and administer a program of formal communication, each executive is responsible for maintaining clear and consistent communication with his associates. This is one responsibility that he cannot delegate.
Communication must be a containing program, not a brief campaign
It is not a cure for sudden illnesses, but a day-in, day-out way of managing or supervising people. We must not, like the famous blind men who reconstructed the whole elephant from a single part, identify the whole communication with one of its devices. Exploitation of one particular medium will often create more problems than it will solve. This is the lesson some companies have learned when, after a long history of indifference to employees' interests, they have begun an all-out drive to indoctrinate them on some particular subject.
Communication must be stimulated
Management must show an aggressive willingness to share information with his employees. It is not enough to correct misinformation or even to tell only what they have to know or what management thinks they should know. The proper starting point is to find out what employees are interested in hearing.
Communication must move freely in both directions
It is a commonplace today to emphasize that communication is a two-way street. In actual practice, however, management devotes far more attention to telling, informing, and commanding than it does to listening, asking and interpreting.
Communication must consider the manager's role
In building a bridge between top management and employees, we must never forget that the prime communicator is the manager. He is in the most critical position to interpret or maybe misinterpret the top management thinking.
In defining the responsibility of the managers, in setting the standards of their performance, they must consider and posses the skill of good communication. We must never forget that the most powerful communication is not what you say, but it is what you do. What counts, in final analysis, is not what people are told but what they accept. It is concept of the role of communication in any field, that it characterizes an effective leadership.
