Effective communications.

Essay by baizUniversity, Bachelor'sB, October 2003

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Guidelines to effective communication

Why is communication so important on the job?

Without communication nothing happens. To win a sale, gain approval for a proposed project, or motivate subordinates to follow a new policy; we have to communicate. To persuade management to accept our analysis of a situation, respond to inquiries from government regulators, or inform special interest groups about our employer`s activities; we have to communicate.

Communicating is so important at work that we are likely to spend a very large amount of our time on that activity. Numerous studies show that business graduates typically spend about 20 percent of their time on the job writing - that is one day out of every five-day workweek. Many spend much more time. The total time spent in both written and oral communication is even greater, between 50 and 90 percent.

Furthermore some evidence suggests that the higher you rise in an organization, the more time you are likely to spend communicating.

In one study, first-level managers are likely to spend an average of 74 percent of their time communicating, second-level managers 81 percent, and third-level managers 87 percent.

Thus it is no surprise to find that at the root of a large number of organizational problems is poor communication. Effective communication is an essential component of organizational success be it at the interpersonal, intergroup, organizational, or external levels.

Although all of us have been communicating with others since our infancy, the process of transmitting information from an individual (or group) to another is a very complex process with many sources of potential error.

In any communication at least some of the "meaning" is lost in simple transmission of a message from the sender to the receiver. In many situations a lot of the true message is lost and the message...