Communication at Work, Essay Example

Communication at work is essential; one can hardly overestimate the significance of information exchange and communication skills that each individual possesses at a different range. Communication is diverse and implies the accomplishment of many tasks; Adler and Elmhorst (5) enumerate them including such essential elements thereof as working in teams, negotiating, interviewing, listening, resolving conflicts etc. Looking at this list, one can surely detect some fields that he or she comes across on a daily basis, thus realizing how dependable all people are on communication and its outcomes. Hence, knowing the implications of effective communication and predicting some potential factors creating ineffective communication cases one can strengthen his or her position at the workplace, secure him- or herself from awkward and undesirable situations and try to facilitate the occupied position in the social network evident at their workplace.

The first step in mastering the art of communication is to understand the key concepts and notions that are an indispensible part thereof. One should know the communication process, including the sender, the recipient and the message without which communication is impossible. Besides, one should know the patterns that routinely occur in human communication, i.e. communication networks. The most common types of formal communication networks are the downward and upward communication models. They both refer to the flow of information within a separate organizational structure, so each of them should be considered separately.

Downward communication occurs when superiors pass messages to their subordinates. It may be of several types: job instruction, job rationale, procedures and practices, feedback and indoctrination (Adler and Elmhorst 13-14). Surely, no organization can deal without this type of communication that in addition provides the superior staff with a set of advantages like improving job satisfaction or preventing employees’ mistakes. However, it may also conceal such problems as message overload or message ambiguity, which should be avoided for the sake of its efficiency (Adler and Elmhorst 14).

Upward communication has another direction – from subordinates to superiors. There are many cases in which employees decide to turn to their bosses: they either fail to solve some problem, or have certain suggestions pertaining to the job they do, or report about their job-related feelings (Adler and Elmhorst 14). This tyoe of communication also has both benefits and disadvantages. Thus, for example, it can help superiors manage conflicts and problems of their subordinates, simultaneously preventing in future, and increase acceptance of their decisions. But at the same time superiors may fail to attribute the appropriate measure of importance to their subordinates’ messages and discourage this type of communication in case it brings them negative information (Adler and Elmhorst 14).

There has been much research conducted on what indicators are more important for the establishment of effective communication. It is hard to distinguish some of them because communication is a complex phenomenon requiring diverse skills at any given moment of interpersonal interactions. However, the role of listening deserves being discussed separately. It has been theoretically and practically proven that under modern conditions of tough competition one can succeed only due to listening. Listening occupies the major part of communication, larger than speaking, writing or reading that increases together with the employee’s rank and position (Adler and Elmhorst 77). There are ways to improve listening skills, and the most productive presume that communication does not depend only on the sender but is fully equal and reciprocal, and call people to learn active listening that seriously increases the communication efficiency (Adler and Elmhorst 82).

It goes without saying that communication is of vital importance at work and during routine interactions of all individuals without exception. There are basics for effective communication that all people willing to achieve success in business, take the desired place in the social networks in which they exist and achieve their goals have to follow. However, there are always multiple barriers for effective communication that have to be seriously considered, since they have both personal (individual) sources and objective reasons and have to be eliminated in various ways.

Works Cited

Adler, Ronald, and Jeanne Marquardt Elmhorst. Communicating at Work: Principles and Practices for Business and the Professions. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2006.