A teacher
lecturing a class, a salesman telling a customer about the virtues
of a product, a manager expounding the need for quality in
manufacturing of a product, a supervisor laying down productivity
guidelines, are all situations where messages need to be
communicated. They require the qualities of a good communicator to
get the message across in the most effective way -- to be
understood and produce the right response.
In a business situation one is communicating something or the
other at any given point. What you need to do therefore is to put
some zing into the communications to motivate others and get them
to do, behave, or think as you want them to. In an increasingly
competitive world, one of the first things that you have to do is
to communicate, and communicate with something "extra" or
"different" in the form of a benefit. And the challenge lies in
communicating clearly, meaningfully, and effectively in the right
form and media (channel) for the desired response.
It is said that in an organization every interaction includes a
business level and a personal level. The business level gets work
done; the personal level satisfies the participant's need for
attention, recognition and acceptance of a point of view. Coming
up with a creative solution to a problem is only half the battle
won. You must be able to gain support for your solution and have
it implemented.
You have to be more persuasive. And to do this it may be worth
understanding the "Needs Hierarchy" of people whom you are
communicating with. It basically concerns an answer to "What's in
it for me?" in your audience on five levels:
Level 1 : Basic needs
Purchasing power
Level 2 : Environment needs
Security, Profit, Success, Systems
Level 3 : Simple personal needs
Pride, recognition, peer respect*
Level 4 : Complex individual needs
Achievement, Accountability, Responsibility,
Growth
Level 5 : Transcendent needs
Purpose, Significance, Love
One
final success secret is to avoid being against anything. Instead,
be for something. For instance, instead of being against a company
policy, be for an improved policy. In such cases, what happens is
that whatever you are against works against you. You begin
fighting it and become part of the problem. But when you state
what you are for, you begin focussing on the potential for
positive change. And that is good for communications too.
Looking ahead
Since the 80s corporations have been experimenting with change and
change management, either as a continuous process or in other
forms. A rough template for communications in change can be
summarized as:
• Gather data about customers and the business environment
• Define organizational strengths
• Build on those strengths and make data available to help project
a future course
• Develop a strategy to reach the future state
• Prepare leaders to mobilize physical and human resources to
achieve goals
• Deploy the strategy organization-wide
• Build in a feedback loop which includes employees
• Make midcourse corrections
• Measure results
Within the existing realities of communication technologies one of
the challenges facing us is the accelerating technological
convergence between telecommunications, computing, information
products and mass communication. With this it will be possible to
gain access to a rich collection of information and data available
to us today. In the next few years the role of information systems
will become more important than ever. Organizations will be
competing through information. Effective management of information
and information technology will give organizations that crucial
edge in the marketplace which is required today to be a leader
|