Paper Example. Communication Within Organizations

Communication is an art that aims to deliver a specific message to the target audience. In everyday family, social, and organizational settings, people communicate verbally and nonverbally for different reasons. In each case, some objectives are set, and the outcome might be fulfilling or fail to meet the set goals. There are lessons too. However, as people converse, they fail to understand that there is more than superficial communication. Some aspects and meanings are metaphorical, and the contexts suit different messages too. Overall, communications convey information in diverse ways, and how they are crafted tell a lot.

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One communication event that I have been part of in an organizational context is a literacy seminar aiming to inform workers on how to deal with conflicts in the workplace. In this event, the speakers were mass communication experts who understand the potential causes of conflicts in an organization setting. The event looked at the various ways that departments and individuals could work harmoniously to improve cooperation and enhance productivity. More specifically, the main agenda was that organizations comprise people from different races and cultures among other discriminative elements, and should learn how to work together and communicate in a way that takes care of the diverse aspects of the audience.

To a significant extent, the event looked at the potential barriers of interpersonal communication in organizations and how to control their impacts. Communication, being multidimensional, is not a one-way process or immune to challenges. People misinterpret each other, and biases hinder communication's effectiveness. For better organizational cooperation, it is vital to set rules on how to communicate with each other, and this event explored more about the same. It was about establishing boundaries to ensure that every person is adequately informed about how to communicate with different departmental heads and members.

Layers of the Russian Doll Analogy

From the adult communication model, people work through systems. Every organization or place involving people have structures. Understanding how the culture or the operation of rules work in different settings can help people to manage communication conflicts (Collins & O'Rourke, 2009). When assessing the cause of the potential conflicts or misunderstandings, the way a team member perceives or interprets different issues to vary significantly. Also, organizations consist of power systems whose focus and perception of ideas profoundly differ as they deal with various organizational issues. It is a complicated situation, but its management through communication makes a lot of difference.

The Russian doll analogy contains different layers that can apply in the communication settings as well. It shows how a small object emerges from a larger one, but of the same state (Shabi, 2015). In the doll's presentation, the innermost one represents the various communication aspects that relate to the self. This inner layer is about the private self, which is different from the case of the outer layer, which displays the public self. In this case, the Russian Doll is akin to an onion; here, removing one layer continues revealing something unknown about the private nature of a person. The other doll that gives meaning in communication is the second one which has all to do with communication in interpersonal situations.

In interpersonal situations, communication changes its format and dimension and start concentrating on its impact on others. The scope changes, and it is the same case with the third layer that symbolizes people-in-systems. The outermost segment is more impacting compared to the other dolls. It represents competence. This point implies that to communicate effectively, a person must be adequately informed about the context of the communication since the ones involved and the settings will always change how and when a person conveys a particular message.

On a more broadened view, the Russian doll analogy depicts that different parts of an organization would not be affected the same way with a particular mode or type of communication. As the managers speak to various people, their influence is likely to shield them from the effects of communication compared to the other employees in lower cadres of an organization. The implication, here, is that the Russian doll may be more of a symbol of safety, security, and care whose magnitude are different from one level to the other. As the layers continue uncovering themselves, the concept of expectation vs. reality becomes evident too; this is because it reacts differently to particular messages, and it can only be known by dealing with them directly.

From the Russian doll analogy, the interpersonal communication level depicts that communication is a process. In this process, individuals interact in a way that creates meanings across people while being mindful about the nature and current state of their relationship. When it comes to competence, the relationship between people determines how accurately they construct meanings; imperfections are possible, and people should understand the characteristics of the target audience. Understanding the audience enables the communicator to encode information clearly and in the level that matches the audience's ability to interpret it (Littlejohn & Foss, 2009). That way, it is possible to avoid organizational conflicts; this helps people within organizations to work collaboratively.

Locus of Control

In this event, the concept of locus of control emerges as well. Its gist is that power determines the outcome, and the ones in higher authority have a high influence as far as actions, events, and decisions are concerned. In spite of this inevitable segregation of people according to their levels of power, internal locus of control was emphasized. According to Bhatnagar and Bhatnagar (2011), people with an internal locus of control attribute success to their efforts and have the conviction that they can control their lives. They believe that they have mastery over what happens to them. It is different from an external locus of control where people believe that external factors determine success or failure.

When one has an internal locus of control, it is possible to communicate well with the rest. The primary reason behind such an approach in everyday organizational settings is the fact that such people attribute promotion and other aspects of success to personal efforts. As a result, they are likely to avoid issues that may lead to conflicts. On the other hand, having an external locus of control makes a person believe that one's success in an organization depends on factors such as luck and fate. Others have a deep conviction that divine intervention plays an essential role.

Extra-Dimensional Communication

In the event, the concept of extra-dimensional communication was evident too. The point of emphasis was that as people communicate, they should focus on some critical aspects to enhance communication effectiveness. The audience should be a concern, the platform, and type of content while evaluating progress to ensure that everything is flowing as planned. Regarding that, communication is never a simple activity as it may appear. Instead, it should always target the relevant audience through various modes while using the right platform or media; they need to know their world view (Magnacca, 2009). Overall, extra-dimension translates to a scenario where the speaker uses a multi-dimensional strategy to ensure the interests of all audiences have been addressed.

Regarding the improvement of extra-dimensional communication in future scenarios, people should create more compelling content besides knowing the features of their audience. During conversations, it is vital to consider how the audience will receive the information that someone wants to convey (Webster, Phalen, & Lichty, 2013). In organizational setups, communication should be crafted in a way that a person gets feedback. Doing so will allow tracking of progress. In the end, it will be possible to ensure that communication is not failing and if there are issues, they can be addressed on time.

Evaluation

The event provided crucial lessons that can apply to multiple scenarios as a person communicate with other people. One of the highly noticeable elements is how to communicate with various audiences. Even if it is not primarily in an organizational setup, communication protocols should be observed to avoid communication bias. As Goltsman and Pavol (2011) suggest, bias is inevitable when someone communicates to people who belong to a higher or lower level compared to him/her. Indeed, this is a significant problem in public messages. As a way of bettering one's communication and passing information as required, it is vital to be aware of how interpersonal communication processes take place and the possible barriers. As an intervention, being adequately informed about the reason and how to use different communication channels according to the contexts is imperative. Above all, people should examine their strengths and weaknesses and devise strategies that allow them to deal with communication barriers when they are addressing others in diverse settings.

References

Bhatnagar, N., & Bhatnagar, M. (2011). Effective communication and soft skills: Strategies for success. Pearson.

Collins, S. D., & O'Rourke, J. S. (2009). Managing conflict and workplace relationships. South-Western Cengage Learning.Goltsman, M., & Pavlov, G. (2011). How to talk to multiple audiences. Games and Economic Behavior, 72(1), 100-122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2010.08.007

Littlejohn, S. W., & Foss, K. A. (2009). Encyclopedia of communication theory (Vol. 1). Sage.Magnacca, M. (2009). So What?: How to Communicate what Really Matters to Your Audience. FT Press.

Shabi, K. (2015, Jan 30). Matryoshka Nesting Dolls: Meaning of Russian Wooden Stacking Doll. Legomenon. Retrieved from https://legomenon.com/russian-matryoshka-nesting-dolls-meaning.html

Webster, J., Phalen, P., & Lichty, L. (2013). Ratings analysis: Audience measurement and analytics. Routledge.