Answer To: MNG81001 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION Assessment 4 REPORT Document design Part 1: REPORT Part 2: POSTER...
Sundeep answered on Sep 13 2020
33514 - 1.docx
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Table of Contents
Introduction--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3
Aspects of Communication------------------------------------------------------------------- 4
Communicating to Persuade and Influence Others------------------------------------- 5
Grapevine Communications----------------------------------------------------------------- 8
Conclusion---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------10
References---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11
Introduction
Communication is one of the most important aspects in life. With the help of effective communication, we let the target audience know our expectations and also what needs to be done or what we have achieved. Interpersonal communication are the skills and the techniques that we use in everyday life when we communicate and interact with people, both individually and in groups. Being successful at work place too requires interpersonal skills and techniques. Even though centred around communication, interpersonal skills require more varied variety of skills. These skills include Listening, Understanding Body Language, and Questioning etc. Also inclusion of skills such as Emotional Intelligence is essential and helpful.( Habermas, J., 2015)
Aspects of Communication
1. Listen: Effective managers are great listeners. Listening is a skill that everyone do not possess. Listening requires patience and reception. We wouldn’t be able to quantify the quality of the things presented to us by our team if we do not listen carefully. Listening leads to greater insights and deeper knowledge. The quality of one’s thinking improves and better decisions can be made(Lindlof, T.R. and Taylor, B.C., 2017)
2. Trust: Why would my team work for me if they do not have trust in me? If my words do not keep up the level of trust and confidence, no member of my team would trust my saying. It is one of the most important elements of a successful leader. With trust, misunderstandings and mistakes can be resolved. If there is transparency from the leader, the team is more likely to work better and more efficiently
3. Focus and Control: In a team, many a times situation arises when time is less and the deliverables are more. We need to understand that at this time an effective leader doesn’t press the panic button and demoralizes everyone, but rather strategises and plans the next steps in order to finish the tasks at hand. Most projects do not go as planned and hence there has to be a contingency option available to solve the issues
4. Confidence and Influence: Being brilliant in one’s work is what everyone aspires to be. Being a leader who has the audience which looks up as a confident and an influential leader is what one needs! The people we remember are the ones who have such influential characteristics and we aspire to become like them.
5. Clarity of the message: Always remember to be clear with words and the instructions. There is no greater disruption than wrong deliverable being developed and both finance and time being invested. The message should be brief – concise and clear.
Communicating to Persuade and Influence Others
Communicating has a major agenda either to achieve the purpose of letting people know about your observation or to persuade others. When we are at managerial positions, persuading qualities are a must in order to make the team work. For this purpose, Andrea Reynolds developed the persuasion tools model in the book published in the year 2003 ‘Emotional Intelligence and Negotiation’. This model is based on the work by psychologist Kenneth Berrien. The emotional intelligence is linked to negotiation and persuasion.
This model helps the user to get the best negotiation approach to use which is based on the level of intuition and influencing capabilities. This model can be utilised to develop the influencing and persuasion skills which helps us to become a better negotiator. (Lindlof, T.R. and Taylor, B.C., 2017)
Source: Reynolds, A. (2003) 'Emotional Intelligence and Negotiation,'
In this diagram, the horizontal axis represents the influence which is a measure of the overall persuasion skills and the capabilities. The vertical axis represents the level of intuition required when we use a certain negotiation style. The quadrants in the diagram may work best depending upon the level of influence and intuition. The approaches are emotion, logic, compromise and bargaining.
Emotion: Understanding the emotion of the target segment helps us to negotiate for the project. Using emotions in the negotiations can be risky and also we need a good level of understanding of the people we are negotiating with in order for this tactic to be successful. We cannot use the emotion card if the opposite party is just focussed on the profits. Hence emotion is typically used by highly skilled negotiators who have high emotional intelligence and empathy with people.
Logic: Logic is important in a negotiation. Logic helps the decision to be favoured in our direction. We can use logic confidently if we have low intuition and high influencing capability. If we need to convince the company's di’ector board, using Logic and sensible statistics is one of the best methods. We show the board members that how much investment would be required and how much would be the return on investment. We utilise a computer based model which shows the technicalities and demonstrates the faster distribution to increase profits in the long term.
Bargaining: bargaining is a mixed and a complex part in the negotiation. To bargain we have to place our point and also listen to their point intuitively. We have to understand that the opposite party too wants an advantage over us and we have to bargain in such a way that either it is neutral or advantageous to us. Bargaining has multiple techniques and tactics. E.g. if we have been sent to negotiate multiple software’s licencing from a company and we need a 20% discount, if we understand that the sales person is in dire need of selling those licenses, we would start our offer with 30% discount so that even if we do not get 30%, we may still be able to manage 23-24% discount.
Compromise: Compromise is the least of the powerful negotiation styles and it is possible that it is the last option left in the deal. Compromise may be acceptable if the deal that we are making is a long term deal and there are multiple opportunities to gain back the profits. This helps us in a way that we would secure the client, get the business and also be profitable in the long run. A strategically thinking mind-set and a well-planned plan of action is required in this case to understand the scenario.
The persuasion model has limitations too. The following are some of the points.
· The persuasion model can be useful for discovering our most effective natural negotiation approach, but it can be hard to measure the efficiency and intuition levels
· There would be many times that we need a mixture of emotions, bargaining, logic and other things which one might not be proficient enough(Habermas, J., 2015)
· We need a combination of multiple skills to be an effective persuasive person
· This model has to be supplemented with other models, approaches and techniques and also interpret the conclusions with common sense
Grapevine Communications:
Grapevine communication is a kind of an informal communication. If the communication is done among the employees without maintaining the formal level of authorities, it is known as grapevine communication. The basis of informal communication is the level of relationship that the person holds with the other member. Grapevine has no definite pattern and direction. Most of the times grapevine is horizontal in nature.
Grapevine is a horizontal mesh and a complex network of oral information flow which links all the members of the organization
Patterns and Types of grapevine:
Even though grapevine has no formal direction of flow, most of the times it is horizontal in flow. The nature and flow of direction can be either horizontal, vertical or even diagonal in nature. Prof. Keith Davis who has done some research in this domain has classified Grapevine into 4 types:
1. Single Strand Chain – In this pattern, the information is passed in a single chain of line and it follows a definite horizontal path.( Enuoh, R.O. and Inyang, B.J., 2016)
2. Gossip Chain – In this chain, one person tells the information to anyone and whoever is present. This type of gossip chain is like a wheel where everyone is connected and information is passed along the spokes of the wheel
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3. Probability Chain: The probability chain is the chain in which a person transmits the information in accordance to the probability laws and then these people carry forward the information. The chain may also be called as a random process.
4. Cluster Chain – In a cluster chain, a person passes on the information to a specific set of people who in turn passes the information to other selected people. Most of the flow of information follows this path(Enuoh, R.O. and Inyang, B.J., 2016)
The 4 patterns that we found out are not mutually exclusive but are inclusive. There may be multiple patterns present in the communication flow.
Conclusion:
Thus we have understood the characteristics and the developments in the communication plan. We’ve understood that there are multiple types of communication and clear and concise communication is one of the most important aspects. The growth in the project and the influence of the leader is dependent upon the confidence, influence and the knowledge of the leader. (Khanna, S., 2017)
There are multiple types of informal information flow such as grapevine and the types of grapevine depending upon the level of information flow.
References:
Lindlof, T.R. and Taylor, B.C., 2017. Qualitative communication research methods. Sage publications.
Habermas, J., 2015. Communication and the Evolution of Society. John Wiley & Sons.
Ruesch, J., Bateson, G., Pinsker, E.C. and Combs, G., 2017. Communication: The social matrix of psychiatry. Routledge.
Enuoh, R.O. and Inyang, B.J., 2016. APPROPRIATING THE GRAPEVINE COMMUNICATION CHANNEL IN THE ORGANIZATION. Sustainable Human Development Review, 2(2).
Khanna, S., 2017. Effective Communication Skills-A Road Map for Success.
Welch, M., 2015. Dimensions of internal communication and implications for employee engagement.
Cialdini, R., 2016. Pre-Suasion: A revolutionary way to influence and persuade. Simon and Schuster.
Kiesler, S., Siegel, J. and McGuire, T.W., 1984. Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication. American psychologist, 39(10), p.1123.
Schwarz, N., 2014. Cognition and communication: Judgmental biases, research methods, and the logic of conversation. Psychology Press.
33514 - 2.docx
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Student Name:
Course ID:
Assessor Name:
Submission Date:
Table of Contents
Introduction--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3
Formal Communication---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4
Advantages of Formal Communication -------------------------------------------------- 5
Direction of communication -----------------------------------------------------------------7
Conclusion---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11
References---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------12
Introduction
Communication in a formal manner is the way that works in an organization and with clients. Clients respect formal methods of communication as it seems correct and respectable. Through the modem of communication, be it an inter department memo or even face to face, information is transferred from people at same level, e.g. an associate to associate or even from a manager to subordinate and vice versa. An important element of communication model is the feedback loop between the managers and the employees.( Globocnik, D. and Salomo, S., 2015)
Formal Communication
A formal communication channel is mostly controlled by the upper management in the organization. It is an official channel that is deliberately structured to form a chain of command for the information flow so that the organizational objectives are achieved. The information that flows through the formal channels is accurate, specific, clear, time bound and valid. The formal communication takes place through multiple themes, they include memo’s, reports, letters, instructions and orders too. The flow of information takes place up, down in the formal communication system.
Features:
Formal communication channels, as the name represents happens between the upper management and the employees in an organization. The method may be oral or written. The meetings that take place in an organization is a form of formal communication. Formal communication also happens between the representatives of the organization and the clients. (Globocnik, D. and Salomo, S., 2015) Formal communication also includes fliers, branding posters and infographics which communicate the information regarding the services and the products offered to the world. Dedicated teams are in place in order to plan and execute the communication tasks
Advantages of Formal Communication
· Formal communication improves the image of the organization in a professional manner. It improves the brand identity and perception of the organization
· It gives the managers in the upper positions the decision making authority and the position of responsibility
· It improves productivity of the employees at the higher level of management and also improvises the communication in multifold ways
· It ensures that the entire organization is kept intact and as a single entity irrespective of the skills and the positions of the employees, managers, branches and the departments
Formal communication has some disadvantages too.
Disadvantages:
· It involves hierarchy in communication, hence if an urgent information has to be passed on, it is very difficult to pass it on quickly
· Free flow of information is very restricted and limited
· Formal flow of information is cost accounting and hence it adds along cost at every step which makes it stringent(Krackhardt, D., 2014)
· Due to the hierarchy model, many managers at the top level do not know and understand the employees at the lower levels. Hence the human touch to the manager and employee relationship is lost
Informal communication
Informal channel of communication, unlike formal channel is very unstructured and informal. It is not developed specifically by the organization but it exists. It is available in the organization by the personal and social needs. The information that passes along the informal means may not be specifically be official news but majority of times it includes gossips. A form of informal communication channel that exists in an organization is grapevine. It is created and controlled by the people within the organization and doesn’t follow any specific rules or regulations. The flow of information through informal channels may be in multi directions.( Krackhardt, D., 2014)
Features of Informal Communication:
· It is present mostly in the middle and the lower tier of the organization
· It takes place in an organization due to the personal, social and professional needs
· The information flow through informal ways have no credibility and basis
· No fixed standards are present in this way of communication
· Since it is unstructured, it is unofficial and casual too
Direction of communication
The structure of the organization provides the flow of the communication in 3 different and distinct direction. The directions are horizontal, upward and downward. The framework of communication is described by these three directions (Dedahanov, A.T., Kim, C. and Rhee, J., 2015.)
Downward Communication
Traditional views of the downward communication channels has been dominated by the downward communication strategies. The downward communication strategies constitute the communication flows. Such flows transmit the information from higher levels to the lower levels. There are 5 general purposes of downward communication (Dedahanov, A.T., Kim, C. and Rhee, J., 2015.)
1. Implementation of goals, strategies and objectives: This flow of communication from the managers to the middle and lower employees is to communicate the responsibility and the tasks. Hence such flow encourages vertical flow
2. Job instructions and rationale: These are the directives on how to do the specific tasks and how the job relates to different activities. We often fail to give the information to the subordinate employees and leave it up to the imagination to get the bigger picture
3. Procedures and Practices: These are the messages that define the rules, regualtions, policies, benefits and other things in an organization. This information is transmitted to staff members through hard board and organization wide policy manuals, handbooks.( Cenere, P., Gill, R., Lawson, C. and Lewis, M., 2015)
4. Performance Feedback: Progress reports, individual performances and other means used to...