Communication is the underlying basis of any organization as it enables people to be organized and coordinated in their efforts to fulfil the organization’s purpose and deliver for its stakeholders. It plays a critical role in leadership, strategy execution, process management, innovation, and learning as well as in sales and marketing. As such, communication is one of the key excellence building blocks highlighted in the Business Excellence Alignment Model™ (BEAM) and it plays a pivotal role in many of the Institute’s training courses.
Although we communicate all the time, communication is a complex process. Even just telling a person something involves deciding what information you want to convey, choosing the words to convey it, and then saying them in a certain way. The person hearing them then needs to decode what you’ve said and this may or may not result in the correct message being communicated. The structure of the message, the words chosen, tone of voice, body-language, and context all influence the message received and so there is always a risk of miscommunication. This is heightened in written communication – especially, in low-context cultures, with the use of ambiguous emojis.
The difference between low-context and high-context cultures is one of the most significant cultural influences on communication. In low-context cultures such as the US, the onus is mainly on the speaker to ensure that effective communication occurs, while in high-context cultures, such as Japan (which gave us the emoji), it tends to be on the receiver.
These differences influence communication in many ways, including whether people prefer to communicate by meeting in person or not. The Japanese, for example, prefer to meet face-to-face while Americans are happy not to, preferring faster communications. People in one culture want to build relationships with others – creating groups of people whose members have a common understanding of certain things so that these do not need to be spelt out – while people in the other, prefer to define the parameters which apply to a specific transaction. Unless the differences are bridged, communication will be poor and possibly even counterproductive.
Damaging as miscommunication can be across cultures, stifling communication within an organization can be worse. Everyone brings a different set of experiences and competencies to an organization and a different lens through which they see things. This can be a powerful enabler of performance. However, unless there is psychological safety, much communication needed for team performance simply does not occur.
Harvard Professor, Amy Edmondson, defines psychological safety as having the belief that the work environment is a safe place to take interpersonal risk. Without it, people can be reluctant to speak up, question things, share ideas, and give feedback. Important communication never takes place and the consequences have an impact.
Creating an environment where open communication is valued as an enabler of collaboration, learning, and innovation – and where people are respected for communicating openly – helps build the psychological safety necessary for better internal communication. In contrast, a lack of open communication can fuel gossip, resentment, and fear.
Communication is a huge topic and we’ve only touched on a few aspects of it. However, even just being aware of these aspects has the potential to help improve your communications and, with that, your performance.
Harvard Professor, Amy Edmondson, defines psychological safety as having the belief that the work environment is a safe place to take interpersonal risk. Without it, people can be reluctant to speak up, question things, share ideas, and give feedback. Important communication never takes place and the consequences have an impact.
Creating an environment where open communication is valued as an enabler of collaboration, learning, and innovation – and where people are respected for communicating openly – helps build the psychological safety necessary for better internal communication. In contrast, a lack of open communication can fuel gossip, resentment, and fear.
Communication is a huge topic and we’ve only touched on a few aspects of it. However, even just being aware of these aspects has the potential to help improve your communications and, with that, your performance.
