“The Quest for Effective

Communication in
Managing People”

Adetola Farinola, Fatin Dhaif, Gilbert Livingstone L.

Chidi Anah, Juliet Njepu, Muhammad Hijazy
Why is effective
Communication vital?
 Essential to any business striving towards
success:
 Defines the roles and responsibilities of employees.
 Determines employee training
 Enables free flowing employee interaction
 Enhances leadership skills
 Improves motivation
 Expands customer relationship

 Effective communication reduces the

incidence of misunderstanding and
consequent errors and enables mangers to be
more readily aligned to the vision and
leadership of the organisation.
Lack of effective
Communication
 Can increase the opportunity of
disharmony and discontent
between the manager and the
employees.
 Supports an unhealthy working
culture.
 Can affect organisations internally
and externally
 Therefore, organisations must have a
Factors that promote good
Communication
 Sender, which can be referred to
as the transmitter
 Message, is the real formulated
idea sent by the sender to the
receiver
 Communication channels
 Receiver, who is the person that
actually received the message
 The Communication
Triangle

Adopted from a handbook of business strategy 2006 Page 386

Other factors that enhance
good Communication
 Good organizational structure
 The people involvement
 Training of Participants
 Appling Traditional and Advanced
method of communication
 Information sharing
 Communication must be multi
directional
 The communication Plan
Define the Objective and Purpose of
Communication

Segment the Target Audience for the

Communication
Clarify the Message that is Intended in
the Communication

Prepare the Communication

Decided on the channel of

communication

Measurement and Feedback

Adopted from Organizational Communication: the role of the HR profession
2003
Barriers to effective
Communication
 Smoke (2005) categorised the
barriers as:
 Physical Barriers – walls, noise and
distance
 Personal Barriers – judgments,
emotions and social values
 Semantic Barriers – language
problems
Barriers to effective
Communication
 Aswathappa (2005) states that communication barriers can
arise in relation to the sends, receiver and the situation
 Sender Related Barriers

Communication goals

Interpersonal sensitivity
 Communication skills
 Sender’s creditability
 Receiver Related Barriers
 Selective and poor listening

Evaluation of source

Lack of response
 Meta communication
 Situation Related Barriers
 Jargon
 Information overload

Time Pressure

Noise
 Distance
Culture and how it affects
Communication
 What is culture?
 Country
 Art
 Religion
 Language
 Customs
 Patterns of behaviour
 Culture as a barrier
 Effective communication with people of different culture is
extremely challenging for managers.
 Culture provides people with ways of thinking and
interpreting the world.
 Different languages and translation used for
communication, can increase the potential of
misunderstanding.
Culture as a Barrier to
effective Communication
 Stella Ting-Toomey(2004) described three
ways in which culture vastly interferes with
effective cross cultural communication:
 Cognitive Constraints – explained by the world views
that provide backdrop that all new information is
compared to.
 Behaviour Constraints – each culture has its own rules
about proper behaviour which affects verbal and nonverbal
communication.

 Emotional constraints – different cultures regulate the

display of emotions differently.
Solutions to the
Communication barriers
 Sender Related Barriers
 Managers must have a positive attitude about communication.
 Work at improving communication skills.
 Managers should include communication as a skill to be evaluated
in each employee’s job description.
 Managers must set specific goals and objectives which forms the
basis of formulating the message, in order to achieve the intended
communication goal.
 Receiver Related Barriers
 Managers should be active rather than passive listeners.
 New employees need to be taught the language of the
organisation.
 Always address thinking, conclusions and actions based on
communication objective.
 Always provide feedback, as it’s a mirror of communication.
Solutions to the
Communication barriers
 Situation Related Barriers
 The choice of channel determines:
 Importance of the message
 Complexity of the message
 Knowledge skill and ability of the receiver
 Immediacy of action to be taken
 Therefore, the right communication medium must be used
depending on the situation.

 Cultural Barriers
 Managers attitude and behaviour towards communication
is guided to a large extend by their level of cultural
competence.
 Managers must think globally but act and communicate
locally according to the national culture
Conclusion
 Effective communication requires deciphering the basic
values, motives, aspirations and assumptions that
operate across geographical lines.

 Knowing the common barriers to communication is the

first step to minimizing their impact. Therefore clear
communication is the most import key for management
success.

 Managers must learn how to be an effective and

compelling communicator and have to master the art of
clear communication.
References
 Abell, D. F. (1993) Managing with Dual Strategies - Mastering
the Present, Pre-emptingthe Future, New York: Free Press.

 Appelbaum, S. H., Shapiro, B. and Elbaz, D. (1998) The

management of multicultural group conflict. Team
Performance Management, Vol. 4. No. 5, pp. 221-234.
 Aswathappa, K. (2005) human resources and personnel
management. 4th edn. Mcgraw Hill Publishing: New Delhi
 Smoke, C.H. (2005) Company Officer, 2nd ed.
 Ting-Toomey, S. & Chung. L.C. (2004) Understanding
Intercultural Communication. Roxbury Publishing: Harvard.
 Turner, P. (2003) Organizational Communication: the role of
the HR profession, 1st ed. CIPD: London
Thanks for your time.