Communication skills for Organizational Success

An organization is a group of common minded people who come together to achieve a common goal.

Organizations can either be official or casual, in both the former and the latter there are key essential factors that have to come into play for the stated goals to be achieved.

One of the most important factors for organizational success is having effective communication skills.

According to a recent survey a substantial amount of time spent in effecting the goals set in an organization is consumed by communication.

The success of the organization therefore is directly influenced by the type of communication between parties in an organization.

It has been noted to a large extent that the cause of most disagreements and problems within an organizational setting is poor communication skills.

Good Communication skills is therefore a very important component in any organization whether interpersonal, intergroup, intragroup, internal, external and intermediary levels. 

Causes Of Poor Communication Skills

Most of the time person who come together to work in an organization do not usually come from the same background.

They may have just met for the time in the organization and there interactions are mostly dependent on their situational nature.

Learning how to communicate with other people in the organization is therefore a learning process.

This is because of the conflicting characters that come into play within the organization.

There are other sources contributing to interference with smooth communication such as noise, personal prejudice against other workmates, language barriers, accent, intonation and phonetic barriers among other factors.

While communication in itself is an intricate process, people in the organization can make it much more difficult due to conflicting relationships.

Sources Of Noise

Noise does not necessarily mean the banging of items producing sounds that hinder understanding or the shouting of a colleague.

The words or language that you choose to use when sending a particular message is also and influencing factor in the level of quality of the message and the level of understandability of the message.

Some people would say that language is a symbolic representation of a situation or an experience.

Different people have different experiences therefore interpretation of the message can be deciphered in different ways.

It is therefore important that the sender of the message formulates the message in a manner that does not leave any room for misinterpretation.

It is important that the person receiving the message also develops a listening skill.

This means that you should strive to understand what the speaker is trying to say and whether there is a hidden meaning.

In most organizational situations people may not be outright on what they are saying and therefore the words that they choose to use may have a hidden meaning.

For example, if the boss were to say, ‘So this is the fourth day that you have arrived late to work.’ It would not be prudent to just take the statement as it is.

A good employee would be able to understand that his actions have been noted and that the boss may not be pleased.

However if the employee had previously explained his reasons for lateness during that week such being taken ill, then it would have signified indifference to his medical situation.

The meaning deciphered in the language used will be interpreted differently by different people.

It is therefore important to understand that many people will understand the same piece of words spoken differently.

Therefore it is important to come to a common understanding and to be able to seek clarification in a polite manner at any time in the workplace.

Cultural Differences

As mentioned before since their different person in an organizational entity they are bound to come from different cultural backgrounds.

It is therefore important that persons working in the organization come to this realization at the beginning and they work to set aside the cultural difference.

This can only be done by inculcating within themselves core values that have a direct impact on their behaviors.

Values such a tolerance, perseverance and good will are core workplace values that can guarantee organizational success.

There should be also team building activities that should be established within the organization.

The activities should be focused on improving communication skills and overlooking overreaching cultural differences.

Tolerance should also be a key value that should be taught during these team building activities.

Upholding good communication skills should one of the key factors that an organization should work on to ensure ultimate success.