What is organizational communication(s)?

Since I posted my last blog I have received a few comments on what I actually am considering organizational communication and organizational communicationS. That brought me to an interesting point in the book. I have miscommunicated with you. I have made assumptions about the definition of communications. When I define it I bring my own set of experiences with the term. I see it as corporate, mass, and interpersonal. And this experience of miscommunication brings me to my second concept in the book that the transmission of information as communication misses the larger process of making sense of the world in which one is communicating, how we relate to each other and our messages, and how we have experienced our world in which we are sending and receiving messages, whether they be from an internal source, to an external audience or between two individuals. In communicating my feelings about communications I simply packaged it up and sent it off, as the book calls it, without taking into account that many of us in this class have experienced the term “communication or communications” very differently. I am in a mass communications and journalism program practicing internal communications for a high-tech company, this is a communications studies class that is part of the business school. We have all defined this term through our experiences and therefore have decoded it through our own lenses.

Making invisible communications visible again

Organizations have required communications for as long as they have existed, not only externally but also between different roles, levels, and functions. Due to this fact people in organizations take for granted the process of communications. The strategic planning process of first identifying your objectives and audiences is often overlooked and the final product is jumped into. The planning process is an important step in the success of any communications but especially in an organization where often times there is information overload. If a communication objective is not clearly thought through it is highly likely that the message will be missed.

In Chapter 1 there is a section called “Making the Invisible Visible” that states that taken-for-granted ideas cause us to overlook the origins of ideas. Communications has become one of those taken-for-granted ideas in organizations. It is such a common practice in the workplace that it has lost its ability to do what it was meant to do. We are all inundated with communications from corporate, from our managers, from our colleagues that they all just get lost in the shuffle. The goal now is to make communication that has become invisible visible again. When an organization wide announcement is sent out with a call to action in it we will know that it is being received, not just in an inbox but actual action is being taken by the intended audience. How do we do this? How do we make invisible communications visible again? I believe the first step to achieving such a task is by getting everyone back to the bare bone basics of communications that requires a plan from start to finish, clearly identifying and putting objectives into writing, identifying audiences and possible risks. I believe that this requires both the sender and receiver to be more aware and conscious of communications and to really see it rather than pass it over.