The purpose of the proposal is to enhance organizational communication by implementing an innovative communication structure that would improve organizational communication.
The Executive Summary
Due to the inefficiency of the current organizational communication structure, there is a need to extensively improve the communication structure. The main areas of improvement include interpersonal organization communication, active listening, conflict solving. Also, the project will focus on effective organizational leadership and the importance of strong organizational culture. The proposal also outlines the benefits, costs, and timeline of the project.
The Background Information
The Statement of Need
The quality of organizational communication is very important in our organization. It is mainly through communication that the organizational participants accomplish organizational tasks to meet the organization’s goals. The quality of our current communication system is inadequate due to the organizational members frequent abuse of informal communication, unwillingness to provide feedback to management, and inability to manage and resolve organizational conflicts.
The organizational participants often abuse informal organizational communication by spreading rumors and gossiping about other organizational participants. Such communication is inappropriate in the workplace and is considered to be unethical. According to Kreps (2011) “unethical communication behaviors will undermine interpersonal relationships, destroy trust between relational partners, and decrease cooperation and coordination” (p. 4.4). In order for organizational participants to collaborate with one another, informal communication has to be limited only to appropriate topics and exclude spreading gossip about other members.
The organization’s performance also suffers as result of the lack of effective leadership skills among the management team members. As I have noticed in our organization, managers often compete for power, which results in giving mixed messages to the employees. This, in turn, leads to poor work performance and inability to accomplish important organizational tasks. That is why training in leadership skills will be essential to improve organizational performance and increase employee satisfaction.
After a thorough examination of the current structure of the organizational communication, I have identified the following areas of communication that will benefit from an improved communication structure:
• Organizational leaders need to encourage feedback from other employees
• Organizational participants need to focus on the active listening skills
• The leaders have to enhance their leadership skills.
• The company employees need to learn how to manage an interpersonal conflict.
• The organization’s leaders have to enhance the understanding of the organizational culture.
The Project Description
In order to enhance basic interpersonal organizational communication skills, first we need to focus on improving the formal and informal lines of communication among the members of the organization. Formal organizational communication is important because it is the main channel for the organizational members to share work-related information. The main reason to improve formal communication is to encourage employees to provide feedback to the organization’s leaders. Feedback is essential in organizational communication, because, according to Spaho (2010), it is the “lifeline of effective communication. Without [feedback], senders and receivers are far less likely to achieve mutual understanding about the message” (p. 1374). Because of the frequent misunderstandings occurring within the organization, it is essential to encourage feedback.
In order to implement feedback in organizational communication structure, the organization’s leaders have to reward the employees for providing honest and timely feedback. One way to implement this strategy is through a reward program. Employees who provide the most relevant feedback can be rewarded with a monetary bonus of $5.00.
Another way to promote feedback is though establishing an open communication between the leaders and the employees. For example, the leaders have to make themselves available to listen and respond to the messages of other organizational members. In order to establish an open communication, leaders need to exhibit active listening skills to fully understand the information that other members are trying to communicate to them.
In order to improve informal communication, organizational leaders will have to inform the organizational participants that unethical communication will not be tolerated in the organization. Organizational participants will have an opportunity to report any instances of unethical communication anonymously to a manager. The manager, then, will have to take a disciplinary action against the employee distributing rumors. A disciplinary action may include watching a video about the company’s ethics. Although it can be hard to control informal communication, the organizational leaders have to insure the quality of information flowing through the organizational grapevine.
Organizational members have to possess excellent active listening skills in order to professionally communicate with one another. Active listening, according to Kreps (2011), “involves paying close attention to your partner’s verbal and nonverbal behaviors, taking into consideration the full extent of what they are trying to communicate to you as well as what they may be communicating to you inadvertently” (p. 4.3). Active listening skills enable an organizational participant to hear another person out and to ask relevant questions to make sure that he or she has understood the information in its entirety.
One way to improve the organizational participants’ active listening skills is to conduct an interpersonal training sessions involving all the members of the organization. For example, all the employees can be divided into several small groups. Then, in a small group session, the selected speaker should tell a somewhat “complicated” story with many twists and turns. Once the story is told, the employees can ask the speaker questions to make sure they have understood the narrative correctly. Then, ask someone in the group to summarize or paraphrase the story.
Another way to improve active listening skills is to develop and conduct an interactive computer training for all of the organizational participants. This method, however, may be more time consuming and more costly for the organization than the previously suggested approach.
Active listening skills are not only helpful in organizational communication, but also in conflict management. It is through active listening that the conflicting parties are able to listen to each other’s side of the story without interrupting each other. Although organizational interpersonal conflicts are inevitable, there are communication strategies for managing interpersonal organizational conflicts. Abigail and Cahn (2011) write that, “whether the presence of conflict in organizations becomes productive or destructive, improves functioning or derails the organization from its task depends upon team members response to it” (p. 255). Because organizational conflict can either have productive or destructive results, it is important for all of the organizational participants to learn effective conflict management strategies.
In order to implement conflict management strategies into the organizational life, first the organization has to conduct three 30-minute conflict management sessions with the employees. During each session, the participants will discuss and practice effective group conflict management strategies. Such strategies, according to Kreps (2011) include “maintaining open minds toward other points of view,” focusing on the “ideational conflict” in stead of personal issues, and “encourag[ing] group members to look for productive areas of compromise between their own positions and the positions expressed by others” (p. 5.8). At the end of the third session, each participant will be required to write a two-page paper describing what he or she has learned during the sessions, and how the employee is planning to use this knowledge at work.
In order to improve their leadership skills, the organizational managers will have to take an hour-long leadership training class, where they will learn how to develop and maintain credibility, which, according to Kresp (2011) can be established and maintained through such qualities as “expertise, trustworthiness, and charisma” (p. 7.4). Establishing credibility will enable the organization’s leaders to improve interpersonal organizational relationships with the organizational participants and to advance their overall interpersonal communication skills. Also, the leaders will learn how to use both formal and informal channels of communication to distribute important information to the organizational participants. The goal of this training program is to enable the organizational leaders to become better communicators within the interorganizational field.
Organizational culture plays an important role in organization. It is through the organizational culture that the organizational employees learn about the norms, values, and traditions of the organization and are able to share this information with the external organizational members. Organizational participants who believe in their organization’s values and mission are more likely to put more effort into their job, because they are proud and committed to the organization they work for.
Organizational culture training will provide necessary information about the history and the development of the organization, as well as the goals and mission of the organization. Employees, who are aware about their company’s culture, are not only able to share this culture among each other, but also with the external organizational members, such as customers and investors. According to a study cited in Rogers and Meehan (2007), “nearly 70% of business leaders agree: culture provides the greatest source of competitive advantage. In fact, more than 80% believe an organization lacking a high-performance culture is doomed to mediocrity” (p. 254). Organizations who have strong cultures are often more successful and prosperous than the organizations with weak cultures.
In order to learn about the company’s culture, all of the organizational members will be required to watch and discuss an educational one-hour video called “Company history: From start to present.” This video provides the information about the company’s history, traditions, values, mission, and vision.
The Timeline of the Project
The Budget Information
1. The interpersonal training sessions to improve active listening will cost the company around $100.00, because the training is going to take place on the company’s premises without involving a third-party speaker. The second option of the training video, however, would cost the company $200.00. It will also take longer time to implement this training, because we will have to order the video from the corporate headquarters.
2. The conflict-management sessions will cost the company $300.00 to cover the cost of the training materials and shipping.
3. The leadership training will cost $300.00 and cover the cost of a textbook, a video, and other educational materials.
4. Organizational culture training will cost the company $200.00, which will cover the cost of video and video equipment.
5. The cost of the implementation of the “Reward for feedback” program is estimated to be $500.00 to cover the cost of small monetary rewards ($5.00 each) to the employees providing a feedback.
The total estimated cost for the project is between $1400.00 and $1500.00, which is significantly lower than the cost of similar programs provided by the third-party companies. This low cost is due to providing an in-house training without involving any third-party speakers or lecturers. Although some individuals may regard this cost as high, the benefits of this program (described below) outweigh its costs.
The Benefits
The benefits of the innovative communication structure will include improvement in the organization’s productivity, ability to resolve interpersonal conflicts, and improvement in communication among the employees and the organization’s leaders. Implementation of such communication strategies as formal and informal communication, active listening, effective leadership, successful conflict management and resolution, as well as focusing on the organizational culture will enhance organizational communication while improving the interpersonal communication skills of the organizational participants.
Conclusion
The goal of this proposal is to offer a feasible and cost-efficient plan to implement a new organizational communication structure. The given communication structure is expected to meet the organization’s communication needs in the areas of formal and informal communication, active listening, conflict management, organizational leadership, and organizational culture.
Because the timing is important, I would encourage the organization’s management team to carefully review this proposal and decide to take an action to improve the organizational communication. The estimated cost of the program is worth the company’s investment into its leaders and employees. The improved organizational structure will enable the organization to become more effective in accomplishing its tasks and goals, and to effectively share its culture and mission with the external organization’s environment.
References:
Abigail, R.A., & Cahn, D.D. (2011). Managing conflict through communication. (4th ed.).Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Kreps, G.L. (2011). Communication in organizations. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint
Education, Inc.lik
Rogers, P., & Meehan, P. (2007). Building a winning culture. Business Strategy Series, 8(4),
p. 254-261. Retrieved April 16, 2012, from ProQuest student database. (Document ID:
1374488681).
Spaho, K. (2010, May 26). Organizational communication as key factor of company success.
An Enterprise Odyssey. International Conference Proceedings, pp. 1372-1382, 18.
Retrieved April 16, 2012, from ProQuest student database. (Document ID: 2098096501).
Trenholm, S. (2011). Thinking through communication. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn &
Bacon.
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