Management Communication Analysis

Abstract

Until recently, it has been assumed that within a corporation communications follow the lines drawn upon an organization chart. With this goes the belief that with clarity, a judicious balance of authority and cajolery, and the need to keep the organization going, the flow of messages will do what is required. Since failure of communication is, throughout the world, recognized as the principal cause of disputes and error of management, these assumptions must become suspect. Communication analysis is more than a branch of management science; it is the basic instrument of the science as mathematics is the basic instrument of engineering. As mathematicians use instruments like computers to expedite their work, communications analysts use media; but, in neither case does the instrument do the creative work. In communication systems, the basic problems arise from human relationships, and for this reason it is a mistake to suppose that communication consists in the flow of orders and information and that the obstacles to communication are mainly economic and political. The real purpose of any communication is to evoke a positive response, whether in the form of overt action or a change of inner attitude. A message that has no effect upon either the behavior or the attitude of the recipient is not a communication.