Let's start by recognizing that in every organization there is communication even if there is no communications department. So why deal with something that always worked without anyone lifting a finger? Tell me frankly, don't you think that the company already has too many concerns to add a new one? In addition to having to think about how to increase productivity, gain new markets and reach agreements with the unions… now you ask that you also dedicate time and effort to something as "immaterial" as communication?
Wait a second, don't rush. Let's go step by step and see if we can demonstrate that working towards good communication is not an action contrary to business objectives.
First of all, it is true: communication exists in organizations no matter how much nobody deals with it. So simple? No, because precisely this "naturalness" is her Achilles heel. In other words, it is obvious that if no one is in charge of the administrative area, payments and collections will not be done alone. Instead, communication, being a spontaneous and multidimensional activity, tends to be ignored.
Second, proposing to the organization to take charge of communication is not adding a new problem to it but opening its eyes to take advantage of a resource that it always had but perhaps never consciously used. It seems strange, doesn't it? It is as if one suddenly reveals that computers can work better if turned on. However, our proposal is not as simple as pressing a button, because before asking the company to joyfully “exploit” the benefits of good communication, it is necessary to take a preliminary step and demonstrate that it is also a good that can and should be exploited. (Someone might wonder why there is this "invisibility" of communication as a resource.Let me rehearse a poetic answer and say that perhaps it is for the same reason that fish cannot think about water: because it is their environment.)
Regarding the last point, that of the "immateriality" of communication, let us say for now that Parmenides' prohibition on thinking nothingness does not apply in this case. Just because something is intangible does not mean it is not real.
In short, the problem of the "naturalness" of communication and its "invisibility" as a resource are two aspects that, after all, are but one. Therefore, it is not a question of abandoning oneself to the pure aesthetic contemplation of human interaction, much less applying a spontaneist or innate concept of communication. On the contrary, the alternative is to propose an intervention based on action and not on omission, and alert that the act of communicating involves difficulties and demands effort, suitability and coherence.
Wait, don't sing victory… do you think what we just said is enough? I appreciate your faith, but I am sorry to disappoint you: Most companies are convinced that they communicate correctly and that internal communication is nothing more than a "fad" imported from the First World.
Beyond ready-to-wear, planning communication is not denaturing a practice or putting a straitjacket on human interaction. Perhaps the idea, roughly, that the end is to "go down the line", limit the "sayable" and, consequently, the "thinkable", flies over. On the contrary, the objective is to generate more and better interaction between the participants of the organization, since in most cases the Finance sector has no idea what the Production area does, no one can speak to managers., the objectives for the next year are not known, etc.
For all this, it is worth remembering that an organization cannot be formed simply by working in the same company or under the same roof. We said that the essence of the organization was communication (like "water" for the "fish"); Let us now add that from this it follows - following its etymological root - the concepts of "common" and "community". Now, as John Dewey warns in his book Democracy and Education, people can work for the same purpose, like the parts of a machine, without thereby constituting a community. The key to achieving this is recognizing that common goal and regulating the specific activity in view of it. This certainly involves communication.That is why our author concludes that each person should know what the others know and also possess some means to keep them informed regarding their own purposes and progress.
I open a question: Do we work in community in our company? I am going to be more specific: Is the communication that our organization feeds daily, "puts us in common"? Is it really being used as a "resource"?
To conclude, I would like to point out that one of the strategic objectives of communication is to increase productivity, either by eliminating double processes, ensuring the delivery of information in a timely manner, or, for example, improving the internal climate. However, for the first time in history, western culture is producing more information than the "human being" can "humanly" consume. Day after day a dense network of signs is woven that leaves us trapped without the possibility of interpreting or reworking them. Perhaps the paradox is only a strategy of the mass media - and in fact it is - but the truth is that the excess of information misinforms us.
Why am I dwelling on this analysis? Because from the stimulating and imprecise positivist recipe "more communication = more productivity" many companies fall victim to the paradox we mentioned earlier: "more communication = less productivity".
Let's get some accounts. Daily, an average employee can receive:
- 20 emails. 1 letter. 4 faxes. 5 post-it notes (left on the monitor when he went to lunch). 30 phone calls. 6 messages on his voicemail (they were recorded while he attended to the other 30 In addition, 8 people approached him personally to consult him and he spent 45 minutes meeting with his boss discussing the “Immortality of the Caspian Sea crab”.
After doing all this, how much time did you have left to work? Yes, yes, I know that if I am proclaiming the advantages of a communicative organization, I cannot now be alarmed by the fact that people communicate a lot. But that is exactly the most frequent mistake: believing that more communication automatically means better results. In any case, the key question of this process revolves around the value of what is communicated. Going back to our previous example, maybe that person was told the same things fifty times but they never gave them the information they really needed or, worse yet, they never allowed them to comment on what they were saying.
In summary, the company cannot decide whether or not to do internal communication. Always, and badly that it weighs him, he will be communicating. Therefore, you must abandon the “naturalistic” view of communication and actively work on developing a policy and plan that allows you to take advantage of it to obtain more and better results. This revaluation will inevitably go hand in hand with the rediscovery of communication as a resource and a strategic asset. However, it will be necessary not to saturate the organization's arteries with liters of low-value communication or to limit it to simple one-way information shipments.
I have already told you: the act of communicating involves difficulties and demands effort, suitability and coherence.
