Organizational Communication + Virtual teams

Organizational Communication

First start by giving a definition of comunication: “Communication is the evoking of shared or common meaning in another person”(1). In spite of the fact that there are to types of communication interpersonal communication and technological communication (email, teleconferencing, e-meetings), i’m only focusing on interpersonal communication.

Interpersonal communication is the one carry out by two or more people in an organization through direct contact “Face to Face” by which people built and sustain relationships at work. This kind of communication has four key elements: sender, receiver, perception filter and the message.

Image 1

Inside organization effective communication is very important in order to maintain coordination and transmit the correct information between all members of a organization. That is why reflective listening is a very important aspect inside a any organization as it allows receiver and sender to better and clearly understand any given message. Reflective listening consist of four levels of verbal response: affirming contact, paraphrasing expressed thoughts and feelings, clarifying implicit thoughts and feelings, and finally reflecting core feeling not fully expressed(2). This kind of communication requires the involvement of both sender and receiver in order to be successful in avoiding misunderstandings and generate a clear message.

When talking about communication we can no forget that most of the communication process takes the form of nonverbal communication, so it is important to be able to control this kind of communication in order to positively influence the communication process. This appear more important when dealing with people of other cultures as many of their nonverbal communication is very different from ours.The aspects to be taken into account are: proxemics ( the perception of space), kinesis ( body movements), Facial and eye behavior, and paralanguage (Variations in speech).

There is also important to take into account the barriers for communication as if we know them we can avoid or correctly manage them. The most common important are: language, semantics, noise, time, distance, age, gender, status, attitudes and values, perception, close-mindness, distortion, bad listening and emotions.

Virtual teams

Virtual teams can be defined as “a group of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed coworkers assembled using a combination of information and communications technologies for accomplishing and organizational task”(3).

The advantages of virtual teams can be:

Reduction of costs

More time flexibility for employees

Productivity increase

Taking advantage of talent work force spread around the world

Sharing of information around the world

The disadvantages of virtual teams can be:

The cost of setting virtual networks

Control is difficult

Ineffective communication (Lack of face to face communication)

Not all people have the psychological disposition to be part of a virtual team.

Training of personal.

Different time zones, cultures and languages

Lack of trust

In conclusion virtual teams will not replace traditional teams because not all organizational structures allowed their implementation but for those that allow virtual teams, specially knowledge organizations or knowledge areas within an organization, appear as a great opportunity to improve development of many organizational projects.

Based on the article “If Intercontinental were a sound…what would it be?”*, Please discuss the implications (potential advantages, disadvantages, challenges, etc.) of using sounds to send strategic messages. You need to integrate the use of key concepts relating to the topic of communication to support your answer.

When we talk about communication the first thing that comes to our mind are words but as it has been proved that around 65 to 90 percent of the meaning carried by a message is done through nonverbal communication. Thus, sounds appear as an important aspect to sent strategic messages with satisfactory information to costumer because sounds if well chosen, they can go deep into the peoples values’ core and create a positive attitude and perception of given brand by making it acknowledgeable and appealing to consumers.

The problem of using sounds is that at first glance they are a very subjective concept and what can be appealing to someone can not be to other. So in order to identify which sounds are appealing to a wide group of people the perception screens have to be over come in order to go deeper into the core values that identify any given group in order to avoid giving the wrong message.

sources:

• (1) Nelson, D.L & Quick, J.C. 2010. Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publishing. Chapter 8.
• Image 1: http://www.infofanz.com/2009/01/29/the-business-communication-1 (2010)
• (2)Nelson, D.L & Quick, J.C. 2010. Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publishing. Chapter 8.
• (3) A. M. Townsend, S. DeMarie, and A.R. Hendrickson, “Virtual Teams: Technology and the work- place of the future,” Academy of Management Executive, 12, 3 (1998), pp. 17–28.