The Hindu Business Line : <I> Human communication</I>

Of all the numerous facets of management, the most complex is the one to do with human communication. This is not just because human beings are complex in themselves. Of course, they are veritable continents vast parts of which can remain unchartered even after years of continued relationship, as in the case of husband and wife or long-standing friends. No machine or contraption comes anywhere near human personalities in intricacy. That is why it is sometimes difficult for even two individuals to communicate purposefully, in the sense of making each other understood in respect of what is sought to be conveyed or done.

In organisations having large workforces, depending for their effectiveness and success on aligning the perceptions of stakeholders to specified goals and making them think and act in unison, maintaining channels of communication unclogged becomes vitally important. If that kind of harmony does not prevail, the condition of the organisation will be like a patient afflicted with palsy: Each limb of the body moves on its own without any coordination or control, because the commands sent out from the central nervous system to different parts of the body get garbled or blocked.

Yawning gulf

Remaining constantly connected by means of free-flowing communication serves several purposes imperative for the very survival of the organisation: At the very minimum, it provides a feed-back on the functioning of the enterprise, which is of great value in steering it along the right direction. It brings to light, and helps remove, grievances and bottlenecks, and thereby, inculcates a sense of contentment and belonging. It can be used to encourage the personnel to come up with creative and innovative ideas for the betterment of the enterprise, and thereby generate the energy, urge and sense of identification to push the enterprise to greater levels of performance.

Communication whose purport is fully and clearly understood is the only means of bridging the yawning gulf that usually separates the bottom-most tiers from the top management set up, going by whatever description — Chairman, CEO, Board of Directors, or the Executive Committee. Besides these, there are also functional committees for planning and design, project management, operations and maintenance, sales and marketing, finance and accounts, research and development, and so on, which need to draw on the views and experiences of personnel engaged in those types of activities.

Let us pose the question in simple terms: Does the distant employee (who is also invisible to the movers and shakers of the top crust as they go about their day-to-day goal-setting and policy making) think about the future growth of the organisation with the same intensity and passion as the Chairman does? Do both share the same vision and sense of mission? If the answer is yes, the enterprise will prosper; if the answer is no, the enterprise is fated to decline and eventually disappear. The problem in connecting the top bosses with the distant (and invisible) employee, is most acute and chronic in organisations spread over different parts of the same country or the globe; add functional diversity and huge staff strength divided into in numerous categories and hierarchies, and the situation becomes well-nigh unmanageable.

No satisfactory solution has been found, although a variety of methods — such as periodical get-togethers, CEOs reaching out to the employees via newsletters, intra-net and the like, calling the employees to a video assembly for open exchange of views — have been tried, but have played only a limited part in fostering the participative culture of organisations. The field is open to suggestions.

B. S. RAGHAVAN