Contemporary Issues in Professional Business Communication

This essay discusses the importance of business communication in organizational development and highlights contemporary issues such as conflict situations, communication models, and strategies for communicating in an organization. The case study of Telstra is used to illustrate the issue of communication in professional business management.

INTERPERSONAL MANAGEMENT & E-COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note
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Topic: Contemporary issues in professional business communication
Introduction
Communication is a necessary aspect that conducts in the organisation for getting gel
with all the employees and management. This is a process the directly or indirectly affects the
situation of the organisation. There are basically two types of communication is persisted like
external communication and internal combination. The external communication is directed to the
environmental factors of the organisation, maybe in HR department, CSR department or
interacting with executives. On the other hand, internal communication is directed to employees
as the communication is more informal and more expressive than a person can deliver only when
they connect. People in an organisation are coming from different backgrounds and they are
carrying different culture as well but for the sake of unanimous aim and objective, they are
indulging their role. Conflict situation due to cross-cultural communication is the major aspect of
this situation and organisation tries to mitigate those situations for the access of development.
In this essay, Telstra Company of telecommunication and IT industry is the chosen aspect
to show the issue in communication in professional business management. The case study
signifies that Telstra has changed their CSR framework and influence the less carbon emission
process to save the globe and the process they choose to mitigate carbon emission is travel
cutting process (Telstra.com.au 2018). Meeting are coordinated in form of video conference and
that will influence less travel management and carbon will be emitted by that process. However,
communication process needs to be strong and effective enough to continue the process. Simple
understating and use of props and examples are required in this virtual form of communication
and through the advancement of social technology, the process will enhance a bit.
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The thesis statement of the essay is to understand the interpersonal relationship
engagement and effect of professional engagement due to communication. The aim of the
process is to determine the effects of communication and bringing more interaction process to
mitigate the conflicting issues in an organisation.
Organisational communication
Organisation communication is a form of transferring message from receiver to sender.
The process can be verbal or non-verbal but the way communication does, signifies the
commitment of employees, future position of organisation and retention of employees. In case of
effective communication, there are several enable direction of the communication like upward
communication, downward communication, diagonal communication and horizontal
communication.
Upward communication streams through employees to management. In this flow of
communication the basic understanding is to inform the management about the situation of the
lower level employees (Drury-Grogan and Russ 2013). In case they are not supporting any
system or they have some problem regarding their leader or they have faced any incorporation or
inefficiency from the management all these aspects are highlighted through this process.
Downward communication drifts their flow in communication from management to
employees. In style authoritative style of management has been noticed. In such cases, maybe
some strategies implemented by the management, executives arrange a meeting get to know the
applied thinking over the organisation and this is the importance of this communication process.
Diagonal communication streams through the people; those are not directly associated
with the organisation (Waldeck et al. 2012). They have no direct relationship with the
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organisational hierarchy and this process of communication is rarely used. As there is no direct
relationship with management, this type of communication is situation oriented. In that case may
be a meeting between labour union and employees with the top management, in that case,
middle-level managers are out of that context, so this communication can be considered as
diagonal one.
Horizontal communication flows in between the employees and department and every
section of employee communicate with their respective departmental employees (Cavusgil et al.
2014). This process is a relatively closed process and mostly used by the employee as they work
as the department or team basis. This is an independent and internal aspect or view that
employees will share with their departmental counterpart.
Conflict situation in the organisation
A conflict situation is the most hazardous situation in the organisation that directly
impact on the production of the organisation. A common obstacle to employee engagement and
responsiveness is a certainty that if company realize the other person's perspective. The
development of attainment to this place isn't always relaxed, because people can acquire very
ingrained in their perspectives and feelings, and very dreadful about what its resources to see
external those perceptions (Chen, Chiang and Storey 2012). There are certain conflict situations
that affect every individual, team and even the entire management of the organization. There are
several types of conflict situations and aspect of each form and consequence is different.
The first conflict situation is the vertical conflict and in this situation, micromanage
process has been introduced by the employee. The process is considered the maintenance that
employees and they have to obey what leader say and that is the conflict situation that arises in
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that case. The horizontal conflict imposed in the same department only. The scenario is happened
due to the hierarchical reason and there are different reasons organisation faces challenges. If the
designation of an employee in the department increases, other people are getting jealous of that
fact as they have the same potential to the workplace but they are not getting that position and
this is the reason of conflict making (Short, Randolph-Seng and McKenny 2013). The next
conflict situation is line staff conflict and that consider the line employees of the same
department. The conflict situation supports employees, departmental progression, and through
the process of the conflict situation, employee performance increase. Role conflict is an
incomplete reason of conflict situation as the situation persists for some moments and then only
the emotion of conflict arises. The understanding can be effective and realistic enough to
consolidate the approach but as the conflict process considered, the employee management in a
conflict situation is the concern reason behind that (French and Holden 2012). The issue of
conflict situation is realistic and that is the reason more social entities are used in communication
to mitigate the process.
Communication models
Shannon and Weaver model of communication is the effective understanding that a
perfect organisation should follow. The theory highlights the development of effective
communication and delivers the best position to move the interaction process forward. The
model is dealing with different types of segment process. At first, the sender originates some
messages and these messages are then encoded in a particular form. The main job of the receiver
on the other end is to decode the message and deliver feedback for that. In which, the message
encoded through is considered as the channel and these channels are apparent in most of the
times (Evans 2012). The channels may have some noise that interrupted the essence, meaning
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and even the timing of the message and this is the concern reason behind the effective signal
uses. The noise can be physical like horn sound, thunder or even the crowd noise but in most of
the cases people intervention or their unnecessary inputs are the main challenge and considered
as the noise also. The receiver of the model delivers a feedback after decoding the message and
that is the concerning aspect of the communication process.
The communication process highlights the applied version of organisational
communication which is important for the development of the organisation. The sender and
receiver policy of the communication is the organisation delivers the aspects of the
communication as well. In Telstra, the situation is quite similar to the communication is in
virtual form rather it is the technological medium that is used for the conversion process so the
intervention of noise is quite possible in that case. So the use of Shannon and Weaver model is
quite applicable for that reason.
Strategies for communicating in an organisation
Organisation culture maintenance is quite a tricky issue to be identified as employees
come from different backgrounds and they have different work culture as well. That is the reason
most of the strategies are implemented in case of managing the culture.
Ethnicity issues in communication are different in all the cases as people are from
different backgrounds and their language is also different (Ami-Narh and Williams 2012). There
are people in Telstra from US, UK and Australia so their basic language will be diverse and that
is the reason their cultures show them different path as well.
Gender issue in communication is also persisted in an organisation and the concern
reason of gender is to highlight the issues of interpersonal communication between male and
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female. Strict managerial decision sometimes has taken on those cases of gender but a healthy
consideration will be found if there is no such option to flow the communication process.
There are some people in the organisation who are disabling in physical standard due to
some incidents. People need to talk with them in a conventional manner (Dzakiria 2012). An
unconventional approach towards them is not the way of communicating in a right way rather a
normal conversation with them is the desirable option.
Managing conflict process
There are five stages of conflict process and all the stages are incorporating organisation
development to mitigate the process. Potential opposition or incompatibility process has the
stages of communications and through the communication better exchange process can be done.
The exchange is informative and in form of verbal and non-verbal procedures. After that
structure is another process that can mitigate the process of the conflict situation. The variable
sizes goal compatibility, leadership styles all these are important for the structural issue that
persisted better situation analysis for the management. In case of tenure and conflict cases, size
of a group is important and jurisdiction clarity is needed in that case (Buabeng-Andoh 2012).
The next main stage is cognition and personalisation. Through this process, experience anxiety,
hostility and tension is the major concern for the business and that influences the process. The
process highlights the emotional attachment to the individual and that is the concerning aspect of
shaping perception of an employee. The next stage is intentions and this stage is considered with
competing, collaborating, avoiding, accommodating and compromising stages. These are the
steps that used in conflict handle cases and that imposed in form of intentional acceleration of
handling the process. The behaviour stage is the next stage in the organisation and in this stage,
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the behavioural mentality of employees is the concern factor for the management. The last stage
is outcomes and through the outcomes improvement in group performance is allowed and that
controllable improvement in the organisation helps the process of creativity and innovation in
between workplace and innovations also to take part of that and self-evaluate the matter of
change. The improved quality of the group performance is the most challenging matter for the
communication a controlled mitigation is needed for that.
Team bonding and stakeholder involvement
Team bonding is one of the concern factors of an organisation and the bonding will
enrich in a higher manner if the possible understating are maintained. The first factor is
motivation and team leaders have to motivate their team members to work in a diligent manner
so that organisation can gain some effective consequences (Austin 2012). The next section is
maintaining formality and the formality needs to be maintained with value and respect. In case of
stakeholders, attaining them carefully and understand their feeling is the concerning aspect of the
organisation. Specific and clear communication is needed in that case so that no such
miscommunication will be persisted for that matter. Team bonding can mitigate the conflict
situation and professional communication is liable for that fact. Leaders need to take this
initiative and deliver their best to make a bondage and involvement in the organisation.
Conclusion
Therefore it can be concluded that business communication is important for the
development of the organisation and there are some contemporary issues that are placed in
between this to improve the position of the organisation. The business categories of
communication can be measured a common verbal communication for any business, no matter
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its area of proficiency. This type of communication has the solitary purpose of civilizing the
organizational practices, dipping the errors and providing a clear supervision, for the team
members. The areas of the conflict situation and the mitigation process also deliver for the long-
term sustainability in business.
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