Communication Theories: Impact on Workplace Productivity

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Communication theories – an overview
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
Reference List................................................................................................................................13
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Introduction
Communication theory is an important concept to understand the theoretical as well as the
technical aspects of the communication process. This theory helps to understand the various
aspects of communication that will deliver the required information to boost the productivity in a
workplace. The assignment deals with the communication theories required by the HR and the
leaders for creating a better environment. It is very important for the HR and the leaders to have
an effective communication policy which will remove the invisible barriers between the HR
team and the subordinates. Several models of communication theory have been discussed here.
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Discussion
The communication theory affects the performance of the workforce in a company. It improves
the relationship between the HR staff and the subordinates. The communication channel should
be like a closed loop where the feedback from the employees can be used to develop the
company. Feedback in the communication channel is very important as it helps the team to grow
in a positive direction. It is very vital as it helps in the development of the skills of employee.
Any kind of feedback whether it is constructive or destructive will help the workforce to know
about the problems in their working style which will create a better environment, where the
people can work comfortably.
Figure 1: Communication channel general model
(Source: Massmep.org., 2019).
Some communication theories are mentioned below:
Thomas Gordon’s communication theory
Leader effectiveness training
The leaders and the HR of the company requires both management and communication skills
which will guide the team to achieve positive results. The leader effectiveness training
programme will help the leaders to develop productive and effective relationships with the teams
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in the working environment. Through this programme, the leaders can understand the
participation principles to confront any conflicts in the workplace and can identify the
roadblocks in the communication among the team members. The team can also get benefit from
the group-centred leadership which will try to reduce the load on the HR and a better
environment for the employees is created.
Parent effectiveness training
This training is one of the leading education programmes to train the parent but it benefits the
leaders and the HR too. The training programme helps the leader to develop various skills mainly
listening actively, controlling conflicts and troubleshooting problems in the workplace. This
programme will help the leaders and the management team to create better relationships with its
subordinates through its active listening process. This will try to reduce the barrier of
communication between the executive and the employee levels. Group discussions and role-play
will help the members to develop the necessary skills to maintain a cooperative atmosphere in
the workplace (gordonparenting.com, 2019). .
Win-win training
The win-win training programme is designed by Thomas Gordon which states some measures to
take so that the clashes in the workplace can be confronted easily. The programme states that the
clashes can be removed by an effective communication strategy which will help the team to
achieve the win-win situation. This will help the leaders and the HR to develop the required
skills to maintain a cooperative atmosphere that will boost the productivity of the company.
Palo-Alto group communication theory
Palo-Alto group theory deals with developing concepts to improve communications taking the
family model as a reference. It presents some important principles to get rid of the confusion
existing in the family by taking the guiding principles of Gregory Bateson, Donald Jackson and
Paul Watzlawick (Creativity.co.uk., 2019). .
For example, Palo Alto group helped the Tesla to improve the communication in the production
system of automobiles which increased its productivity (weforum.org, 2019).
Donald Jackson
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Donald Jackson has developed a 12-week leadership programme which will help the leader to
develop skills required in an organisation. It will help the leader as well as the HR to create
effective relationships with the team to boost productivity in the workplace. In every week of the
training programme, a particular objective is fulfilled. There are five important processes to
create an effective leader which are – creating a particular model, sharing vision with the
employees, creating challenges, encouraging and inspiring others to act as per the basic
requirements (Broadbent, 2013). The training programme will also try to identify and improve
the weaker areas which help the HR to focus on the communication issues that will boost
productivity in the workplace. The project management process is also explained which help the
HR how to allocate the resources and monitor the particular actions.
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson is one of the pioneers in the development of concepts required in leadership. He
tries to focus on the liminal leadership that is required in the workplace. The principles of the
liminal leadership programme is –
This leadership programme will help to improve the relational benefits in the workplace and that
helps in the development of the well-being of the people. It tries to remove the state of confusion
that exists in the minds of the people undergoing transformations in the workplace (Bateson,
2011). This programme will remove the hindrance and the obstacles faced in the team which will
help the employees to develop themselves. The leader will get the liminal skills to remove the
obstacles in the development process in the workplace (oasishumanrelations.org.uk, 2019).
Paul Watzlawick
He is one of the pioneers in this programme who has developed several theories to boost the
communication in the workplace. The communication can be either symmetrical or
complimentary depending on the condition experienced in the workplace. It is well known that
the interpersonal skills hold a huge importance in the capability lists of the HR and the leaders
utwente.nl. (2019). So, to improve this skill, he has developed the interactional model which has
five axioms which are –
Special importance is given on the non-verbal skills in the workplace because it can improve the
personality. Every communication has aspects reflecting the content and relationship will
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establish some kind of meta-communication between them. The relationship nature reflects how
the parties communicate with each other which states how the conversation is perceived by the
people. The human communication may involve the digital and the analog ones where the analog
means the things one like and the digital reflects the things by name. He also states that the
communication can take the form of either symmetrical or complimentary, where the
symmetrical means communicating based on equality in power whereas, the latter one means
communicating based on power difference. The theory states that a good relationship can exist
only when there is a balance of power between the executive and the subordinates. So, through
the principles of Watzlawick, the leaders and HR can learn how to maintain the power balance
with the employees which could create an effective atmosphere for them to progress.
Watzlawick reflects on the radical constructivism which sometimes hampers the work culture in
the business environment. Radical constructivism creates a personal world as per the views hold
by the HR which creates an uncomfortable scenario for the employees to work. So, through this,
they can escape the self-centred world which will help it to boost productivity in the workplace.
The theory will help the leaders and HR to get involved in an open-end communication that will
inspire the workforce to remain involved in the working environment.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Self-fulfilling prophecy theory reflects a false situation which inspires the others to do a work as
a result of which, they think that they can achieve the results but cannot do it. As Thomas reflects
in his words, if men can define the situations as real, then, the outcomes come to be parallel with
the perceptions. The self-fulfilling prophecy tries to create barriers in the interpersonal skills
required in the workplace. One of the examples is that if there is an employee who continuously
feels low and have no confidence on doing the work, then the task which he will try to do will
also be not successful. So, the entire blame will not only be on the employee but also the HR. As
he has not contributed some amount of time to develop the skills of the employee, the HR is also
to blame. This affects reputation of the company and the HR has to take appropriate steps to train
them for the situations. So, the leader or the HR should be given the Palo-Alto group
communication knowledge to remove the prophecy so the company remains in the profitable
side.
Meta-communication
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Through the Paul Watzlawick theory, one can understand the importance of meta-
communication in the workplace. Meta-communication helps to improve the logical and the
planning capabilities required by the HR. Through it, one can exert more influence on the team
and can create plans accordingly to boost confidence among its team members. It creates a better
employee engagement and as a result of which, the employee can understand what requires to be
done. A transparent atmosphere will remove the atmosphere of dilemma from the minds of the
employee and better relations are created in the team. It is one of the effective tools which try to
strengthen the communication channels in the workplace. This will relieve the staff in HR from
the critical handling cases within various teams, thereby creating emerging leaders for the
company.
For example, Saatchi and Saatchi use meta-communication to understand the barriers which the
employee is facing in its company. So, to reduce the barrier, it has collaborated with WARC to
use the meta-communication tool so that it can remain in a profitable side (Warc.com, 2019).
Figure 2: Meta-communication
(Source: Diana-jones.com, 2019)
CARE communication model
CARE model is used to carry out various programmes that are going to boost the communication
skills required in a workplace. The programmes are designed to inform the leaders and the HR to
create a sustainable environment which will benefit the employees where there will be a greater
job satisfaction and lower stress levels. The model is segmented into – content, appeal, ego-
message and relationship.
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The content part contains the relevance and the content of the information that the sends wants to
communicate to the receiver. The conversation should be intelligible which should be rational as
per the Hamburg Concept of Intelligilibility. This will engage the employees in the conversation.
The appeal or the feedback from the employees is recorded whether they are open or not. The
ego-message should reflect the congruency whether the employees are happy with their work or
is satisfied with the training programmes of the managemnet team.
Friedemann Schulz von Thun: the Four Sides of a Message
Friedemann Schulz von Thun states that every message is basically composed of four layers
which are –
 Factual data contains the facts and information regarding a particular topic.
 Appeal of the receiver
 Motives and emotions of the sender
 Relationship between the sender and the receiver.
The theory basically deals with the communication gap between the executives and the sub-
ordinates (Laleche.org.uk, 2016). This problem is very frequent in a workplace as the employees
cannot understand what the management team or the leader is trying to convey. Reducing this
barrier will boost the productivity of the workforce and will help in achieving the objectives set
by an organisation.
For example, a team is performing badly in a particular project. So, the factual data will be that
the team is a bottleneck. The appeal can be either to work better or to hire some talented people
to reduce the problem. The emotion of the sender can be that he has to take some steps to
improve the team’s performance. The relationship can be that the work done by the team is not
sufficient to meet the standards of a company.
Richard Bandler NLP
Richard Bandler is the co-founder of the Neuro-linguistic programming and is one of the
consultants to the top Fortune 500 companies. He has tried to create several workshops that teach
NLP to the leaders and the managers. The programme not only improves the performance of the
team at work but also try to maintain rapport and counter the negativity in the behaviour of the
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employees (nlpworld.co.uk, 2019). It drastically improves the ability to communicate in a better
manner. The skills learnt through this programme will not only improve the professional but also
personal lives also. Furthermore, latest techniques are provided to the leaders and the managers
which will improve the communication skills required in a workplace. It also teaches the leaders
to actively participate in the activities required to achieve the goals of the company.
For example, there are several BPOs and search engine companies who uses NLP to get more
consumers. Communicate2, a search engine marketing company uses the NLP to understand
what the online traffic demands and place the ads accordingly. This had increased the profit of
the company by a huge margin of 70% (economictimes.indiatimes.com, 2012).
Eric Berne Transactional Analysis
Transactional analysis as proposed by Eric Berne focuses on the interpersonal skills which are
required in the communication. It is a model that helps in the growth of the employees in the
team. Berne’s work mainly deals with the “ego states” and “OK Corral” theories (Berne, 2016).
The ego states theory helps in better understanding the communication between the people with
different ego states which may be parent, adult or a child. The OK Corral theory helps in creating
better customer relationships that helps the leaders to develop their skills. The model developed
by Berne will help the leaders to remain on a competitive edge and that benefits the team to
perform productively (Sites.psu.edu, 2014).
For example, a team may include two members X and Y in which X can perform better than Y.
So, according to transactional leadership, X is likely to follow the parent ego state whereas, Y
follows the child state.
Carl R Rogers’s Active listening theory
Carl Rogers focus on the approach of active listening which will help to bring vital changes in
the people. Listening will bring a change in the person’s attitudes and also bring a transformation
in the personal philosophy (Rogers, 2013). The advantage that the people can have is that the
group members become more open to communication and are cooperative in their actions. An
open environment is created where the people can freely engage in the communication. It helps
the leader and the managers to develop the listening skills to the queries of the employees. This
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increases the faith of the employees on the executives as listening can bring better relationships
between the executive and the employee levels (Gordontraining.com, 2012).
For example, General Electric is one of the few companies who have given huge importance to
the active listening skill. The benefit of introducing this skill was that the employee turnover
dropped by a huge factor of 25% (Forbes.com, 2016). This shows that active listening is one of
the main skills that a leader must possess.
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Conclusion
It can be concluded from the assignment that the communication theories have a major impact on
the leaders and the managers. The active listening theory helps the general electric to reduce the
employee turnover by implementing better communication channels. Several BPOs are now in a
profitable side by the successful application of NLP as the sales have increased without spending
useless on the online traffic tracking. Companies can use leader effectiveness training
programmes to create better leaders which could boost their productivity. Communication boosts
the productivity of the employees and improves the environment where they can work freely.
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