CONCEPTS OF COMMUNICATION

 

 Introduction

 The paper discusses a scenario I encountered working for a sales company. The lasswell model of communication and its effectiveness in carrying out organizational communication that require channels such as social media and media channels. The Shannon weaver model of communication and its effectiveness.  This paper also discusses the implications of ineffective communication in an organization.

The scenario

I received a note from company’s the operations manager with the information that the sales target set for the sales team for the previous month were not met, the note stated that the sales team efforts needed to be improved, the note also stated that he was expecting to see change in the way the sales team the team performed its duties and change in Sales strategies. The note was short but the manager informed that he will be reviewing the sales record.

The Concept

This communication is as a result of the Lasswell communication model which is made up of five elements; that include who passed the information, which channel was used and what was the effect of the information.  The lasswell model is also referred to as the linear model of communication and it describes communication as a one-way process.  The first element of this model is Who? this element is defined by who is the communicator or the sender who is responsible for composing and passing the message, and by the management which gives the sender the power to pass on information.  The second element of this model is What? Which encompass the contents of the message and the aim of the message or the secondary motive of the information in the message. To whom? is another element that defines this model, this element describes who will receive the information, the receiver of the information can be a targeted group or an individual, a message must have an audience. Which channel? Is the last element that defines this model, this element is described by the results of the message. To describe the desire effect of the message of then the triangle of success is used, the effect of the message has to be predicted before the actual message is passed so that the message can be aimed at a specific audience (Wenxiu, 2015.).

This model has been known to function better when passing on communication advice in business. through answering the five questions communication advisors are able to tell which campaigns need to be carried out and which need not (Wenxiu, 2015.).  This concept is relevance to the above scenario because it has a few of the elements that describe this concept, to whom, the note was addressed to me, the contents of the notes are clearly outlined, thought what are the effects of that not the sender of the information could not know since it was delivered to me by his secretary.

 The Shannon weaver model is another model of communication which was constructed by two Americans, Shannon who was a mathematician while weaver was a scientist. This model is more technological than all other models. The concepts of this model are; the sender who happens to be the person who conceives the message and the one in a position to choose the channel that is used to send the message. The Encoder who is referred to as the transmitter who is responsible for using the machine that is used to convert message into signals or binary data, the encoder does not have to be necessarily a person but the machine itself. Channel is another element of this model, this simply refers to the channel that is used to send this message.  Decoder which is also referred to as the receive can be the machine or person on the other end who uses the machine to convert the binary data to an actual message that can be understood. The receiver is another element of this model, this is the person who receives the message. This model is also defined, by noise which is the disturbance like environment and people (Al-Fedaghi, 2012).

For this communication model the sender is the one who encodes the message and send it to the receiver through a channel that is technological such as a phone or a telegraph, the sender is also responsible for converting the message into codes that the machine can understand, the message is sent as codes that only the machine can understand. The receiver who is on the other end will have to decode the information in order to understand and interpret it, the receptor machine acts as the decoder, Noise is a disturbance that can be found in the channel and this may bring problems in the communication channel, thus making it hard for the receiver to decode the message (Al-Fedaghi, 2012).  Shannon was a mathematical engineer and her main goal with this communication model was to improve technical communication by maximizing the capacity of telephone with minimum disturbance such as noise. Later, Weaver applied this model to all kinds of communication to develop effective communication thus the name, Shannon Weaver model. This model of communication makes communication a two-way process thus making it effective to carry out general communication and makes communication more effective since the sender and receiver are taking time to interpret the message before giving feedback.

 This model of communication would have helped manage the incident in the scenario better since this model is effective for business communication (Al-Fedaghi, 2012). The operations manager who is the sender would have made a phone call and the telephone network company would have been the encoder, mobile network would have been the channel, the noise from my colleagues would have been the disturbance, my mobile phone would have been the decoder and I the receiver. This channel of communication would have allowed me to give feedback to the manager and explain the reason why sales target was not met the previous month and also I would have been able to enquire if he will be reviewing the sales records monthly or weekly.  Communication between me and the operations manager was not effective. Despite the effectiveness of this model in making business communication it has its problems; technical problems occur when the channel of sending the message are not working properly, sematic problem occurs when the receiver gets the wrong message from the intended one and effectiveness problem occur when the message does not cause a reaction.

Effective business communication is important when passing information is a company.  It is only through effective communication that the employees and the management interact to achieve set organizational goals.  Communication in business is important in presenting opinions, directing operations and making business proposals. Effective communication in an organization is important when it comes to making clear expectations of employees (Bucăţa, et al., 2017). Using the note, the operations manager failed to clearly state his expectations from the sales team. Communication is also effective in building and nurturing strong work relationships, this strong relationship can only be built by conveying information and receiving feedback which is positive and constructive.  Effective communication plays an important role when it comes to passing on ideas and new strategies, if communication between me and the operations manager would have been effective I believe he was in a place to help check existing sales strategies and help device new strategies.

Conclusion

 From the incident Lasswell communication method is effective in business communication that involve carrying out campaign about products while the Shannon weaver model is effective in carrying out effective business communication that involve sending messages from one office to another and receiving feedback.

 

 

 

 

References List

Wenxiu, P., 2015. Analysis of new media communication based on Lasswell’s “5W” model. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 5(3), p.245.

Al-Fedaghi, S., 2012. Codeless communication and the Shannon-Weaver model. In presented at 2012 International Conference on Software and Computer Applications (ICSCA 2012).

Bucăţa, G. and Rizescu, A.M., 2017. The role of communication in enhancing work effectiveness of an organization. Land Forces Academy Review, 22(1), pp.49-57.