The Communication Process or Cycle

The Communication Process or Cycle

Many of the problems that occur in an

organization are the direct result of people

failing to communicate. Faulty

communication causes the most problems. It leads to confusion and can cause a good plan to fail.

Communication is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another. It involves

a sender transmitting an idea to a receiver. And effective communication occurs only if the receiver

1. Idea: Information exists in the mind of the sender (who is the source). This can be a concept, idea,

information, or feelings.

2. Encoding: The source initiates a message by encoding the idea (or a thought) in words or symbols and

sends it to a receiver.

The message is the actual physical product from the source encoding. When we speak, the speech is the

message. When we write, the writing is the message. When we gesture, the movements of our arms and

the expressions of our faces are the message.

3. The Channel: The channel in the communication process is the medium that the sender uses to

transmit the message to the receiver. Care needs to be exercised in selecting the most effective channel for

each message. Even though both an oral and a written medium may be appropriate to transmit a particular

message, one medium may be more effective than the other. To illustrate, let’s assume that an individual

desires an immediate reply to a question. Although the message could be in either an oral or a written

form, the oral medium most likely will be more effective because of the immediacy, if required.

In selecting an appropriate channel, the sender must assess the following factors, as the situation

demands:

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4. Decoding: It is the act of understanding messages (words or symbols). This is known as Decoding.

When the sound waves are translated into ideas, we are taking them out of the code they are in, hence

decoding. Thus, listeners and readers are often regarded as Decoders.

During the transmitting of the message, two processes will be received by the receiver. Content and

Context.

Content is the actual words or symbols of the message which is known as language – i.e. spoken and

written words combined into phrases that make grammatical and semantic (meaning) sense. We all use

Communication rarely takes place over only one channel; two or three even four channels

and interpret the meanings of words differently, so even simple messages can be misunderstood (Are you

going to give me or not?). And many words have different meanings to confuse the issue even more (You

are smart.).

Context is the way the message is delivered and is known as Paralanguage - tone of voice, the look in

the sender's eye's, body language, hand gestures, state of emotion (anger, fear, uncertainty, confidence,

etc.). Paralanguage causes messages to be misunderstood as we believe what we see more than what we

hear; we trust the accuracy of nonverbal behaviors more than verbal behaviors.

Many managers think they have communicated once they told someone to do something, "I don't know

why was not the work done?...I told my Secretary to do it." As a matter of fact, the secretary

misunderstood the message.

Remember: A message is never communicated unless it is understood by the receiver.

Question arises then, how do you know a message has been properly received?

5. Feedback: By two-way communication or feedback. This feedback will tell the sender that the receiver

understood the message, its level of importance, and what must be done with it.

So the feedback loop is the final link in the communication process. Feedback is the check on how

successful we have been, in transferring our messages as originally intended. It determines whether

understanding has been achieved or not.

The purpose of feedback is to change and alter messages so the intention of the original communicator is

understood by the second communicator. It includes verbal and nonverbal responses to another person's

messageThere are five main categories of feedback. They are listed in the order in which they occur most

frequently in daily conversations.

1. Evaluation: Making a judgment about the worth, goodness, or appropriateness of the sender's

statement.

2. Interpretation: Paraphrasing - attempting to explain what the sender's statement means.

3. Support: Attempting to assist or support the sender.

4. Probing: Attempting to gain additional information, continue the discussion, or clarify a point.

5. Understanding: Attempting to discover completely what the sender means by his/her statement.

Noise: The presence of noise can result in fairly significant problems in the communication process.

Unfortunately, communication is effected by noise, which is anything – whether in the sender, the

transmission, on the receiver – that hinders communication.

For example:

o A noisy environment may hinder the development of a clear thought.

o Encoding may be faulty because of the use of ambiguous symbols.

o Transmission may be interrupted by noise in the channel, such as a poor telephone

connection, misprinted text, or maybe a typographical mistake.

o Inaccurate reception may be caused by inattention.