Causes of Ineffective Communication

Keywords: management bad communication, ineffective management communication

The study of communication is the study of the process of one person transmits information by speech, signs, or actions to another. In addition, the information is often expressed nonverbally and verbally.

The non-verbal communication is the person deliver information without speaking single words but with the act like facial gestures, body language, appearance of one person to impress others and the tone of voice. The tone of voice, for example, a same sentence with different tone of voice will reflect different feeling to the listeners, such as yelling and crying while saying okay. The verbal communication is the person speaks out with words directly (“What is the Definition of Communication?” , N/A).

Experts tell us that of the total impact of a presentation, only seven percent is determined by the words we use (verbal); thirty-eight percent by the tone of our voice (vocal), and a fifty-five percent comes from nonverbal cues ( “The Definition of Communication”, Dr. Hoffmann, 2010). Furthermore, communication can be appear in variety of forms such as downward communication, upward communication, horizontal communication, intrapersonal communication, interpersonal communication, lateral communication, diagonal communication and so forth.

The ideal reference of communication is the process of transmit information and mutual understanding between two or more parties. In order to successful communicate with other; the information must be design with the common words, signs, or signals, so the sent information can be understood easily and clearly. Besides, it is also very important to be careful the words that one person use to communication to others. In some situations, negotiation is one of the communications.

1.1 Background of Study

The ability to communicate and interact with others is the most important skill to achieve success in both of our personal and career lives. However, some of us were not good in communicating with others and unaware that communicating had become a necessary activity in our daily life of known as human need. Nobody can survive in this world without communicating to others. Therefore, due to the level of importance it has, communication aspect had been selected as the main character of this research study.

The result of interaction of involved parties can be determined by the level of effectiveness of communication, either positive or negative. If the result is negative, that mean communication between parties was ineffective, then some difficulty or side effect will be arising. Besides, the side effect bring by ineffective communication cannot be underestimate. Due to several factors that caused ineffective communication, certain skill and understanding should behave in everyone.

Other than that, different level of skill and understanding were involved in different forms of communication such as downward communication. The managers and employees are in the form of downward communication in an organization. However, there are also existing interpersonal communication between managers and employees. If we want to increase the level of skill and understanding, we should focus more in interpersonal communication. Interpersonal communication is a person to person, two way verbal (written and oral) and nonverbal interaction that includes sharing information and feeling between individual or in small group that establishes trusting relationship (Hubbley, 1998).

The communication is the most essential single skill in this fast changing world. John Harvey stated that the managers everywhere should have to improve their ability to communicate in order to be effective in their job. Besides, the employees will feel confidence when the managers effectively communicate their vision, in the end, the communication satisfaction between managers and employees will get improve (Pavitt, 1999).

Furthermore, the communication among managers and employees also can be known as managerial communication. The efficient managerial communication is to communicate, to transmit information, opinions, decisions, and receive answer at the same time by managers, also known as the new spirit of business (Stefanescu et al., 2008). By this statement, the managers have to fulfil his/her duties by sending the messages to the employees, the messages such as the company mission and goals, the cost of such, the quality and economy issues, and the task that need to be fulfilled to attain the set goals. Hence, the effectiveness of communication will influence the result of the goals directly.

Furthermore, there is a relationship between managers and employees, is leadership. According to Holladay and Coombs (1993), leadership is a behavior enacted through communication. Besides, leadership has other definitions, such as the ability to guide followers toward shared goals (Bryman, 1992), as a form of influence (Hersey, 1984), and as simply something a leader does (Fleishman, 1973). If there is a problem in the leadership, the most probably reason is the communication. A manager cannot lead a group of employees without talking to them.

According to Popa and Filip (1999), there are four types of managerial communication models and the first type is one-way communication model. The one-way communication model is a classical model of communication process. In one-way communication model, the managers ignore the employees; it is an ineffective downward communication from the management (Peter Drucker, 1993). The next is the circuit communication model. In this communication model, the employees respond to the received message (Stefanescu et al., 2008). The managers must follow up the task that assigned to the employees and know the problems that are faced by the employees. The third type of managerial communication model is interactive model, which the managers and employees exchange the ideas when communicating. This is an important role of managers and employees. And the last one is the behavioral model. In the process of managerial communication, the managers expect the employees to react after receiving the message (Campbell and Level, 1985). The managers must use a suitable managerial communication model to lead their employees in order to complete the jobs.

1.2 Problem Statement

In this research study, the main focus is to identify the factors that cause ineffective communication between managers and employees. An organization cannot work properly without communicate with other. In order to be effective and efficient in the operation and achieve the goal of an organization, effective communication act as an important role between managers and employees.

The quality communication system, communication techniques and communication strategies are the communication problem of the manufacturing business are in Nigeria and which leads to low sales volume and profit making (Lawal Abubakar, 2010). By this statement, we understand that communication between managers and employees decide the future of an organization. Besides, the communication had become a significant qualification that expecting from all of us.

There are some factors that will discuss in this study. In this study, the first factor will be discussed is listening factor. When we start communicating with other, the first step is to listen. In order to have a better communication, the first step is to improve listening skill (Finkle, 2010). Besides, the receiver always influence by the environment, or by the message itself. Hence, once the managers sending the complicated message, the employees have to listen carefully.

The second factor is language factor. The language is the basic element that people use to communicate with other. Furthermore, the language factors include the existing of different language, the use of vocabulary and the attitude of speaking. Most of the managers and employees are not in the same race, the only language they can use is English.

The third factor is individual factor. The individual is the sender and receiver, in this study, is the manager and employee. The individual factor includes gender, race, perception, skill and ability to communicate, and so on. Moreover, everyone have their own personality and style while communicating with other.

The forth factor is technology factor. Nowadays, most of the people are using technology to communicate with other, either local or international. In the organization, some managers conduct virtual meeting with the employee, for example like sending information. However, the explanation of the information in face-to-face meeting is better than virtual meeting.

The other factor such as stereotyping, disabilities to communicate, and the feedback of the message also will caused ineffective communication between managers and employees. When someone is already knows the message since the beginning of the communication, it is an act called stereotyping. The disabilities to communicate such as mute, deaf, and blind. Besides, the feedback of the message is important for both managers and employees in order to improve their communication skill.

The main problem focused in this study:

What factors cause ineffective communication between managers and employees?

How these factors are affecting the effectiveness of communication between managers and employees?

How important the factors will affect the effectiveness of communication between managers and employees?

1.3 Research Objectives

The objectives of the study are:

Main Objective

To provide useful information and statistics to the organizations in order to build up an intellectual community by resolving the ineffective communication among the managers and employees.

Sub Objective

To study the factors that lead to ineffective interpersonal communication between managers and employees.

To understand the communication aspects among employees.

To discuss the empirical results, solutions and implication s in constructing an effective communication network among managers and employees.

1.4 Significance of Study

The study is to understand the factors that caused ineffective communication between managers and employees. Furthermore, the ineffective communication will bring troublesome for the organization. Due to the listening, language, individual and others factors, it will become the barriers to effective communicate with others.

The listening is the most important factor as one listening, who is the information receiver. In the communication process, the major character is the sender and receiver. Most of the time, the employee always misunderstood the meaning of information that the employer sent, vice versa. Next, is the thing that used to communicate, the language. Different race use different language, but the English is the international language. Some people may be poor in speaking English, but they are good in speaking the mother tongue. The language is the element of information, once the employee cannot understand the meaning of information, it caused ineffective communication. On the other hand, the individual factor is the basic factor that will influence the communication, such as gender, ability to communicate, perception to others, and so forth. The others factors such as technology, disabilities, the message itself, and so on.

In the organization, the managers have the right to lead the employees well in order to achieve the goals, also known as leadership. According to Holladay and Coombs (1993), leadership is a behavior enacted through communication. In addition, leading is one of the important parts in organization management. A good leading skill requires a good communication skill. Besides, it also link to downward communication. Once the downward communication occurred, the upward communication must appear.

In the previous part of this study had mentioned that one of the managerial communications is interactive communication model. Once the employees receive the message sent by the managers, they must give the feedback. Sometimes, some employees will keep silent when they receive a complicated message. Hence, employee voice or upward feedback is generally helpful to organizations because it allows managers to quickly learn about problems and gather specific information to address these problems effectively (Frese et al., 1999). Generally, the employees will get the positive job outcomes when they are experience positive communication relationship (Paul E. Madlock, 2008). By this statement, communication between managers and employees is a critical element to get the job done successfully.

Furthermore, not only the communication in the organization is important, but also the communication in social perspective. As we know, every single individual have to communicate in the daily life, even a mute also will use the sign language to communicate with others. Moreover, due to the globalization are growing rapidly, the communication is a very important skill to survive in present day society (Sriramesh & White, 1992).

1.5 Scope of Study

There are two ways to distribute the survey. One is the most common survey distribution, printed survey form. And the other one is online survey, such as e-mail and g-mail. In the process of data collection, the respondents are required to fill in the same set of questionnaire. The collected data will be analyzed using sampling method.

1.6 Operational Definition

Listening Factor:

Listening is one the traditional five senses. When communicating with others, it requires the listener to understand, interpret and evaluate what he or she hears.

Language Factor:

The language is a linguistic system, such as English, Mandarin, Hindi, and so on. The language can be use to encode and decode information.

Individual Factor:

The characteristic, behavior, perception, gender and race that is different from others.

Technology Factor

Technology is the practical application of science to commerce or industry. There are some technology products for communication, such as the telecommunication, Internet, mobile phone, computer and so on.

Others Factor:

The others mean that those factors cannot be categorized in a title but also have an impact to the dependent variable.

1.7 Organizational of Research

Chapter 1, a basic understanding of the research is introduced. Basically it consists of definition of the topic discussed, followed by the view and perspectives worldwide. Besides, research problem and the research objectives also introduced in this chapter. Subsequently, the justification of study is done to explain the benefits and to provide better understanding that can be gained from this study. Lastly, a brief explanation of communication is also included in this chapter.

Chapter 2 is the literature review which will attempt to present a review of the listening factor, language factor, individual factor, and others factor. This chapter is mainly about reviewing the relevant contributions from the past researches. For this chapter, articles, citations, journals, and dissertations will be used to strengthen the points mentioned.

Chapter 3 is the research methodology which provides a description of the methods used in this study. It explains the types of data collected and how it was carried out to arrive at the conclusion. The descriptions on sampling data, data collection, and questionnaire development are included in this chapter.