Fundamentals of Management, 8th ed

Start

Noise

Noise

2

Encoding

Sender

Receiver

Receiver

Sender

3

Transmission

through channels

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Transmission

through channels

Noise

1

Meaning

8

Decoding

4

Decoding

5

Meaning

6

Encoding

The numbers indicate the sequence in which steps take place.

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F I G U R E 1 2 . 1

The Communication Process

As the figure shows, noise can disrupt the communication process at any step.

Managers must therefore understand that a conversation in the next office, a fax

machine out of paper, and the receiver’s smartphone being out of service may all

thwart the manager’s best attempts to communicate.

relevant

information

Information that is

useful to managers

in their particular

circumstances for

their particular needs

366

Part 4: Leading

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message is being transmitted to you is the printed page. Common channels in organiza-

tions include meetings, e-mails, memos, letters, reports, and phone calls. After the

message is received, it is decoded back into a form that has meaning for the receiver.

As noted earlier, the consistency of this meaning can vary dramatically. In many cases,

the meaning prompts a response, and the cycle is continued when the same steps are

used to send a new message back to the original sender.

“Noise” may disrupt communication anywhere along the way. Noise can be the sound

of someone coughing, a loud truck driving by, or two people talking close at hand. It can

also include disruptions such as a letter lost in the mail, a dropped cell phone call, an

e-mail misrouted or infected with a virus, or one of the participants in a conversation

being called away before the communication process is completed.

FORMS OF COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS

Managers need to understand several kinds of communication that are common in orga-

nizations today.

7

These include interpersonal communication, communication in net-

works and work teams, organizational communication, and electronic communication.