Communication Breakdown in Business and Everyday Life: Reasons and Solutions

Good Communication Skills Present Among the Staff

Good communication involves understanding demand, and relaying key information. Several of these communication skills used at Glenmore hotel are present among the staff. This includes Listening skills, Note-taking, writing skills, Asking questions, being empathetic, and presentation skills.

One of the communication skills present among the staff is listening. The staff has demonstrated their skill by applying the different methods to communicate with their colleague. For example, sharing information. They used different points of view to generate ideas relating to their areas of duty in the organization. This means that staff from diverse backgrounds might get information by active listening. Scholars John Stewart and Carole Huston ‘’summarized the main forms of listening which are empathic listening that focuses on adopting the perspective of shared experience, critical listening that focuses on a structured approach to paying attention to a message.’’ Listening to others at the workplace can help to understand what is going on more widely as well as help focus on what might be different instead of forgoing ahead with the familiar.

Another communication skill present among the staff in the text is note-taking. The staff demonstrated their skills in the organization by taking notes. This helps them to understand or maintain a permanent record of what they have read or listened to. The staff has also used note-taking to demonstrate their skills by using it to get information from others. For example, it helps them with the necessary evidence to inform and develop their argument. It assists them in concentrating on and understanding the information they read by helping them to summarize the idea and argument in the organization.

The communication skills present among the staff is writing skill. However, some of the staff have demonstrated their skills in writing clearly when sharing information with each other. They have also demonstrated their skill by making sure that each point of writing is made very clearly for people to understand them, and applying it to their work in the organization, for example writing a report and using that to demonstrate their expected duties in the organization.

Asking questions is another communication skill developed among the staff. The staff has demonstrated their skill by asking a question from each other and using it to share information about their work. However, asking questions in the workplace helps to make a change of certain things, for example, it helps to solve some arguments within the organization. The staff asking questions within the organization helps to point out the main issues of the company accurately.

Presentation skills are one of the possible communication skills present among the staff. Some of the staff communicated effectively by presenting their information clearly. For example, they engaged and connect with the audience to get their message across. They adapted to various speaking situations, such as talking in a group and addressing issues within themselves. Using presentations like Microsoft PowerPoint to communicate with the team gives an opportunity to refer to if they aren’t clear about certain things.

Being empathetic is one good communication skill present among the staff. ‘’Empathy is an ability to feel what others feel’’. This means that the staff has shown empathy with one another at their place of work by understanding and sharing their feeling among themselves. For instance, to effectively feel what others feel, and to cognitively assess the other’s point of view. Arnold and Boggs define empathy as ‘’the ability of a person to perceive and understand another person’s emotions accurately. The results of empathic communication are quality interpersonal relationships with colleagues, employees, and management.

Causes of Cultural and Communication Factor breakdown

The causes of cultural and communication factors breakdown among the staff are Individualism, power distance, time focus, prejudice, Stereotyping, and context sensitivity.

Context sensitivity is one of the causes of cultural and communication breakdown. Context sensitivity is said to be a ‘’culture that emphasizes the surrounding circumstance or context, makes extensive use of the body language, and takes the time to build a relationship and establish trust’’. This is because most people from diverse backgrounds all have cultural differences from their place of work and in society. These might include differences in age, education, gender, social status, economic position, health, beauty, popularity, and political beliefs. All of this could play a role in how a message is sent or received, which means that people have different points of view based on the culture at the workplace. This could cause a lot of problems because some cultures find normal what other cultures find unacceptable. The staff communicated positively and clearly in a way that people will understand their point of view, for example, they demonstrated how to meet others' needs within the organization. However, the staff adapted to everyone’s culture in their workplace by showing respect to each other for his or her knowledge and skills irrespective of the person’s background.

Time focus is another cultural factor of communication breakdown present among the staff. In the workplace, if there is the noise that doesn’t fit the environment, people are likely to focus on the sound rather than their work. For example, radio, and bad lighting, which can hamper communication by harming focus. Lack of attention to surrounding and details can make communication between workers fall apart as requests and needs are easily forgotten or lost.

Prejudice is another cause of cultural communication breakdown among the staff. Prejudice can be ‘’positive or negative’’ that people hold based on their connection with certain groups. Many people in the workplace might have authoritarian personalities that inherently believe in hierarchy. The reason for this may be the speaker’s race, religion, age, or appearance. Others might hold prejudices because they believe that conflict is inherent and natural, that is, that colleagues are competing for limited resources.

Stereotyping is one of the factors that causes communication breakdown among the staff. Stereotyping is making assumptions about people based on a person’s gender or culture or based on religious or physical attributes. For instance, a young lady dressed in a short dress might get compliments and men may even hit her in the office. This is because they may assume, that she has effervescent behavior and that she isn’t very smart. However, the staff has adapted to everyone's culture and beliefs even though sometimes there is conflict within individuals.

Individualism is one possible factor that causes communication breakdown among the staff. Individualism means ‘’the relationship between the individual and the group in society.’. A lack of communication can lead to misunderstanding, which can lead to mistakes, missed deadlines,s or altered a project. This can happen when individuals exchange information without clearly understanding one another. This can result in misinterpreted facts and details that prompt one team member to work from one set of perceived facts and information, while another is working in an entirely different direction.

Power distance is part of the cultural communication breakdown. This involves fitting to a specific cultural view of power relationships as superior or subordinate relationships between people, including the degree that which people not in power accept that power is spread unequally. This means that some of the staff in cultures accept a high degree of unequally distributed power while individuals in cultures demonstrating a low power distance readily question authority and expect to take part in decisions that affect them. For example, in a higher power distance, culture managers teach staff to listen while in a low power distance culture managers treat staff as equals. Subordinates expect to be consulted in small power distance cultures, against being told what to do in high power distance cultures.

Action for Management Improvement

As an organization to engage your team to deliver to the best to their abilities, it is important to have a clear vision of the company’s reason to be. This involves defining goals and expectations, Team meetings, encouraging open communication, and giving and receiving feedback. These actions can be accomplished by implementing on this process.

The possible action for managing improvement is by defining goals and expectations. This means that managers need to deliver clear, achievable goals to both teams and individuals, outlining exactly what is required on any given project, and ensuring that all staff is aware of the objectives of the project, the department, and the organization. For example, the manager could assign a leader among the team who effectively runs meeting with agendas to develop a path forward.

A team meeting is a key to managing improvement at the workplace. This can be done through team collaboration by hosting quarterly team meetings where each member of the team should be allowed to present an original idea for the team or clients. From there, a few members of the team select the winning idea that will then be put into action. This activity helps to come together as an organization and gives members of the team the chance to share their own ideas without any restriction.

Encouraging open communication for staff members is another way to manage improvement in the company. This means that to improve teamwork and collaboration it is good to consider technology. Encourage the employees to do some tasks on the website to understand each other better. Then utilized slack to get the conversation going, because people tend to be a little more forthcoming with a computer than in person. Meeting should be made with a set agenda so those clear items are discussed, and ideas are worked out.

Another way to manage improvement is to give and receive feedback from team members. This is important to develop a culture of trust in the team, providing efficient constructive feedback on a regular basis. This can be done by implementing feedback survey software. for example, offer performance reviews on a quarterly basis, and the review should also allow the employees to make suggestions to their manager. Any matter arising from the team meeting should be taken into consideration, written out, and posted on a board where members can always have a view of it daily.

Conclusion 

Communication is an essential tool in achieving productivity and maintaining strong working relationships at all levels of an organization. Communication is important in the workplace because it is useful to correct wrongs. We apply communication in our day-to-day life to inform others of our needs or to impart knowledge. It helps to clarify misunderstandings and share information. It communicates interpersonal relationships and reflects personality such as greeting. The use of effective communication at the workplace helps to understand and value each other better.

Recommendations

The following should be recommended in the organization, this include: 

• The service provider should organize training for all staff
• Managers should adopt appropriate supervision with individual
• The Head of the department should ensure that staff meeting is held on regular basis
• The company should explore on good skills and continue following them.