By Dhruv Sen
21/07/2010

Traditionally, ‘Communication’ has been defined as “a two-way process of disseminating information through an exchange of ideas”. Today, it has become an indispensable tool to bring about and manage change. Whether it is a change in policy, terms of employment, products, services or technologies, communication is a must. Resistance to change, in fact, results from inadequate communication. It is also a must to generate commitment, loyalty and trust in an organisation.
In short, Communication is the key to employee engagement.

There are different means that organisations use to communicate with employees. These include spoken communication — through individual, team/departmental meetings and speak-up programmes — and written communication — through email, notice boards, magazines, newsletters and bulletins. In addition, the management frequently deploys focus groups and also resorts to “management by walking around”.
On their part, employees communicate with the management through face-to-face meetings, phone or email.

Despite the emphasis on communication, however, the desired level of engagement sometimes fails to take place. Since it is a two-way process, communication should also be the means by which employees can let the management know about their needs and aspirations. But, generally speaking, it isn’t, because employees prefer to keep their thoughts and opinions to themselves for fear of attracting an adverse reaction. In other words, there is a woeful lack of ‘Authentic Communication’ from them because of the culture of the organisation.

For instance, in the cases of Satyam and Enron, where massive frauds were taking place, there was a breakdown of values and integrity. Instead of looking at a larger goal and blowing the whistle on the wrongdoing, those who were in a position to nail the fraud chose to focus on the rather narrow concept of membership. This allowed them the comfort of the status quo, the comfort of assuredness.

On the other hand, Lehman Brothers suffered from a huge group-think complex, where contrarian thinking was frowned upon. Dissent is a bad word in such places. I have often wondered if our understanding of communication is flawed and whether the process has become subordinate to its structure and methodology. I have myself seen speak-up programmes become one-way streets, with employees choosing not to raise uncomfortable questions. After all, there is safety in a cocoon.

GM Food For Thought
It may not be the best example today, but at one time, General Motors was a torchbearer of all that is good . One of its core values, which, perhaps, has been forgotten today, is the right to dissent. GM owes that value to Alfred Sloan, who breathed life into that concept. He witnessed the dysfunctionalities of the culture of conformism and cronyism at close quarters when William Durant was the President. One of the classic disputes that has gone into the annals of organisational case studies is about how Sloan dealt with dissent. Once, a decision had to be made on whether to use a water-cooled or an air-cooled engine. Charles Kettering, the head of research, favoured the air-cooled one, while Sloan, the business head, favoured the water-cooled one. Kettering was considered a mechanical genius in GM, indeed, in the industry. All Sloan did was back up his claim with solid data. Ultimately, his view prevailed. Frustrated, Kettering put in his papers. However, Sloan (by now the President of the company) persuaded him to accept a position in GM’s newly created research division. He was given the freedom to pursue any kind of automobile-related research, at a salary that paid him $20,000 more than Sloan himself. Kettering accepted. This ultimately resulted in two of the most successful and profitable innovations of the first half of the 20th Century: ethyl gasoline and freon liquid gas, which were discovered and perfected in Kettering’s research division. Both generated millions of dollars for General Motors.

Encourage Openness
What is needed then, is a culture where questioning, discussion and debate is not frowned upon but viewed with an open mind. Yet, one would be hard put to find such examples in the modern-day context. It’s usually a one-way street with the management proposing and the employees executing. Chris Argyris says this is because of the absence of double loop learning. There are two types of learning: single loop and double loop. Single loop learning asks a one-dimensional question to elicit a one-dimensional answer while Double loop asks questions not only about objective facts but also about the reasons and motives behind those facts. For example, a CEO discovers to his dismay that his company inhibited innovation by subjecting every new idea to 275 checks and sign-offs. A single loop response would be to set up a committee and eliminate, say, 200 of those sign-offs. Double loop learning would not only eliminate the problem but would also make the CEO ask fundamental questions on culture and what was stopping others from correcting flaws or eliminating them.

Asking difficult questions would be considered negative in our  organisational culture. There is an implicit censorship by managers, resulting in a feeling, among employees, of being un-empowered. Fundamentally, there is diffidence when it comes to engaging in difficult conversations. This, in turn, impacts the authenticity of the conversation. We believe difficult conversations will cause disharmony and avoid them. But, that’s a short-term win. In the long-term, what is lost is the deep understanding that alone can foster teamwork.
In this context, I would like to touch upon the work of Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language Of Life.

Rosenberg states that all communication is aimed at meeting a need, and that, fundamentally, all needs are similar. They either seek clarity or respect. The difference is in how the needs are expressed. For example, the marketing director and the finance director may have two absolutely different approaches on how to sustain the organisation. The marketing director believes hiring more people and increasing the product presence in the marketplace is the way forward while the finance director believes the bottomline is better served by downsizing headcount.

Rosenberg states that in order to avoid dysfunctunalities, it is better to have a dialogue and understand each other’s needs. Empathy is key, and this, he believes, can lead to newer insights. But, the basic step is to connect to both met and unmet needs. For example, feeling frustrated means the need for order is not being met while feeling amused means the need for humour is being met. This is only a clue. It does not disregard human emotions but leverages on them. Strong emotions do not become a liability but an opportunity to discover more satisfying options. Ignoring emotions and feelings leads to alienation and, in turn, less teamwork.

The Communication Process
Each and every communication process goes through four stages: stimulus, reaction, awareness and action.

1. Stimulus: This could either be passing judgement or making an interpretation. It is unlike observation, which is just a recording of facts.

2. Reaction: This could either be from thinking or feeling. Thinking is an interpretation while feelings are emotions or gut reactions.

3. Awareness: This involves deciding on something, communicating what others should do or exploring a need.

4. Action: This involves making a demand or making a request.

The following four steps constitute ‘Authentic Communication’
1. Observation
2. Feeling
3. Need
4. Request
The contra ones (interpretation, thought, motive and demand, respectively) are the constituents of traditional communication.
Authentic communication is relevant, be it to express what is important to us or to receive another’s message. It fosters openness and a greater awareness of people’s needs and aspirations. This goes a long way towards enhancing our own personal growth and also leads to greater organisational effectiveness.

In the book Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Greeny, Ron McMillan and Al Swittler, the authors make the point that performance does not come by changing structures and systems but through high-end human interactions, among which dialogue is key to resolving issues.

To sum up, authentic communication is all about empathising while remaining focused on your task. Fixing the system or tweaking a process is only half the job — the vital part is to foster a culture of authentic communication.

The author has over 25 years of  experience in various verticals of HR and across diverse companies ranging from ICI, Marico, BASF, Nokia, Eicher, GAC to Aurigene.