1 Introduction 2

1 Introduction

Everywhere in the world communication is present 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But this rather complex interaction of two or more people can hardly be defined and a whole lot of scientists (biologists, evolution theorists, sociologists, psychologists and medical personnel) do research. ¹ In the past there was a famous example what could happen, when communication failed.

The building of the tower of Babel, where god punished the mankind because of their inability to communicate and to come to an agreement. Therefore, the bible says, the people have different languages. And this caused by a lack of communication. Somehow irrational.

The second example is the modern communication. Almost everyone has got a mobile, one telephone at home, one in the office. Furthermore one or more faxes, a lot of different eMails which have to be controlled every now and then. Otherwise you are „out“ of the communication process by the blink of an eye. Because communication is nowadays everywhere, anytime and only little private and personal, a little poem (in German, I am afraid) shows the development in a literal way:

„immer mehr und immer schneller können wir einander mitteilen daß wir immer mehr und immer schneller immer mehr und immer schneller einander mitteilen müsen 2

Because of our focus on corporations, communication as such in companies (internal) and of companies (external) will be topic of our following text.

¹ Wahren, H.: Zwischenmenschliche Kommunikation und Interaktion in Unternehmen, S. 7

² Seethaler, H.: Gedichte zum Pflücken, 1999

2 Definition of communication 3

2 Definition of communication

First of all communication in general can hardly be defined. Because many things, like body language, facial expressions are included in our daily communication. Much of it not even noticed or being seen as „usual“ aspect. Therefore the communication is obvious, permanent and done without (direct) instructions. This can be seen in the following quotation as well: „A fish would be the last to discover the existence of water (...) because water was such a pervasive and important part of a fish’s environment, its existence would not even be noticed unless it were absent.“ 3

Nevertheless „to communicate“ has it’s roots in the Latin language and can more or less be defined as: „to inform somebody about something, to be connected“. 4

2.1 Reasons for communication problems

Communication in companies does not differ much from the alldaycommunication in e.g. families. The difference is, there is a framework being given from the corporation (legal framework, offices, buildings, etc.). The rules and the hierarchy of a company influence the corporate communication. If you go more deep into the structure, then you have the department and the group influencing the employee’s behaviour and communication. To a certain grade every individual has it’s own communication plans, aims to be reached by convincing him or her in a communicative way. Some aims people only have because the instructions, or company’s aims are to be reached. But all in all there are rules to be followed to make the way to a target-oriented co-ordination of the communication-process. 5

³ Wahren, H.: Zwischenmenschliche Kommunikation und Interaktion in Unternehmen, S. 7

⁴ Burkhart, W.: Grosses Universal Lexikon, 1982, S. 1117

⁵ Wahren, H.: Zwischenmenschliche Kommunikation und Interaktion in Unternehmen, S. 45f.

2 Definition of communication 4

Influencing factors on employee’s communication:

Graphic 1: corporate structures influencing the employee’s communication

To illustrate this we would like to explain the influencing factors in the following chapter.

2.2 Influencing factors

In contrast to common communication, the communication and interaction process in companies is influenced in many Let us first have a view on the following graphic, showing the influences:

Graphic 2: Factors influencing corporate communication process

Within a company there are different departments acting and interacting. Therefore we have the influencing behaviour of others on the communication process. This needs to be controlled by certain rules (e.g. hierarchy, commitments, etc).

If you are an ordinary employee in the most companies it is a really hard trip to talk to your head of department or even to the head of a company. In some,