Consuming communication

Organizations benefit from good communication because they operate more efficiently and effectively. Of course, individual people make up organizations, so what's good for the company or association should be good for the people involved with it as well.

But, is there a direct, meaningful benefit to you or to me? The short answer: Yes. Let's look at two types of benefits: instructional and contextual.

Instructional communication

When we receive good, timely communication we get information that enables us to do our jobs well, or better than we would otherwise. That generates a number of benefits.

One of them is keeping our jobs, which in turn provides the money we need for food, shelter, and life's lesser demands. As you know, employees sometimes lose their jobs because they didn't have the instructional information they needed.

And being able to do our jobs well provides more than simply money. It gives us a sense of accomplishment, the feeling we get when we do something well. And, doing our jobs well also may earn us the respect or admiration of our colleagues.

Contextual communication

Contextual communication provides information that puts the tasks we're doing into the bigger picture.

When I was a construction laborer, for instance, I might be spend hours walking behind a packer, a heavy vibrating roller that packed the earth; a prosaic task to be sure. But I knew that if I didn't do my job well, a whole building might be jeopardized. Shifting or sagging foundations cause big problems, expensive problems. A very obvious example, but I've certainly seen cases where productivity faltered because employees did not have a sense of the broader results of their efforts.

So, knowing the context within which I performed my mundane task made it important: The future viability of the building depended on how well I packed the soil and gravel. Providing this kind of communication is rarely as critical as instructional communication, but it does make a difference, nevertheless.

Think of consuming communication

So, communication is not just good for organizations; it's something we stakeholders also use for our own ends. Think of organizational communication as something we consume.

Better still, think in terms of producers and consumers of information. For example, my boss produces communication that helps me, the consumer of it, do my job more quickly with the same amount of effort. Outcome: He gets more output per hour, which makes him look good to his bosses; I get the satisfaction of doing something even better than I did it in the past. We both win with good communication.

Summary: Communication benefits people, as well as the organizations that produce it. People consume it, and the information embedded in it, to achieve their own ends, and often help organizations move toward their goals at the same time.

Application: In communicating with others, think of the recipients as consumers of something you produce. Does this communication offer some benefit to them? Will they be able to use it to accomplish something for themselves, as well as for the organization?

Next, go to the general business communication page, or visit our home page Communication Skills .

Contact information

Consuming Communication, Copyright Robert F. Abbott 2009