Communities

Recently, a friend recited to me a beautiful story. A Story richer in meaning then most I have read or heard. It is a story of a girl, her father and a certain old man. In retrospect, the moral of the story could probably be the source of the wisdom that saved Toyota, the world's largest automobile manufacturer, when it recently faced its biggest threat yet....a sticky accelerator. Effective communication entails good listening: A story There was a girl, who like it is the case with most daughters, held a special place in her father's life. Naturally so, they spent a lot of time together. The father of the girl being a good parent, always took effort to make time spent with his daughter as wholesome as he could. Since the girl was not yet at that age where awkward conversations on her menstrual flows would have dominated the conversations, her father chose to use the long periods of time they spent together, to pass on lessons that he considered to have held him in good stead t...

There are some powerful relationship realities between various community groups and organizations. Constituents are asking more questions; decisions are taking longer. Very small forces, sometimes individuals, can stop very big ideas and projects. People without credentials have enormous credibility. Corporations and institutions must prove their validity, honesty, and trustworthiness every day. Most public debate and discussion, on issues that matter, are focused more on embarrassment, humiliation, and blame shifting than on achieving beneficial progress. In today's environment of public suspicion, gaining and maintaining public consent to operate has become an on-going, top management concern for most businesses and large organizations. Community relationships are effectively maintained primarily through engagement with various publics and audiences within the community and your organization. It is often stated that community relations are "public relations at the local leve...

By communication, people exchange. Communication is an essential attribute of human life, which is why we all spend most of our time either receiving or requesting for information. Lack of communication creates tensions and destroys personal and business relationships. The ability to exchange information or conversation with others is crucial to the success of the individual, family or business organization. It should be noted, however, that it is one thing to communicate but quite another thing to communicate effectively. Ineffective communication usually results in failure, as it doesn't elicit the desired response in form of feedback from the receiver. This is the bane of many business organizations. Many managers do communicate, but often not very effectively. Lack of capacity to communicate effectively on the part of managers is the reason for the failure of many businesses. Every firm or business organization needs an effective communication network in order to function prope...

The process by which one person or a group of persons receive an increment of information which has some value for either sender or receiver either by way of knowledge addition or entertainment or acquisition of energy to act or persuasion to buy or act as required by the sender is the process of communication. The Process of Communication The critical part of communication is the information, which is being transferred. Information may be in any form- ranging from hand signals to public speech, from email to detailed contract, from one word greeting to a lengthy letter, from a message on a notice board of a school to a full page advertisement on a daily, from a hint with raised eyebrows to five-minute hug, from a memo from a superior or subordinate to a HR manual and so on. For the transfer of the information or the message, certain vehicle or medium is employed, which loads itself with it and passes it on to the intended receivers. Paper, phone, one-to-one meeting, public meeting, co...

Imagine a customer calling for detailed, technical information about your products and services. These calls can be cumbersome for customer service employees who don't possess the technical knowledge about a specific product or service. Now imagine those same customer service employees having a comprehensive menu on their computer screens describing the exact technical knowledge about that specific product or service, as well as other detailed information the inquiring customer can use to make an informed decision right away. In the world of UC (Unified Communications), technical customer service calls are handled and processed much differently than they were just a decade ago. Transitioning to a UC platform improves communications both internally and externally by arming employees with better technology tools that add value to the overall communication process. This article contains helpful knowledge and insights to assist you in the transition to a unified communications plat...

Maintain staff productivity No news is definitely not good news from an employee communications perspective. October 2008 research from Weber Shandwick showed that 71% of people felt that their company should be communicating more about current economic problems. Unfortunately, the uncertainty caused by lack of internal communications can cause staff to be less productive. In fact, Workforce Week reported in October 08 that 48 percent of staff said that the economic uncertainty has caused them to be less productive at work. Maintain operational effectiveness Uncertainty due to a lack of effective internal communication can cause high performing employees to jump ship. Low morale within remaining staff can impact customer interactions and damage brand identity. Uncertainty can also damage a company's culture. Competition for internal resources can increase between (and inside of) departments. Focus can shift onto projects that 'look good' but don't really contribut...