The purpose of communication is the exchange of an idea or information with a target audience to accomplish a communication objective. It is all about conveying the messages in the right way to the right people and getting proper feedback upon the transmitted message.
The purpose of communication is also about increased engagement that can lead to several fruitful outcomes such as great managerial skills, boosting up industrial relations, retaining employees, and many others.
What is the Purpose of Communication?
Definition: The purpose of communication is defined as communication goals that can be achieved by an exchange of words, ideas, or messages. Communicating with an audience is useful in establishing a proper engagement between senders and receivers so that a healthy environment can be set up to resolve all the chaos or confusion in the organization.
Communications are useful in internal as well as external interactions of an organization. When a communicator communicates, he or she shares his or her knowledge, beliefs, ideas, and information to optimize the outcome of their interaction. The various types of communication channels that are being used by different organizations have a single goal and that is to function in a productive manner.
Purposes of Effective Communication
Communication principles play the most useful role in deciding how hierarchical communication flow would occur in an organization amongst a leader or manager and employees, or supervisors and their subordinates.
The way you communicate could influence the behavior of the target audience, plus it can optimize the power of your language skills. Whether you need to connect with one individual or you have to share information or your ideas with a group of people, communication plays the most crucial role.
There are a number of purposes or importance of communication to talk about, so let us have a look at those here and now-
1. Smooth Flow of Information
The very first purpose or importance of any kind of communication is a smooth flow of any information either among the team members or outside the organization. There can be so many times when chaos and confusion may arise due to a lack of communication.
For example, if a schedule for a project is not communicated in the right way, this can create trouble for the team members who are a part of the project.
Similarly, if the members of the organization will not provide a proper flow of information about a product or service to the stakeholders or the customers, then knowing about the new launch also gets difficult.
Even there are times when confusion is created due to the leak of half information about a particular product. It becomes essential for the organization to combat such a rumor and offer transparent detailing in such a case.
2. Better Coordination
It has been noticed that better communication also leads to better coordination between the employees that boosts up the performance of the company. It is ideal to make use of vertical as well as a horizontal mode of communication so that there are no boundaries or limitations in the flow of information.
For example, if a company just follows the vertical mode of communication, getting an answer for a simple question from another department can take up a long time, and even at times, the correct answer is not availed.
In such a case, the horizontal communication system works a lot where the member of one department can directly talk to the member of the other department can establish solid coordination to get the work done.
3. Boosting Team Relations
How will the team members get comfortable with each other and trust each other until and unless they do not know about each other? This understanding is developed only when they start sharing their ideas and feelings with each other.
When you are aware of the capabilities and the personalities of the other team members, you can gel up with them accordingly so that you can build up the right team and get work done in the most efficient way.
4. Motivation
Having proper communication is very much important in order to keep the employees boosted up with motivation all the time. There are several ways how communication plays a major role in boosting up the motivation of the employees and the team members in an organization.
When the managers and the team leaders offer motivational speeches to the team members, the employees surely get boosted up and this shows up surely in their performances also.
Also, there are many organizations that consider the suggestions and ideas coming up from the employees. When the employees see that their ideas are important for the organization, they feel boosted up and surely work with a much-enhanced motivation to complete their tasks with high-quality performance.
5. Better Control
Employees working in an organization are not robots that can be controlled by commands and signals. Humans have an emotional feel and so they require emotional connections to get managed. One such way to control the performances of the employees in an organization is through communication.
As mentioned above, the leaders can motivate the employees by offering motivational speeches and can make them work in a much better way.
Similarly, when the proper flow of information is maintained from the higher levels to the low levels of the team, there is no place for confusion and all the tasks are completed in a much scheduled and disciplined manner.
6. Enhanced Planning and Decision Making
Proper communication is also essential for enhanced planning by an extensive level of brainstorming among the team members.
When two or more people discuss efficiently a topic or a matter, things start getting cleared up and a lot of problems start getting solved.
Also, you start paving the way to new goals and are able to make decisions that are effective and fruitful.
7. Social interactions
Communication is used in different social interactions like-
- Greeting
- Calling
- Naming (if not for personal enjoyment)
- Express feelings
- Requests interaction/interactive activity
- Assertiveness
- Social routines
- Comment/statement
- Answers question
- Provides information/report
- Exclamation
- Agree
How to Achieve the Purposes of Communication
The real purpose of communication can be achieved only when the right ways of communication are taken care of.
Here are some of the eminent communication skills that should be followed to achieve purposes of business communication-
1. Clarity
The very first principle no doubt is clarity. If the message encoded by the sender is not clear, the person on the other side will not be able to decode the message in the right way. This will not let the receiver understand the message properly and this will lead to miscommunication issues.
There can be several issues to hamper clarity such as handwriting, grammatical errors, and even technical issues such as disruption in the network of the phone calls, and so on. Hence, it is always essential to maintain clarity to achieve the right purpose of communication.
2. Consistency
Consistency is another important element that has to be there for gaining the benefits of communication.
For example, if a discussion is going on among two people in order to come up with a result, it is essential that the discussion continues consistently in order to actually get an outcome.
If one person stops participating in the discussion, the whole discussion goes waste.
3. Feedback
If the receiver does not offer feedback on the message of the sender, how will the sender know that the receiver has actually understood the message in the right way?
There are so many times when the receiver might decode a message in the right way and this can lead to trouble in a number of ways.
Hence, such cases make feedback also an essential principle that helps in achieving the real purpose of communication.
4. Elimination of Barriers
In order to have proper communication, it is very important that you eliminate all the barriers in the communication process. There can be several barriers that may come in between such as physical barriers of distance or technical barriers such as the network.
There can also be many other barriers too such as human emotions of jealousy and anger that may interrupt the flow of information from one person to another.
It is extremely essential to convey the important messages by eliminating such barriers so that the real purpose of communication can be achieved.
5. Proper Medium and Network
Often choosing the right medium and network can also lead to a wrong flow of information. For example, there are a number of times when understanding the receiver’s facial expression is extremely important while delivering the message.
In such a case, it is always a good idea to choose face-to-face conversation in place of phone calls or emails. Similarly, in order to launch a new policy, it is always a great idea to send a proper official email rather than making it a mouth-to-mouth conversation.
Conclusion!
Verbal, nonverbal, or written communication or other forms of communication are important for serving different personal, professional, organizational, or business purposes.
Different organizations make use of different communication types and methods based on their requirements. Over time, the purpose of communication in any organization is understood and hence a lot of effort is put into improving communication and enjoying the benefits gained through it.
Communication may be formal or informal communication, but it plays a crucial role in effective business management to channelize all functions of an organization in a result-driven manner.
What according to you are the most crucial purposes of effective communication? Share with us in the comment section below.
Also Read
- Face to Face Communication – Definition, Importance and Advantages
- Online Communication – Definition, Types and Advantage
- Principles of Communication – Definition, Types and Process
- Communication Plan – Benefits, Template and Tips
- Oral Communication – Definition, Importance and Types
- Communication Process – Definition, Elements and Importance
- Schramm Model of Communication – Definition, Limitations and Examples
- Organizational Communication – Definition, Importance and Types
- Linear Model of Communication
- Transactional Model of Communication
Table of Contents
- What is the Purpose of Communication?
- Purposes of Effective Communication
- 1. Smooth Flow of Information
- 2. Better Coordination
- 3. Boosting Team Relations
- 4. Motivation
- 5. Better Control
- 6. Enhanced Planning and Decision Making
- 7. Social interactions
- How to Achieve the Purposes of Communication
- 1. Clarity
- 2. Consistency
- 3. Feedback
- 4. Elimination of Barriers
- 5. Proper Medium and Network
- Conclusion!
- Also Read
FAQs
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