Sunday, May 25, 2008

Communication Structure and Design for a Course in Corporate Communications

This is a short preview of a Course that I plan to modify and teach.

  • Design a corporate communications strategy that strikes a healthy balance between complete centralization and total decentralization.
  • Create special mechanisms to encourage the upward transmission of information and opinion, including bad news.
  • Create a special advisory or “ombudsperson” role for someone who is free to roam the organization and can “speak truth to power” without fear of retribution.
  • Avoid excessive reliance on formal communication channels and messages; make effective use of informal communication—from the design of orientation programs to ongoing work processes.
  • Establish double communication linkages between each hierarchical level of the organization and the ones immediately above and below it.
  • Cultivate liaisons between departments that are traditionally distant from or in conflict with one another (e.g., marketing and production).
  • Ensure that leaders or managers of units have strong relations with superiors at least two levels above them.
  • Formulate projects that will require the meaningful coordination of multiple units of the organization. And, develop multiple communication networks throughout the organization.
  • Limit the size of work teams, task forces, and working committees to 9 members; the same principle applies to the effective span of control or number supervised.
  • To the extent possible, design or redesign workplaces so as to foster group interaction.
  • View new communication and computer technologies in a complementary role with respect to other means of communication, rather than seeing technology as complete substitute for non-mediated forms of communication or as a panacea for organizational problems.
  • Be attuned to the inevitable phases in the development of a group or organization, so that no structure is seen as necessarily permanent and such that flexibility can be maintained.




4 comments:

Unknown said...

Sir ur blog is really informative... the topline u have given to ur blog is too cool.
I really liked the way u have introduces urself.

keep inspiring us sir. Hope to learn a lot from you in the future.

Roomy Naqvy said...

Thanks a lot for your kind comment.

Kumar Anand said...

DEAR SIR,
IT WAS NICE TO SEE YOU DOING THE REAL EDUCATIONAL WORK. I THINK THE EDUCATION MEANS TO EDUCATE PEOPLE.

AT LEAST I WILL ALWAYS EDUCATE MYSELF THROUGH YOUR BLOG.

THANX.

Roomy Naqvy said...

Thanks a lot.:):):) I just hope that these small efforts in life add up to an ocean. :)

This blog is about a personal history but also about a professional life. It is about an English professor but also about a professional translator. It is in fact about a life well-lived and how to live a life pretty well.

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