Communication

Communication
One of the rather siginificant issues in efficiency is
business communication. In particular I am interested in
360-Degree feedback, speak-out programs and improvement
contests.

360-degree feedback refers to the process of collecting
information and evaluation from all relevant parties
concerning a particular individuals' performance, which may
include superiors, coworkers, and team members. Personally,
I have a serious problem with this kind of feedback. In my
experience and opinion, it is a great mistake to ask equals
or coworkers for feedback: such feedback is naturally
biased. In either case, the feedback can hardly be neutral
due to factors such as consequences or rivalry. I believe
that feedback should be obtained by neutral superiors which
are only interested in objective evaluation that may lead
to improvement. Otherwise, it may create a hostile work
environment.

Speak out program is referred to the process of collection
and evaluation of employee input in decision making. This
particular process will enable the employees to contribute
to the firms' decision making by taking advantage of the
knowledge of front line workers. I certainly have a
positive experience with this sort of input: mid and upper
management are usually far away from day to day process and
flaws of daily tasks. The most reliable input is from those
that actually have to deal with customers and clients.
Thus, their input is more accurate and can be invaluable to
streamlining and higher profits. Naturally the information
and input has to be evaluated for neutrality: this can be
easily achieved by cross referencing several employees'
information.

Improvement contest refers to competitive evaluation of
implemented improvement actions, whereby internal
assessment mechanisms decide on the validity and value of
each contestant group. Personally I have not yet witnessed
a successful implementation of such process. I believe that
such contest would be contradictory to clan culture of team
work and success: since by definition, improvement contests
are the evaluation of team efforts, it is contradictory to
recognition of individual efforts. I realize that team work
and team efforts are invaluable to success of most
companies, however, since the basic building block of a
team, is its individual members, I would suggest that
personal and individual efforts should be recognized first.
Thus, I believe that a successful improvement contest has
to recognize the individual efforts as well as group
efforts.

Ultimately, all three of these concepts are tools of
communication which are meant to increase the efficiency
and effectiveness of corporate productivity. It is vital to
analyze all of them in context of individual setting and
individual corporate culture. Any selected process or
combination of procedures has to be chosen and optimized
based on predictive advantages within particular industry,
and clan culture.

----------------------------------------------------
Communication
http://www.totalqualityassuranceservice.com/