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Use Communication Process Diagram
to Help Employees Reach Goals
How does communication flow at work? The Communication Process Diagram helps a leader identify communication breakdowns that cause conflict. Once you identify and resolve breakdowns, you communicate more efficiently and effectively to boost employee and team productivity.
Click here to listen to people get help with their Dreaded Conversations.
For a larger Adobe version of the diagram, click here
or on the small diagram above.
Who Communicates
The Communication Process Diagram has six steps and two communicators referred to as:
- The Sender, who transmits the message, and
- The Receiver, who picks up the sender's message.
Scroll to the bottom of this page to read about each step in the diagram. As you read about the Communication Process Diagram, analyze your own strengths and weaknesses as a sender. Give yourself a score for each of the six steps in the process:
1. Sender Recognizes Intention,
2. Sender Encodes Message,
3. Sender Selects Channel,
4. Receiver Decodes Message,
5. Receiver Interprets Intention, and
6. Sender Requests and Receiver Gives Feedback.
Three Communication Environments
Also, rate how well you do at developing the model's three communication environments: Physical, Psychological, and Experiential. Communication breakdowns often happen within one or more of these environments. Monitor them to reduce conflict and increase productivity.
Physical Environment
Limit physical distractions such as noise, odors, interruptions, and objects that block understanding. Scan your office for these kinds of diversions, and remove or reduce them.
Psychological Environment
To be truly heard, people need to feel safe. This doesn’t mean that we have to like everybody we work with, but it helps when there's a healthy dose of respect, trust, and honesty. These qualities motivate people to work toward a common goal even if they aren’t best friends. Review the psychological environment of your team. What’s working well? Where are the gaps?
Experiential Environment
What kinds of experiences do your employees have at work? Create communication environments that are flexible. Are work experiences rigid with tight expectations or too loose without boundaries? Environmental extremes can foster more communication breakdowns and conflict. Create a safe structure of regular meetings, confidentiality, and a mixture of fun and seriousness.
Read about Each Step
To read in detail about each step in the Communication Process Diagram, click on a step below:
1. Sender Recognizes Intention,
2. Sender Encodes Message,
3. Sender Selects Channel,
4. Receiver Decodes Message,
5. Receiver Interprets Intention, and
6. Sender Requests and Receiver Gives Feedback.
Click here for FREE resources that explain the Communication Process Diagram.
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The problem is never how to get new,
innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.-- Dee Hock
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