Measuring communication effectiveness

in an organization

A GTCI Communication Focus Group Initiative, led by:

Srikanth Raghavan, Srikanta Dash, Shivaram Venkat,

Ramesh Malamandi Gururajarao, and Ranbir Ghosh
Overview
Effective communication has different meanings to
different individuals. The common understanding about
effective communication is – how well the message is
articulated from sender(s) to receiver(s). The emphasis
here is more on the sender’s articulation ability, content,
clarity, accuracy, communication medium or channel,
correctness of language, tone, and so on. While this is
good – is this good enough for effective communication
in the contextual eco-system? Just think about a
newborn baby; its ability to communicate effectively
without communication skills mastery, questions this
premise that mastery of language, correctness, etc. are
key for effective communication.
The other dimension that adds to the intrigue of
communication effectiveness is the concept of living in
a global village. A geographically dispersed
communication eco-system means there is a distance
between actors of that eco-system. Distances are
both physical (geography, time zones) and meta-
physical (culture, legal, etc.) in nature. These distances
influence interpretation of messages by the actor
receiving them, thereby affecting the effectiveness of
communication. Interpretation of non-verbal
communication is a key attribute of communication
effectiveness. More often than not, the ingredients of
non-verbal communication are absent or partial when
gadgets are used to bridge the physical distance in a
global communication eco-system. How can we then
overcome the latency in communication?
To succeed in today’s global business environment, it is
paramount to have an effective communication model or
framework that addresses the needs of the diverse
workforce operating thousands of miles apart. In any
business, communication occurs between employees
with customers or stakeholders, and among the
employees within an organization. In an organization,
communication flows from management (managers) to
employees – vertical flow of information, and among
employees – horizontal flow of information. Therefore,
the emphasis should be more to understand the needs
of the recipient(s) at all levels, and understand what
perception they develop after receiving information. By
doing so, we get the real pulse of communication and
how well the information is received by the recipients.
What it means is – effective communication is all about
how the message was received and perceived by the
receiver(s), and not how well it was disseminated by the
sender(s), or what media and technology used thereto.
Therefore, to improve communication effectiveness
across an organization, the GTCI - Communication
Focus Group (CFG) came up with a framework, using
which organizations can:
 Understand the perception gaps that exist within a
communication eco-system.
 Benchmark a group and understand how it
compares to other peer groups, and the organization
as a whole.
 Benchmark and compare perceptions to the
standards set by the organization.
 Analyze response patterns to determine
opportunities to bridge perceptions of
communication effectiveness.
 Identify the communication best practices, and
propagate these practices for organization-wide use.
 Strengthen the existing communication practices.
How does this framework work?
The framework focuses on three communication
dimensions: openness, effectiveness, and timeliness.
The framework tries to unravel the perceptions related to
several questions within each of these communication
dimensions.
Openness: How openly does information flow in an
organization at all levels? Are the senders (top
leadership, management, and the rest of the employees)
open with their communication approach? Does the
organization culture support for such an open
communication?
Effectiveness: How effective is the information that is
disseminated? Do the receiver(s) get the right message
as intended by sender(s)? Or, do the receiver(s) develop
a different perception as opposed to the sender(s).
Timeliness: How timely is the communication – does Implementing the communication
communication flow on time in an organization so that framework at GTCI
people at all levels receive timely information to keep
them informed? It all started in the second quarter of 2010 after several
rounds of brainstorming by the members of the CFG.
Why measure it, if we cannot see it? The group defined the communication framework, and
Communication effectiveness is invisible. Then, why would the roadmap for implementing this framework. They
determined how communication flows within the GTCI
we measure something, which is not visible? We actually
organization at different levels. They identified the
tried to measure something invisible, that is
following levels while considering the flow of information:
“communication effectiveness” in order to bring in
 Stakeholders (outside of GTCI) to GTCI employees
visibility and we called it as Communication
Effectiveness Index (CEI)! The CEI is a score that  GTCI Managers to GTCI employees

reflects the comparison against benchmarks for various  Peer to peer at GTCI
communication dimensions. This is a key indicator to
understand patterns and measures related to
The Survey
communication effectiveness.
Based on the organization hierarchy and the cultures in
Mapping information and deep dive analysis which they operate, a survey questionnaire was formed,
A deep dive analysis of the CEI for various dimensions is which was completely focused on the three
communication dimensions: openness, effectiveness,
used to determine communication effectiveness patterns,
and timelines.
and cross co-relate findings in order to unearth
The group rolled out the survey to all employees in the
communication practices and opportunities for
second quarter of 2010. The survey was a huge success
improvement. The analysis reveals very interesting
as 73 percent of the employees (258 out of 353)
attributes that will help communication eco-systems participated in the survey within a short span of time.
understand the “why’s” of perception. For example, in one
instance, the employees and the manager of an
Computing Communication Effectiveness
organization agree on the perception related to knowledge
Index
management. The perception gap was satisfactory;
This was a number crunching phase. We transformed
however, the CEI scores were below the benchmark set.
the data captured through the survey to information. We
This revealed the need for certain actions to get the team
did this through computations of perception gap between
up to the desired level on this attribute. We also found actor groups within the context, perception gap between
some interesting contrasts in which the entire team did team scores and organization standards, and
well on a particular communication dimension, but further aggregation within groups and across organization. The
analysis of specific items within that dimension called for series of computation includes the computation of
Communication Effectiveness Index.
improvement.

Communication
The best part of this framework is to go back to ALL
participants (actors of the communication eco-
system) and share the findings.
Deep Dive Analysis
Cross-correlation activities were performed in the deep
dive analysis phase. The deep dive analysis helped
realize the communication strengths, best practices, and
patterns that are prevailing in GTCI. The deep dive
analysis results were shared with the GTCI leadership
team, managers, and employees for their understanding
on the existing communication practices and improving
on their effectiveness. The feedback from GTCI
leadership, managers, and employees demonstrated this
framework provides a meaningful way of measuring
communication effectiveness and consistently improving
communication practices.

Communication Figure: 3

The most useful aspect of this program is to take the

findings and present them to ALL stakeholders at ALL
levels of the communication ecosystem.

Survey Results
The CFG categorized data at project, department, and
organization level based on the survey responses. The
following figures reflect various cross-correlations of data
out of the survey.

Figure: 4

Figures 3 and 4 depict deep dive analysis results

identifying the areas to sustain and improve for
communication effectiveness.

Benefits of this communication framework

Figure: 1
An organization can realize the following benefits by
Deviation
implementing this communication framework:
Figure: 2
 Understand the perception gap between the
Figure 1 indicates there is no perception gap between sender(s) and receiver(s).
Managers and Team Members with respect to the
 Implement suitable measures to narrow down the
communication dimension “Openness” effectiveness.
perception gap to make communication more
But, on the contrast, figure 2 depicts deviation from the
effective.
benchmark level signaling scope for improvement.
  Identify the communication best practices that are
prevalent in an organization and implement these
organization wide.

 Strengthen the communication practices on an

ongoing basis.

 Bridge cultural gaps in terms of perception.

Contact Us
Srikanth Raghavan

Srikanth.Raghavan@unisys.com

Srikanta Dash

Srikanta.Dash@in.unisys.com

Shivaram Venkat

Shivaram.Venkat@in.unisys.com

Ramesh Malamandi Gururajarao

Ramesh.Gururajarao@in.unisys.com

Ranbir Ghosh

Ranbir.Ghosh@in.unisys.com