Chapter 4 in my audit book is all about deciding where to focus.
The first recommendation of the chapter is to examine the tasks people have to perform, and see how those affect communication. Are there tasks where people are expected to work together, and what communication will that require? If sections are interdependent, communication is essential, and should have an impact on work flows. If sections aren’t interdependent, then communication between them may not be essential, and may have no impact.
The second recommendation is to see how well information is circulated. There are three pieces to this: Type of information, time and load. The first two items relate to whether people get what they need, and get it when they need it. The last of the three is most interesting to me. Load can be under, over or optimal. Many times people say there is a lack of communication while at the same time being overwhelmed by it. They are buried under a flood of e-mails, for example, only a portion of which they actually want. Going through the extraneous communication leaves less time to go through the vital communication.
A third thing that the chapter mentions is assessing the use of media technologies. Obviously you need to start by listing all the available methods. Once that is done, you can see how people respond to each. Certain environments expect certain types of messages to come through certain channels. For example, if people feel that “all important messages are delivered via memos,” they may ignore certain messages and complain they aren’t being communicated with if the information is coming through e-mail instead.
At this stage the chapter turns to another focus — detailing the various functions that communications serves. Communication method might vary depending on which function(s) you are trying to achieve: Task/work function, Social/maintenance function, Motivation function, Integration function, Innovation function.
To that we can add examining the quality of the various types of relationships: Superior-subordinate relationships, Coworker relationships, Manager relationships, Unit relationships.
All of these work through the various communication networks that develop, both formal and informal. Plotting these networks, and how smoothly they work can also give a lot of detail. One way to study networks is to emphasize roles such as: Isolates, group members, bridges and liaisons.
You can also link communication to the organization outcomes it is intended to achieve: satisfaction, profitability and cost, productivity, organizational commitment.
And finally, the chapter recommends viewing all this as part of a system, a communication system where each part influences, rather than single points of occurrences. As part of that system, is internal communication linked to organizational strategies or used as a defensive mechanism.
I can see from reading this chapter that it is easy to spread the focus very wide, or very narrow. If you spread it narrow, you can find interesting data, but mistakenly think you have found the most important piece. Whatever you focus on is “most important.” But if you spread the focus too wide, you won’t have any focus, and get lost in a sea of data. Careful analysis and decisions are needed, and guidance of the goals of the people you are auditing is critical in making those decisions.
References
Downs, C. W. & Adrian, A. D. (2004). Assessing organizational communication. New York: The Guilford Press.
At The Rainbow 