Why informal communication has become so active in organizations
Everything
about the effectiveness of an organization is centered on communication. If
instructions are not given, who would do what, why would someone come to work at
a specified time, etc.? All these are achieved through communication and we have
been exposed to the first type of communication that takes place within
organizations; formal communication where we go to know that there are four
directions to this communication type. You can refer to the previous post to have more mastery over this. The second type which is informal communication is
the purpose of this article. Subjectively, I believe informal communication has
become so active in our various organizations and we are either directly or
indirectly. In this article, we will discuss informal communication in organizational
settings, how it works, and why people are so interested in this type of
communication.
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Informal
communication is the direct opposite of formal communication. If you could
agree with me, we have gotten to know that formal communication happens through
processes and procedures even though their directions differ. But in the case
of informal communication, it is totally different, there is no pattern, the
information conveyed is not verified, and can be false. You and I may have
probably engaged ourselves in this type of communication before; is it every information
that you hear in your organization is supposed to come out? Some are rumors but
we hear them and draw conclusions with them without verifying if indeed it is
factual or not. This is the type of communication that has a lot of networks within
an organization. After all, everyone wants to hear about a gist, gossip, etc.
to satisfy their curiosities and that is what informal communication does most
of the time. This is why studies have established that 70 percent of all
information in an organization emanates from informal communication.
Why do you think informal communication exists in organizations even though organizations as we all know have a structure that denotes some formality but informal communication has a place and a role to play at such formal places, why? It is simple. Imagine a worker who wants to pass his or her grievances to the CEO of an organization and upward communication states that such communique must pass through the hands of other officers before it finally gets to the office of the CEO.
Isn’t that so much complicated at times? So, such a worker begins to pour his
or her grievances to a co-worker and the latter also informs other co-workers;
by the time you realize, such information has already gotten to the office of
the CEO without going through the complicated processes as suggested by formal
communication. It also gives a sense of belonging because if someone doesn’t like
you, why would they share a rumor with you? So, yeah, people feel like to be part of
a family when unofficial communications or information are disclosed to them;
they feel valued because not everyone else has that information. What do you
think about that though?
Now,
informal communication does not have any directions as formal communication but
it has four types. You already know most of the types because you practice
them intentionally or unintentionally. The first type is the single strand.
With this type, communication flows linearly and is not just disclosed to
many people at a time. Your best friend also has a best friend by the way so
what you share would definitely get to that third-party best friend and that is how single strand works. Information flows from one person to the other. The next
type is the gossip. I already said you know about these things, right? So,
unlike the single strand where information flows from one person to the other,
information out of gossip is transmitted to many people directly. So, a
worker goes to the CEO’s office and eavesdrops on a conversation between the latter
and maybe another top manager in the organization, gossip says that that
individual comes out of the office and shares whatever information he or she
heard to a group of people directly.
The third type of informal communication is probability. With this, the individual who has the information selects some people at random to share the information with. Even though the people selected at random could form a group it is different from gossip where the person discloses the information to a group directly irrespective of whoever is there aside from where the information came from (the CEO’s office with the scenario I gave earlier). The last type is the cluster. So, cluster states that the individual who possesses the information, pre-selects people with whom to communicate the message and the receiver will also select people whom the message received would be shared with. You see the networking here, that is why informal communication has a larger network in an organization. So, before the person even gets information, he or she already has some people who have been chosen to get that rumor, gist, information, message, etc.
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