Organizational Communication for Survival: An Analysis (preface)

PREFACE TO THE ANALYSIS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION FOR SURVIVAL

by

Charles Lamson

Whether we like it or not, most of us go to work every day. Organizations are a fact of life for most people in modern societies. People spend most of their adult lives working within and for some type of organization. Even before one joins the workforce on a permanent basis, life in organizations has become commonplace - the elementary school, the secondary school, the college or university. Organizations are such an omnipresent facet of our lives that we usually take them for granted, and never recognize the impact they have on our behavior.

A relatively small proportion of the population ever studies what it means to be a member of an organization; and those who do are generally people who hope to assume some managerial role in an organization. Hence, universities have entire schools, colleges and departments devoted to such topics as business administration, sports management, and hotel management. Unfortunately, most such programs focus on how to manage other people, not how to be managed.

Effective communication requires strategic choices. Strategic communicators know how to choose the communication behaviors that are most likely to improve their own chances to survive and prosper in an organization - and they make those choices. This view sometimes is derogatorily referred to as "Machiavellian." However, communicating strategically is only a negative behavior when it involves unethical practices. 

Many organizations are dismal places to exist. Many managers would starve to death if they had to depend on their managerial skills to provide sustenance. And many subordinates could not care less about either the quality of their own work, or the survival of the organization. Certainly not all organizations are dismal; all managers incompetent; or all subordinates uncaring---but these circumstance prevail a sufficiently large proportion of the time, so that we cannot approach organizations with rose-colored glasses firmly in place. Were we to do so, our survival in the organization might be very brief.

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