Reflective Journal on Organizational Communication: “My Summer Internship Training Program”

Discuss about the Organizational Communication As An Important Factor.

It is a complex flow of information, wishes, orders and references that can be formal as well as informal network of communication in the organization. Formal organizational communication refers to the systematic process of information flow in the form of written or spoken attributes or it can be information that are pre-planned or can be adjusted for the organizational need. Informal communication does not have an advance determined pattern of communication flow but it has an undisturbed pattern between the groups within an organization (Turkalj & Fosic, 2011).

This section of the reflective report presents the understanding of organizational communication that can help to enhance our skills and abilities. The organizational communication has been explained with an example of my summer internship program, which would facilitate to reflect on its implications in case of current/future role in the work environment.

In order to derive an in-hand experiment of the way in which organizational communication takes place in the real life scenario, I am reflecting my experience gained during the summer internship training program. After a prolonged interview session, I was finally shortlisted for getting trained in the company “Optus.” I felt utmost happiness when I saw my name in the list, as I always wanted to get trained under a renowned company. Contextually, Optus is the only telecom company in Australia that owns and facilitates types of network infrastructure such as mobile, satellite, and fixed. Optus being the well-known organization employing 9,000 full time employees and 342 stores across the country, the company has been serving millions of customers on a daily basis (Optus, 2016). Hence, I was privileged for being trained by the company

The pre-structured schedule of training was hanged on the notice board of department and we also received it via email. The session period started from 1^st of June to 31^st of August 2017. There was lot of curiosity and anxiety, as it was the first experience of my life, where I was stepping into a complete new field and all my college theories would run at the back of my mind. I sometimes would find its implementation in the workplace and other times not. On the first day, the company’s Zonal Business Manager (ZBM) introduced me to the best Territorial Sales Manager (TSM), under whom I was getting trained. As the training session started, I began to learn about varied nuances of organizational communication through being a part of the business activities, the organizational structure, workings, and team work. The TSM had a team of 50 members, who were the Field Survey Executives (FSE) of the distributor hired by the company. These individuals were to be managed by the TSM and I had to actively take part in it for three months. I understood the flow of order, which is a key constituent of organizational communication in the organization from top management to and vice versa. In an organizational communication process, the transparency of information and the hygiene of process are to be maintained. The training helped me to identify three important organizational drivers that kept the company and us moving. These factors included motivation, leadership, and effective organizational communication skills.

Group Communication

I recall of the words that say “An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lion led by a sheep”, when I saw my manager handling the team. I understood the real situation when 50 FSEs with different personalities were so efficiently handled by the TSM (Smith, 2016). Consecutively for many months, he was able to be the best performer of the zone as his leadership was so efficient that it sufficed all the concepts that I read in my books in my college. As an efficient leader, he beforehand ensured risk management and detailed about the list that would hamper the employees due to hazardous work and implemented measures, which would eliminate the risk (Optus, 2017). Being the manager, he was always the first person to reach the office, which helped in maintaining the discipline and punctuality of the office, as not a single employee was found to be late. This helped in achieving success that was the ultimate result of the performance at the end of each month (Zenger, 2015).

In the second month, I started to visit the field, where I was responsible for communicating with the retailers and gather information about the market situation along with competition, customer’s satisfaction. Additionally, I also helped the clients to understand the new schemes and prizes that they would achieve for their targeted performance. In a day, I started meeting almost 20 clients with different personalities. This made me realized about business communication strengths. This also helped me to t effectively communicate with the retailers and understand their requirements and complains. This also assisted me to solve their issues and so that they can maximize their performance. I started to develop my communication skills by strengthening the way to express myself with correct tone, pitch, volume, speed, idea emphasis, use of words, and its repetition (Mehra, 2012).

Optus training was a learning process for me, which helped me in developing myself in various ways. At one point of the training session, I was confused in the process of managing 50 different personalities and in order to overcome it, I changed my prime focus to analyze e and strengthen the team rather than the assigned work. Hence, at this particular moment, I learnt about the business or organizational communication skills and the versatility that was demanded for making the interaction process more successful. It further helped me to understand about the ongoing situations, the competition degree as well as complains. After understanding the whole scenario it became easier for me to identify the problems and the methods that would assist in solving it. In case of any serious issues, I communicated the deficiencies to the manager, who would guide me to perform my work. Therefore, by the end of my training, I understood the importance of communication skills, which assisted me in making more business deals and expand the market along with developing an effective team, which actually increased the productivity (Walter, 2013).

Reflective Journal on Group Communication: “My Stall”

A group means the collection of people sharing common interest. It is also defined as the process of interaction between three or more independent people working together towards achieving the common goal. This communication process can be one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many (Liang, Chanson & Neufeld, 2001).

In 2015, during the vacation with a few of friends as a part of a group, we decided to open up a food stall in a big annual cultural function, which was organized for three straight days. We quickly booked the stall and invested a capital for preparing the food items that we listed in our menu. However, in the first day our business, we completely failed because no one turned up to the stall and the function hall barely had few customers. We were at complete loss. My friends gave up and decided not to bear any more loss and close down the stall for the next two days. Somehow, I convinced them to continue for the rest two days by levering my skills related to group communication, due to which we made large profits on the third day. I believe this would have not been possible without an effective group communication.

The cultural function was organized in an open space, which was away from the market area. The highway nearby was almost a kilometer away from the open space. Therefore, on the first day, there were less people because the place was not easily accessible by the people. We failed because we did not analyze the market location prior to booking the stall, which is one of the prime factors, which needs to be undertaken while setting up of the any retail stall. Prior to setting up of the stall, we did not investigate that for making a profitable business, location plays an essential role for attracting the customers. In addition, in order to increase the sales, we had to focus on the convenience level of the customers (Gordon, 2017).

Before analyzing the market, we made investment that was in the form of money, effort, and time, which completely turned out to be a loss on the first day.

At the end of the day, my other two friends were disappointed and decided to close the store. I decided to make them realize the reason for the opening of the stall. Thus, I convinced them about failure being the part of the journey and it was a mere lesson we learned before making a make huge investments in future instances and after this group communication they agreed to start again. In the process at first, I listened to what they had to say, and asked them about trying one more time rather than giving up. I motivated them to try it one more time. As human behavior responses in different forms after a conversation, my friends too agreed for carrying out the business activities for two more days. As it was the second day, most of the people through local channels and newspaper had come to know about the cultural function. On the second day, people started to come over, which brought in large numbers of customers. Taking initiative with risk of investing, the day gave me positivity, as it would have been closed down if had given up on the first day (Hoffman, 2015).

We were equally prepared for third day, as it was also a Sunday, which was enjoyed by most of the people. The gathering was large and the customers started to come in as soon as we opened the stall. The day turned out to busy and in between, I realized that most of the customers turned out due to time constraint, as they cancelled the order and moved out. Here, I realized about the timely delivery it’s essential in order to retain the potential customers in the business (Failte Ireland, 2013).

Group work is the process of co-operation, which helps ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary results through efficient group communication. This was what I had read in my college books and it actually helped us to maintain motivation along with co-operation among us. On the third day, we were totally exhausted, as we worked all day work but as the business earned profit, everyone it was happy and delighted to achieve success after the event of first day. In addition, profit level was beyond our expectation. Immense satisfaction was felt realizing that it finally turned out to be a successful event (Tarricone & Luca, 2002).

Conclusion

It can be concluded that each and every different field provides us with opportunities to learn develop and improve ourselves. When organizational communication as well as Group communication are understood and monitored efficiently, the chances of attaining results become higher. It helps us to broaden our thinking, learn from our mistakes, and progress. In my training session, I entered a new organization and I was guided by professionals, where I learnt about organizational communication and obtained many important qualities required in life so as to deal with different personalities. Additionally, I was also able to enhance my communication skills that I could lead a team and expand in the market successfully. In the second case, I along with my inexperienced friends tried a business, where I was able to understand the essence of group communication. We failed at first but could learn many things such as teamwork, motivation, importance of time along with success and failure.

Albert Einstein once said “A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.” Therefore the people should keep trying to keep learning” (School of Electronics and Computer Science, 2016).

References

Failte Ireland., 2013. How to provide customer service excellence. Business Tools, pp. 1-18.

Gordon, K. M., 2017. Business site selection, location analysis, and GIS. International Business, pp.1-39.

Hoffman, B., 2015. Motivation for learning and performance. United States: Academic Press.

Liang, L., Chanson, S. T & Neufeld, G. W. 2001. Process Group and Group Communication: Classification and Requirements. University of British Columbia, pp. 1-11.

Mehra, P., 2012. Business Communication for Managers. India: Dorling Kindersley.

Optus, 2017. Site risk register. Optus, [online] Available at: <https://www.optus.com.au/opfiles/MicroSite/WHS/Assets/PDFs/OptusCentreHobart-SiteRiskRegister.pdf> [Accessed 27 May 2018].

Optus., 2016. Innovating for a better tomorrow. 2016 Optus Sustainability Report, p.1-47.

School of Electronics and Computer Science, 2016. Motto. Albert Einstein, p. 1

Smith, J. T. J., 2016. My testimony: The Battle between faith and fear. United States: iUniverse.

Tarricone, P & Luca, J., 2002. Successful teamwork: a case study. Edith Cowan University, pp. 1-7.

Turkalj, Z & Fosic, I., 2009. Organizational communication as an important factor of organizational behavior. Interdisciplinary management Research V, pp. 1-10.

Walter, L. M., 2013. The importance of training and development in the workplace. The Leadership Center, pp.1-14.

Zenger, J. 2015. Taking responsibility is the highest mark of great leaders. Leadership, Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackzenger/2015/07/16/taking-responsibility-is-the-highest-mark-of-great-leaders/#7fd87c0c48f2> [Accessed 27 May 2018].