Third Lecture: The Communication Process

I understand why it would be difficult not to do well in this course, even more so—to fail this course because, we are required to blog about every class. This requires reflection and recollection after the class and during class, one is attentive, just looking for points to blog about. I must say, very strategic plan by McDaniel. I suppose this is an actualization of one of the basic communication principles—meeting people where they are.

Cognitive Dissonance – you know how it is in Jamaica, the idea that most people have of UWI is: crem de la crem—bright, competitive, iconic lecturers…you look around and wonder, “is that era over OR, maybe it’s just that the grass just seems greener from the other side?”

Well guess what, UWI is just one of the computers in the office of the organization called Jamaica. An essential part of organizations is communication and if there is inefficiency in the communication process then there’s no way the organization may prosper. Let’s examine our organization and the communication process. There are the Directors/government, supervisors/law enforcers and other members of staff/civilians. There is a simple process to follow in order for there to be communication.

1^st An encoded message is sent

2^nd Message travels through a channel where noise may me encountered

3^rd The message is received, decoded &

4^th The receiver sends feedback (communication cannot take place without feedback)

But how do we communicate in Jamaica? Government talk to government mostly (lateral/horizontal), they send instructions to the enforcers (downward communication); the enforcers practice limited lateral communication and you would think there aught to be some amount of diagonal communication, where government would communicate with members of other work groups like scientists, business people etcetera; and finally, ordinary civilians are informed (allot of times by hearsay). Now, how many time does government or enforcers receive feedback from civilians? What was the last time Jamaica had a referendum, national demonstration…how often is the voice of the people heard at the head? Are we communicating?