Assessing Organizational Communication: Strategic Communication Audits

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Assessing Organizational CommunicationStrategic
Communication Audits

• Chapter 2
• Initiating and Planning an Assessment

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Initiating and Planning

• Planning is necessary to orient both the auditor
  and the client to the assessment project.
• Assessments can be initiated either by the
  consultant or by the client.
• Sometimes the ethical auditor should refuse the
  assignment because of lack of expertise or
  because of the unsuitability of certain goals.

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Phase 1 Initiating

• Meet with key people to
• Accommodate clients purposes.
• Achieve consensus about the project.
• Define the scope of the assessment.
• Familiarize the assessment team with organization
• Familiarize management with the assessment
  procedure

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Phase 2 Planning

• Make financial arrangements
• Decide nature of final report
• Clarify auditor-client relationship
• Purchase model
• Medical model
• Process model
• Arrange liaison with organization

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Phase 2 Planning

• Determine focal areas
• What do you need to know for the analysis?
• What would you like to know?
• What information is it possible to get?
• What are your priorities? Managements
  priorities?
• What information will most benefit the
  organization when it is fed back?

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Phase 2 Planning

• Select Assessment Techniques
• Observations
• Interviews
• Questionnaires
• Critical Incidents
• Network Analysis
• Content Analysis
• Focus Groups
• Communication Diaries

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Phase 2 Planning

• Select Assessment Techniques
• Recommendations in choosing
• Use multiple techniques when possible
  (triangulation).
• Focus on actual behaviors as well as perceptions.
• Collection of data through electronic means is
  increasingly promising.
• Better return rate
• More in-depth open-ended questions

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Phase 2 Planning

• Choose Employees to be Audited
• Canvas or Sample?
• Cost
• Audit Technique
• Expectations
• How to decide who should be included
• Stratified sampling is necessary
• Avoid making the sample too small
• Include all key people
• Do not overlook part-time employees

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Phase 2 Planning

• Forecast the Time Sequence
• Publicize Assessment before It Happens
• Formalize Audit Arrangements
• Contract
• Letter

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A Matter of Perspective

• The entry to an organization is almost always
  through management.
• However, many people in organizations are excited
  at the prospect of improving communication.

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A Matter of Perspective

• Organizations are systems of human interaction.
• Employees want to be respected and involved at
  work.
• Often when employees resist organizational
  change, the resistance can be traced to how the
  change was introduced rather than to the nature
  of the change itself.

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A Matter of Perspective

• Managing change is a matter of managing
  communication.
• We view communication audits as a powerful
  integrative tool in helping managers and
  employees meet their rights and obligations to
  communicate with each other.

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A Matter of Perspective

• Perspective also means determining what your
  professional standards are and how they will be
  used.
• It is never unprofessional to tell it like it
  is.
• It is woefully unprofessional either to bend your
  assessment to a management whim or to avoid
  dealing with unpleasant assessments related to
  specific people

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An Important Opportunity

• Auditors often have a research component in their
  assessments which helps in the refinement of
  their own theories.
• Cumulatively, such audits have been worthwhile in
  developing research tools that try to discover
  the keys to effective organizational
  communication.
• However, the first objective is to do a good job
  for the company.

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Assessing Organizational CommunicationStrategic
Communication Audits

• Chapter 2
• Initiating and Planning an Assessment
• END