Communication about Perceptions
Organisations cannot perceive, they can only communicate. What is communicated, therefore, depends upon what perceptions are made available by the members of the organisation to the ‘communication-system’ organisation. Each organisation needs ‘material’, which functions as content for the communication. Organisations can thus also be understood as systems that make a selection about what should be discussed, which perceptions are relevant and which are not. Without such a selection possibility all organisations would be the same.
Organisations ‘swim’, as it were, in a sea of information which consists of perceptions and these form canals in the sea (channels), which take up certain waters and exclude some others. The guiding processes can therefore be understood as channels which ‘process’ the ‘perception water’ with varying degrees of focus. Perceptions are communicated and evaluated very differently. Whether something, which occurs in communication, is regarded as ‘fake news’ or ‘fact’, as opinion or an order, as a bodily expression or as a spoken sentence, makes an enormous difference.
For the understanding of organisational dynamics, it is particularly important that organisations always change when communication takes place about something different. This is why, what the members in different communication channels, ingest or keep to themselves, has such great significance. Organisations often know much less than would be possible, because its members don’t talk about their perceptions.