Communication Blockades
It is very important for organisations to also consciously and purposefully block communication. If everybody spoke with everyone about everything, everything would grind to a standstill. Networking requires boundaries. Communication can be blocked in different ways:
• In the factual dimension this happens by means of limiting subjects and information. For this it must be ‘allowed’ to be ignorant, to be satisfied with 80% solutions, to contain the obligation to give reasons, that is, to be able to bear clear boundaries of the rational possibilities. Therefore, managers must be able to cope with the fact that they can constantly process less than would be conceivable and the solutions are not as good as would be desired.
• In the social dimension contact and encounter obligations must be contained. The rule “the more one speaks to each other, the better!” is fatal! Attention to what is really necessary in the way of communication between the affected parties, is, in the present networking euphoria, underdeveloped. It must be possible in organisations to say: “I don’t have to be at this meeting”, without this having a negative effect on the speaker.
• In the temporal dimension, a curbing of simultaneous communication is needed. Somebody starts and if, later(!), another realises that he has something to say about this, it is time enough. To include everyone at the beginning can be just as wrong as it is right. Here, therefore, both variants are needed in the organisation!