You are here: Start

ExcludingParticipatingDecision-Making CommitteesNetworking of CommunicationsCommunication ChannelsMeetings StructureMeeting GuidelinesOrganisational Shadow WorldsDecision Premise: Communication ChannelsRights to DecideGuiding process Decision MakerGuiding Process NetworkingLies and DeceptionCommunication Container

Communication Container

If the term ‘Communication Container’ has been chosen here, then it is in order to avoid the usual word ‘meeting’. If you wish to understand, advise or lead organisations, you can (or must) examine them to establish where important questions in the context of decision-making processes are discussed. Meeting rooms are only a ‘where’! Other containers are canteens, lifts, underground garages, restaurants, hotel rooms, conference rooms, woodland paths and many others. It is possible to identify official and unofficial places where important matters are spoken about. Knowing these places is a fundamental precondition for being effective as a member of an organisation. The analysis of these places – decision-making premise ‘communication paths’ – is necessary to accompany organisations in change processes, because these always accompanied by the changing of these containers.

Changes are not only to do with elimination and new creation (which is always limited to the official discussions), but also through reflection and communication about the container collection (is it really sensible that we discuss this in the lift!”), through careful handling of these spaces (“Let us have a meeting there to talk to everyone about it!”) through addressing informal contexts (“Are exploratory discussions with the board during the evening meal helpful?”) or through targeted conflicts (“I cannot regularly talk about these questions with my area manager/colleague!”) The shaping of decision-making communication is just as important as the decisions themselves. Nevertheless, it is often not given the same level of attention.