...of the basics on which life operates.

I say LIFE, because a business or production group is a living thing and operates on principles that are common to all living things.

Take your own body as an example. It requires good communication through its various regulatory systems to maintain optimum operation. Too much communication through one system (say you hit your thumb with a hammer or something) can completely distract it from what it was supposed to be doing, or even knock it out entirely.

I didn't go to business school to learn these basics. I hope they teach them there, but maybe not! I learned them when I went to work for my church. They sure were taught there!

Good communication IS two-way. In our organizations, it is actually a minor offense to NOT respond promptly to a received message. It is also an offense to pretend you understand a message when you really don't. Because good communication also includes DUPLICATION.

In our organizations, we also have a concept known as DEVELOPED TRAFFIC. This occurs in many forms, but it basically amounts to unproductive communication. It can include too much communication, which can result is people spending too much time handling their messages instead of doing their work. According to our theories, dev-t is caused by people who either intentionally want to cripple the organization or, more often, by people who are UNHATTED - don't know enough about what they are supposed to do or what other people in the group are supposed to do.

Thus, communication problems in a group can be handled in different ways depending on what's causing them. If people aren't taking communication seriously, they probably need some training on the subject and how vital it is to the health of the group.

But if the communication lines are clogged with a lot of useless nonsense, chances are someone, or perhaps many staff, need to find out what they are really supposed to be doing, and also what the people around them are supposed to do. Then if someone is willfully goofing off, the others will spot it and confront him with the problem.

Communication in life or in a group is a VERY important subject! It can pay off grandly to get this subject fully understood and working well in a body, a business, or a planet.