Business Communication in Toyota Essay

1. Introduction In Toyota Motors Corporation there are several communication methods by which employees share their ideas, information, opinions and feelings. The following are some of the methods of internal communication: news-letter, face to face, notice board, memo, e-mail, telephone, text messages, and instant messaging. The sharing ideas, information, opinions and feelings contribute to the operations of teams and the work of individuals within the corporation. I will suggest about four methods of two-way internal communication. 2. Vertical Communications Vertical Communication is the communication between those who are on different levels of authority within the company. For example, manager to employee, general manager to managers, foreman to machine operator, head of the department to cashiers, etc. Vertical communications occurs between hierarchically positioned people and can involve both downward and upward communication flows. i. Downward Vertical Communication Downward Communication is more prevalent than upward communication. Downward Communication flows from supervisor to employee, from policy makers to operating personal, or from top to bottom on the organization chart. As messages move downward through successive levels of the organization, they seem to get larger. If top managers communicate directly with immediate supervisors and immediate supervisors communicate with their staff. A simple policy statement from the top of the organization may grow into a formal plan for operation at lower levels. Their decisions taken at the top of an organization are broadly stated policies in line with organization. Downward communication is used by the managers for providing a complete understanding of the employees’ job as well as to communicate them how their jobs are related to other jobs in the organization. ii. Upward Vertical Communication Upward communication generally is feedback to downward communication. Although necessary and valuable, upward communication contains risk. When management requests information from lower organization levels, the resulting information becomes feedback to that request. Employees talk to supervisors about methods of doing it, and their discernment of the  organization. Upward communication leads to a more committed and loyal workforce in an organization because the employees are given a chance to raise and speak dissatisfaction issues to the higher levels. The manager get to know about the employees’ feelings toward their jobs, peers, supervisor and organization in general. Managers can according to take the actions for improving things. These comments are feedback to the downward flow transferred in both spoken and written form by group meetings, procedures, company news releases, and grapevine. It is used to communicate links with down levels of employees and communicate with the staff in a sown level of their seniors. 3. Horizontal/Lateral Communications Horizontal Communications are messages sent between staff on the same level of the organization hierarchy. It indicates the exchange of information between individuals in different departments or divisions within the same organization. Often, it occurs in staff relationships. There are two kinds of communication in horizontal communication. They are direct horizontal communication and indirect horizontal communication. v. Direct Horizontal Communication This indicates the exchanges of information between individuals of similar position in different departments. Such as in Toyota Car Company, a middle management from department 1 to direct communicates to another middle management from department 2. It is between similar position direct communications. This type of communication ensures coordination of activities and increases cooperation between managers and similar organization. Managers are having little understanding of the objectives or other problems such as production and marking. For example; they may be form conflict because of their different objectives and ideas. Hence, the vital importance of planning/control meetings, establishment and discussion of corporate plans and budgetary control for the whole organization. vi. Indirect Horizontal Communication This indicate communication between each level of department and different level of another department. Such as a middle management in department 1  communicates to other foreman supervisors in department 2. For example; in Toyota Car Company, the leader in department is indirect other department of manager. It is used to communicate with the staff relationships. And then we can also prepare direct and indirect plan to meet the staff.  But we will notice that a number of staff seen to have problems in understanding the message about the lack of bonuses. At that time, we will solve these problems. So, we need to communication to answer for the questions. We will need important communication. They are non-verbal communication, meta-communication and paralanguage. 4. Non-verbal communication Non-verbal communication is the process of communicating through sending and receiving wordless messages. Non-verbal communications include facial expressions, the tone of the voice, gestures displayed through body language or posture; facial expression and eye contact, sense of touch, sense of smell and body motions, object communication such as clothing, hairstyles or even architecture, or symbols and info graphics. Other mean, in the process of communication is talking without speaking a word. These non-verbal signals can give clues and additional information and meaning over and verbal communication. Define or reinforce the relationship between people and provide feedback to the other person. For example, nodding and shaking are also important techniques when listening to the other person speaks. It shows that to use nodding and shaking can presented you are listening and you can understand what the speaker is talking anything. 5. Meta-communications Meta-communications is a good special form of the communication that indicates how verbal information should be understood and interpreted. I think that it being using in surrounding. It concerns stimuli surrounding the verbal communication that also have meaning. It may be supportive and facial expression. For Example, we often used (x) in mathematics. It represents unknown number. It functions as a formal definition of the function of meta-communication in the communication. 6. Paralanguage Paralanguage may be expressed consciously or unconsciously, and includes the pitch, volume and in some cases, intonation of speech. The study known as paralinguistic. Paralinguistic is a long word and use for the noises people. In school, teacher is often using this to show the agreement – â€Å"uh-huh†, â€Å"mm†, â€Å"uh-oh†, â€Å"oh† and so on. They are often useful. For example; like smiling. We will explain about the important main of communication. And decision which may prevent the staff from understanding the information about the lack of bonuses. There are three main barriers to communication. * Emotional Interference- An emotional individual may not be able to communicate well. If someone is angry, hostile, resentful, joyful, or fearful, that person may be too preoccupied with emotions to receive the intended message. If you don’t like someone, for example, you may have trouble â€Å"hearing† them. * Conflicting Messages- Messages that cause a conflict in perception for the receiver may result in incomplete communication. For example, of a person constantly uses jargon or slang to communicate with someone from another country who has never heard such expressions, mixed messages are sure to result. Another example of conflicting messages might be if a supervisor requests a report immediately without giving the report writer enough time to gather the pro per information. * No Provision for Feedback- Since communication is two way process, the sender must search for a means of getting a response from the receiver. If a team leader does not permit any interruption nor questions while discussing projects, he may find that team members may not completely understand what they are to do. Face-to-face oral communication is considered the best type of communication since feedback can be both verbal and nonverbal. When two communicators are separated, care must be taken to ask for meaningful feedback. We should prepare the interviews about concerned that staff have become de-motivated by the decision to discontinue bonuses and by the success of Toyota competitors. We should prepare meeting the staff and employee. An interview is only effective if it is thoroughly prepare the necessary information plane. We make sure that we have all the  necessary data. We need to prepare the files and all the relevant matter. And then we also need to explain the staff why we will to de-motivate by the decision to discontinue bonuses. We prefer need make matters notes which are particularly important to say. We knew that in the interview, the staff will ask any specific questions. So, we require making answer to answer the questions. And other then, we should plan a time for meeting with the staff. And also need to interview one to one. So, we need to decisions or action for the meeting. 7. Four different types of questions And then in the interview, there are form four different types of question. They are closed questions, open questions, follow-up questions and leading questions. Closed questions are those which have only a very limited range of responses, often only say â€Å"yes† or â€Å"no†. Closed question should not always be thought of as simple questions that anyone can quickly answer merely because they require a yes or no answer. Closed questions can also be very complicated. For example, â€Å"Is one in binary equal to one in counting numbers?† is a closed question that not everyone would be able to quickly answer. Other example, asking someone if they have done something invites just those two alternatives Open questions are ones that require more than one word answers. The answers could come in the form of a list, a few sentences or something longer such as a speech, paragraph or essay. Open questions invite a more developed response, often involving the speaker’s opinions or feelings as well more information or evidence in support of an argument. For example, how do we fell to which employee? How do we improve for our Toyota Car Company? These types of question tend to close down opportunities for discussion. They should be used sparingly, if at all. They can be useful, though, for determining the other person’s position on an issue as a prelude to follow-up question which does open-up the discussion. We should also need to understand leading questions. These are questions which in their wording or their tone, suggest a particular answer and, again  they do little to take the communication forward. In fact, they are usually inviting conformation of the questioner’s position, rather than opening up the discussion. 8. Group Conflicts In Toyota Car Company, we have to explain many problems. We have taken notice from employee’s feedback that some employees are worry about the potential 35,000 redundancies worldwide which Toyota Car Company are planning to undertake in the next few years. So, this is also form group conflicts in the workforce currently. In the shop floor level of organization, there appears to be group conflicts. It forms in intergroup, departments. The group members are often necessary to complete the work required to operate a business. Sometime, groups inter-relate to accomplish the organization’s goals and objectives, and conflict can occur. At the time, we will form concern between the staff. It occur group conflicts in the workforce currently may be work interdependence, goal variances and the increased demand for specialists. Differences in perceptions among groups regarding time and statues, when coupled with different goals, can also create conflict. For examples, the group to produce the new design of Toyota Car, but members is different idea design to produce car. It will appear to be conflicts in the group. Boss have taken notice from employee’s feedback that some employees are worried about the potential 35,000 redundancies worldwide which Toyota are planning to undertake in the next few years. This is also having a negative impact on working with teams. There are some reasons to causes the group conflicts. We make plan for the group conflicts to organize and plan the redundancy process. We will write answers to retrench some staff and remove bonuses for thousands of senior employees as it tries to regain investor confidence and stopping bonuses are the latest steps in an extensive cost cutting drive that will lead the company to cut 35,000 jobs worldwide in the next five years in the face of a competitive car market. Confirmation of the bonus decision is expected this month when Toyota unveils its full results the company make record losses. Toyota traditionally pays bonuses in March to all senior staff members worldwide. Due to the changes in economic performance, staffs were not given any bonus payments last year. When Toyota  Car Company grew much larger than began, corporate evolution meant an increase in office space, include the technology. Advances in technology have many new methods of communication to communicate with employee, suppliers. 9. Intranet for employee communication We need to use intranet communication to communicate with employee. This communication links with our company employees connections. For example; in Toyota Car Company, manager should be discuss with employee for to produce new communication. As a group, need to communication links with the down levels of employees. For example; in a group, our received a new order from customer, we are discuss with employee (intranet communication) to produce it new order. So, intranet communication need to communicate with employee. Intranet communication helps to improve communication with employee. It support links with customers and partners. Employees can view up to date information about the company and changes being made. 10. Extranet for communication with Ford’s suppliers This communication links with both their input and output connections. For example, our Toyota Car Company will have communications with our suppliers of raw materials and spare parts and with all of our customers. As our organization grow, the number of communication links with the outside environment increases. It is important that the extranet communication should be integrated with the internal communication. For examples, our received an order from a supplier (external communication) has to be processed and executed within the organization (internal communication) and then the documents of sales, plans and invoice have to be sent to the customer (external communication). So, external communication is preferred need that communicates with suppliers and customers. Extranet communication helps in improve company efficiency and output by automating procedures that were done manually in the past. They can help in improving relationships with main or potential suppliers by giving them correct, precise and efficient information. This helps in cutting down the meetings time and is also helpful when doing our business having with partners located in different countries and in different time zones. 11. Email for sending press releases to the national press This email with the development of electronic office communication based on computers, the ability to send and receive messages. We are using internal email to send to national press for to develop to know that many different kinds of Toyota car. As use email, we will easy to link with our customers and suppliers. Email communication has many advantages such as emails it the most wide used application on the internal. Email communication has many advantages such as email is the most wide used application on the internet. It can easy to get embarrassing comments. Email communication is effective to business. It is easy to distribute information such as many kinds of car designs. And then the person can also order news car from passing email. So, we also need email to send press releases and send national press. The organization charts are also need to show for business. Organization charts is very important to an organization. An organizational structure should enable the organization to change or to respond according to its environment. If it is very effective it is called a flexible structure. Mainly there are two types of structure. They are organic structure and mechanistic structure. It has few rules and regulations, encourages employee teamwork, and decentralizes decision making to employees doing the job. The Business Development Manager mention the percentage of sales from each regional sales office in North America are 15%, 22%, 18%, 28%, 7%, 10% . The total of this graph shows the total Toyota Sales for 2007. | Advantages| Disadvantages| Pie chart| They are visually very clear and of ten uncluttered with additional information. They are also very helpful to illustrate profits as they use percentages.| They cannot use to compare that whole with another. Not use to compare one year and another year products.| Line graph| It shows specific values of data well. It reveal trends and relationships between data and compare trends in different groups of a variable. It can clearly show error values in the data. It usually simple to read and understand. It can also give you a nice visual representation of a function or equation.| Line graph are confuse in business. It can only be used to  show data over time. You can change the way the data of a line graph appears, by not using consistent scales on the axis. Labeling trends to convolute graphs, difficult to discern exact values for data.| Table| It is easy to read and easy to compare the different types of production of years. It has exact numbers no points on a graph.| It d oes not click with the more visually-oriented audience.| Now know that Boss has needed a check-list and need to prepare a kind of check-list let him know how we prepare that case. Following is a sample check-list when we go to travel and then will explain how to improve the visual communication with new technology. References: Downward Communication, Upward Communication, Horizontal Communication. Available on (27/6/2013) Group Conflict, Available on Bilugan, Renory L., 29.May.2011 Available on (27/6/2013) Types of Non-Verbal Communication. Available on (27/6/2013) Understanding Conflict – Meaning and Phases of Conflict. Available on (27/6/2013) Sam, Alexander and eHow Contributor, Advantages & Disadvantages of a Pie Chart. Available on (25/6/2013) Barriers to Effective Communication, Available on (25/6/2013)