Organizations and
communication
An article by L. Ron Hubbard
The
survival of an organization depends upon its ability to perceive, to compute and
to remember. All these take place within the tissues that form the communications
system. A group, like an individual, must know what it has done, what it is doing
and what it intends to do. A group, like an individual, must have this data available
immediately, at will. The more closely a communications system (including perception,
memory, estimation of future efforts and relay of orders) approximates the operation
of the human mind, the better the organization will function. When the memory
of the organization is resident only in the minds of a few individuals, that organization
is not functioning as a group, and has no real group memory, but is only borrowing
the memories of these individuals in lieu of1 having a memory
of its own. This is highly unsatisfactory. As with an individual, so with a group
there is a direct relationship between sanity and ability to communicate with
records of the past, as well as with perceptions of the present.
Communication lines also have weaknesses.
A communication line can be cut or interrupted or invalidated in five ways.
The first way is simply to cut the line, to prevent any information from traveling
on the line, to pass no despatches2.
The second way is to pervert the line, to alter the communications which are
going on the line.
The third way is to select all constructive messages out of the line and leave
all destructive messages on the line. This is cutting the line by censorship.
The fourth way is to introduce destructive material into the line, to load
the line with entheta3.
The fifth way is to glut4 the line, to permit any and all
material to go over it, with no selectivity. Those who are on the receiving end
will get so much material to deal with that they will become careless and irresponsible
in their handling of the material.
Of course, the most successful way to prevent communications from occurring
is not to establish a communication line in the first place. This is what usually
happens. But if one is established, it can be destroyed by cutting it, by perverting
it, by censoring the theta, by introducing entheta or by glutting the line.
There are at least three ways to glut the line. One is to fail to evaluate
despatches as to importance and velocity, in a system where traffic is heavy.
The receiver then has to read everything to find out which item to handle first.
Another way is to permit messages to be verbose5, with much
talk and little data. Another way is to save up a great amount of material and
then send it all at onceto send nothing for five days and then send 100,000 words
and then nothing for five days. The receiver has so much to do all at once that
he will tend to devaluate the communication in general. If a communicator carelessly
lets two months' worth of material on a certain subject pile up on his desk and
then releases it all at once, people will be so stunned by the great volume that
they will pay no attention to it, and the material may be lost.
A communicator, because he is a communicator, will want lines not to be cut
in any of these ways. He will have to know how to prevent their being cut, and
the first ability that he will need in order to prevent their being cut will be
the ability to evaluate the material that goes over the line. Some items will
be very important, some not so important. They must be evaluated. Some items,
whether important or not, will have to be done right away if they are to be done
at allthey will have, in other words, a high velocity. They must be so evaluated
by the communicator. The importance and velocity of every message must be written
on it by the communicator, so that the receiver, if he has a pile of a hundred
messages, will know which to handle first and which to follow up the most frequently.
In order to be able to evaluate messages in this way, the communicator must
know as much about the operation of the organization as the man who is sending
the order. He must make his own evaluation of the message. The man who is sending
the order may say to the communicator, "This order for orchids for my wife
is top priority, top velocity message. Mark it that way and send it out immediately."
It is all right for the executive to say this, but it is not all right for the
communicator to comply with his requestunless the order really is top priority
and a big rush. It is up to the communicator to decide how this message will be
communicated. He will probably rate it high velocity, if the orchids are to arrive
that nightbut he will undoubtedly rate it low importance. This will
mean to the communication system that if other work is not too pressing, orchids
should be purchased for Mrs. Executive that afternoonor not at all, since
there may well be a time limit marked on the message, "before 5:00 P.M.,"
or something of the sort.
If an executive tries to force his evaluation of an order on the communicator,
or if he will not the communicator know how the order relates to the rest of the
operation, or if he generally hides information from the communicator, the communications
system, but just that much, will cease to operate properly and communications
will begin to fail. Whenever an executive acts as though the communicator were
not good enough or trustworthy enough to know about something, the executive will
be cutting a communication line, because he will be depriving the communicator
of the data he needs to be able to evaluate the material which the executive
deigns6 to give him.
An order which was the most important thing that this executive could think
of might not be the most important thing that could happen in the organization.
It would be up to the communicator of that executive to know the importance of
the order in relation to everything that was being handled by the communications
system. If he didn't know, it would be up to him to ask the central communications
office to evaluate it for him. The communicator is interested in the executive's
opinion of the importance of this message. He may even concur with it. But he
may not. And the communicator's opinion is the one that counts.
In a low-toned organization, executives from the head janitor on up will try
to keep everything a secret. This will make it difficult for the communications
system to evaluate their communications. The number of items which have to be
classified for security in an organization which has constructive and creative
goals and plans should be very small. Sometimes, in such an organization, we find
an individual from whose desk there is a niagara7 of secret
and confidential communications. Everything this individual sends out must be
delivered in person, must be delivered only to the addressee, is sealed with wax,
and must only be sent by a special, trusted messenger. Open one of these messages
and you find,
"Joe,
"Will you come over to my office for a closed conference?
"Bill."
It so secret, he cannot even say it in a secret communication. This individual
is accomplishing only one thing with all this secrecy. He is causing whatever
meager communication lines there are in the organization to fail. Everything which
is kept secret becomes an unknown in the equation which is set up to evaluate
and expedite communications. Only a few of these unknowns are necessary to make
correct evaluation impossible. Every order or job which is kept secret will raise
the chances of duplication8 or conflict.
L. Ron Hubbard, from the book How to Live Though an Executive
For
more information or to order How to Live Though an Executive click here.
1. in lieu of: in place of; instead of.
2. despatches: written messages, particularly official communications.
3. entheta: a coined word in Scientology®, made from the words enturbulated
theta (thought or life). As used here, it refers to communications which,
based on lies and confusions, are slanderous, choppy or destructive in an attempt
to overwhelm or suppress a person or group.
4. glut: fill (a receptacle, channel, pipe, etc.) to excess; choke up;
saturate thoroughly with some substance.
5. verbose: using or containing too many words; wordy; long-winded.
6. deigns: thinks it worthy of oneself (to do something); thinks fit; condescends.
7. niagara: anything taken as resembling Niagara Falls (the falls of the
Niagara River in Canada) in force and relentlessness; avalanche.
8. duplication: the action of something being made, done or caused to happen
again. Used in this sense to denote unnecessary or wasted motion. In Scientology,
duplication is also used to describe the action of reproducing something
exactly. For example, if Person A communicated the concept of a cat to Person
B and Person B got the exact same concept of a cat without any alteration, Person
B would be said to have duplicated what was originated by Person A.
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