Bridge Publications, Inc.--Publisher of the nonfiction works of L. Ron Hubbard DATE
newsletter
   
Good communication...  
 

"What has passed in our society for good communication, however, is on a level with oxcart travel over trackless deserts and mountain wastes. The primitive communications systems which we use cannot carry the load, either in adequate volume or with sufficient speed. While transport of material has jumped from the sailing ship to the jet plane, communications have advanced only to the equivalent of Fulton's* steamboat. Telephone, telegraph, radio, duplicators, airmail and television may deceive us into thinking that communications is developed appropriately for our age. But these are only mechanical aids. They are not communications. Far more important than communicating devices are communicating people and communicating practices."

—L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard
This excerpt was taken from the book, How to Live Though an Executive by L. Ron Hubbard.

*Fulton: Robert Fulton (1765-1815), American engineer and inventor; builder of the first profitable steamboat.

 
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 once—to 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 all—they 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 request—unless 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 night—but 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 afternoon—or 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.

I found my employee relations improved immensely...

"This book gave me the basic data for setting up and running an organization. I've used the data, especially the credo of a manager, very successfully and I keep it posted by my desk for all to see. I set up the communication system in the company and worked in using the principles. This made for a smooth communication flow and kept everything in writing. Using the credo I found my employee relations improved immensely. I had a touchy personnel situation recently and it was about to blow up. So I re-read the credo and got exactly what I had to do. I've studied a lot of materials on management skills since but the book How to Live Though an Executive is basic information that will always be used." —L.J.

 

Click here to order your copy of How to Live Though an Executive

 
Good communication...
Organizations and communication
I found my employee relations improved immensely...

 

 

How to Effectively Run Your Company and Live to Tell About it!

Success or failure?

Deluged with problems, snowed under by stacks of mail, phone ringing constantly—how can an executive cope? And no matter how many people you hire or fire, it doesn't really change. You walk a constant tightrope—a life or death-like balance. Will you succeed as an executive or will you burn out?

Even if you've read half a dozen books with interesting anecdotes about the success and failures of big names—you need something to actually help you deal with the stresses you encounter every minute of every day as an executive.

L. Ron Hubbard has isolated the key principles that make life possible—even for an executive. You can establish goals and directions for your business and attain them. You can effectively run your company—and live to tell about it.

Based on his extensive research into many different kinds of organizations, Mr. Hubbard's How to Live Though an Executive offers workable solutions to the problems every modern executive faces.

Some of the subjects covered are as follows:

  • The cause of failure in leadership
  • The setting and attainment of group goals by management
  • Why organizations act psychotic
  • The key to good morale in a group
  • How to develop an organization's "brain"
  • The principle communication that must be used in a group or organization to increase production
  • The credo of a good and skilled manager

How to Live Though an Executive details those exact factors in business and commerce which, if lacking, can keep a person overworked and worries, keep labor and management at each other's throats, and make an unsafe working atmosphere.

Whether one is involved in a large corporation or a one-man business, this book has the answers you've been looking for.

Order your copy of How to Live Though an Executive by clicking here.

 


Send your friends this newsletter!

--SEND-AND-SUBSCRIBE-LINK--
 

--REMOVE-LINK--

© 2003 Bridge Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
For copyright and trademark information.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard.

Scientology is a trademark and service mark owned by Religious Technology Center and is used with its permission. Bridge Publications, Inc. is a registered trademark and service mark in California and is owned by Bridge Publications, Inc.