Channels of Communication
Direction · Flow · Distortion · Organisational Failure
NovaTech PLC employs 12,000 people across 8 countries. The CEO in London issues a strategic directive: "Reduce operational costs by 5% globally by Q3." This single instruction must travel through Directors, Regional Managers, Team Leads, and eventually reach individual workers on the factory floor in Jakarta, São Paulo, and Munich — each speaking a different language, operating under different cultural norms, and interpreting "cost reduction" through their own departmental lens.
Meanwhile, NovaTech's Marketing division in Berlin has just greenlit an aggressive "Buy One Get One Free" product launch without informing the Finance team in London — who are already managing a tight cash-flow forecast for the quarter.
⚠️ Examiner's Lens
Cambridge examiners will present a scenario like this and ask you to analyse the communication failures and evaluate solutions. You must identify whether the problem is directional (vertical vs horizontal), structural (chain length), or methodological (one-way vs two-way). Precision in labelling the channel is non-negotiable for AO2 marks.
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