This paper will be concerned with the causes of failure in communications on both the organizational and the personal levels. Communications represent an extremely important element of organizational efficiency. communications in the business setting may be carried out on either a formal or an informal basis. Formal communications relate to the ways in which "an organization, department or supervisor communicates with employees . . . through goals, policies, procedures, rules, the chain of command, meetings, memos, and bulletin boards" (Warrick and Zawacki 283). Informal communications, on the other hand, refer to the personal interactions which may take place between the various members of the organization. In both of these forms of communication, the most important factor is that of effectively transmitting a message. This message may be related to one of four specific purposes; it may be social, informational, expressive, or persuasive (Atwater 107). In order to fully understand the intended message of the communication, one must also understand the purpose behind the communication. A problem or failure in communication occurs when either the message or the purpose of the communication is misunderstood. This type of failure may occur at any point in the communication process. In the communication process, the intended message is transmitted by one person, and is in turn received by a second person. The receiver must decode the words of the transmitter in order to interpret what the message of the communication is. The transmitter determines whether the intended message was received or not through the process of "feedback," by which signals from the receiver provide "clarification and agreement" (Bittel 308). Although this appears to be a simple process, there are a number of things that can go wrong and cause misunderstandings in communication. For example, misunderstandings may arise as a result of the transmitter and ...