Seven Steps of Communication

Communication involves seven steps thought, encoding, transmission, reception, decoding, understanding and feedback. In the case of feedback the receiver acts as the sender and the steps are repeated.

The process of communication begins when one person (sender) initiates a thought. S/he may decide that the thought backed by certain idea, opinion or fact needs to be transmitted to someone else. This thought has meaning to the sender which is the first step in the communication process.

The next step is to encode the meaning of the thought into a form appropriate to the situation and the receiver. This encoding might take the form of verbal words, gestures, facial expressions, physical actions or even artistic expressions.

After encoding, the message is transmitted through the appropriate channel .The common channels include printed pages, face-to-face discussion, the air waves and telephone lines. Transmission is the third step of the communication process.

In the fourth step the message is received and decoded by the receiver / receivers via such senses as eyesight and hearing. Decoding may also be done by an interpreter if the message is encoded in a way not understandable by the receiver.

After the message is received, it must be translated into understanding to the receiver.

In many cases, this meaning prompts a response (feedback), and the cycle is repeated when a new message is sent through the same steps by the original sender.

As shown in figure, "noise" may occur at any stage of the communication process and distort the message. It is particularly troublesome in the encoding or decoding stage. Since noise can interfere with understanding, managers should attempt to restrict it to a level that permits effective communication. In most of the cases the steps overlap and take place simultaneously, as in face-to-face oral communication.