Lateral communication is the process of information exchange among people or departments of the same rank. Unlike hierarchical communication, which is from top to bottom or vice versa. Lateral communication supports collaboration and coordination among staff members of the same rank. It is crucial in enhancing teamwork and operational effectiveness. Let’s discuss lateral communication, its advantages and disadvantages. How to maximise it in the workplace.
What is Lateral Communication?
Lateral communication is information, ideas, or feedback shared between employees at the same level in the organization. Lateral communication generally occurs among colleagues, departments, or teams. Its facilitating the ease of work and collaboration. Lateral communication is less structured than vertical communication. It aims at group relationship-building and problem-solving. One example is two managers from different departments discussing project deadlines or working together on a new project.
What is Lateral Communication in an Organization?
In organization is sending information between colleagues or teams of equal hierarchy. Lateral communication occurs across the organization horizontally instead of vertically. Where data is transferred up or down a chain of command. It helps in fostering collaboration and maintaining a flow of work between departments.
Messages typically pass between functional areas, teams or individuals with knowledge who may share information, ideas, tasks, problems or even common goals. Although lateral communication can be business-like or structured, it can also have a more informal tone, particularly when employed to enrich the relationships between colleagues, for instance, in remote workgroups without a defined business purpose. For instance, a marketing team works with the sales department to explore customer feedback. Enhance promotional strategies.
Advantages of Lateral Communication
There are multiple benefits of lateral communication, resulting in the thriving of an organization. It fosters collaboration, boosts morale, and drives efficiency.
- Better Coordination: It improves departmental coordination, allowing organizations to move closer. It keeps everyone aligned and works toward shared goals. It results in improved productivity for the team. Effective communication helps tackle challenges better and allows the projects to stay on the right path.
- Rapid Decision-Making: Information goes straight to the source for greater speed in decision-making. The teams discuss problems and make timely choices, which cuts the delays. This results in timely responses to changes, enabling businesses to react swiftly in dynamic environments.
- Improved Employee Morale and Teamwork: Employees feel like they can speak up if they have suggestions or ideas to share. It boosts morale and creates a teamwork culture. Team members are more likely to feel appreciated and engaged when speaking up. Such an environment enhances job satisfaction and boosts the overall work culture.
- Boosted Innovation: Open communication between teams promotes the sharing of creative ideas and innovative solutions. Employees can generate new ideas and solutions by sharing different perspectives and experiences. New ideas continue flowing in because the overall atmosphere of the company fosters innovation. It keeps the company from getting stagnant.
- Better Problem Solving: Lateral communication helps permanently solve complex problems in no time with inputs from different horizontal perspectives. Collaboration across teams allows us to bring diverse expertise to the table and ultimately drives better solutions. Such collaborative problem-solving reduces mistakes and leads to superior organizational results.
Challenges of Lateral Communication
There are many advantages to lateral communication, but there are also some organizational challenges that accompany it. These are important for ensuring smooth communication.
- Lack of Clarity: Information passed on lateral channels might be vague, creating misunderstandings. A lack of clear, concise messaging can lead employees to misconstrue details or overlook key points. Such ambiguity breeds project error or delays, downgrading efficiency and productivity.
- Overlapping Responsibilities: When roles become muddy, so too does accountability. Employees may duplicate efforts or leave out tasks when roles and responsibilities are poorly defined. This leads to inefficiency and may slow down the progress of group projects.
- Competition Between Departments: Intra-institutional rivalry can stand in the way of collaboration via lateral information flows. Competition among teams leads to a lack of trustfulness and unwillingness. Teams do not work towards shared goals, leading to a lack of cooperation. It negatively affects organisational performance.
- Information Overload: When communication is overwhelming, it can overload information, preventing employees from parsing relevant information. If you share too much without prioritizing, your employees may become inundated and miss key messages. This lowers the effectiveness of communication and hurts decision-making.
- Resistance to Change: Employees might be reluctant to transition from a more formal, hierarchical approach to a more collaborative communication style. Some might have used a top-down approach and be flummoxed by direct interaction across levels. Breaking through this resistance takes clear communication. Adequate support to lead employees towards adoption and positive realization.
How to Improve Lateral Communication at Work?
Here is how organizations can improve lateral communication at work: Create an atmosphere of probation, honesty and respect among peers
- Promote Informal Communication: Organize events where employees can communicate informally, team-wise meetings, or social gatherings. These conversations strengthen the relationship and trust among the team. Open dialogue lets ideas flow freely, creating an environment where employees feel safe to express their thoughts and perspectives.
- Encourage Collaboration: Provide workshops and opportunities for cross-departmental projects to encourage teamwork. By encouraging collaboration, employees learn to see things from different perspectives and work together to solve problems. By promoting this culture, companies can increase creativity. It enhances problem-solving ability and helps reach common goals more quickly.
- Establish Clear Expectations: Make sure everyone knows who is doing what so people don’t duplicate effort or leave something important undone. Clear expectations help employees work better and avoid overlap. Clear expectations help minimize confusion and keep everyone focused on the common goal.
- Embrace Technology: Use instant messaging applications, video conferencing, and project management software. These technologies help teams to remain connected, to share updates, and to collaborate in real-time. The right tools will allow businesses to enhance efficiency. Communication across remote or distributed teams.
- Provide Training: Provide training in communication and conflict resolution to enhance staff interpersonal communication skills. Training programs that enable employees to navigate conflict and communication effectively. Needs when facing difficult situations within the workplace promote a healthy work environment. Training prepares employees to face challenges and navigate in their surroundings.
How does it Differ from Vertical Communication?
Communication is on the same level as that of the organizational hierarchy of horizontal communication. It describes communications from the upper management level to the lower level of the organization (top-down) or vice versa(bottom-up). Lateral communication is to communication between people under the same hierarchy.
Horizontal communication happens between peers at the same level. These types of communication promote teamwork and collaboration. It assists with organizing tasks, solving issues, and encouraging free communication between staff. On the other hand, vertical communication is considered hierarchical. Since it takes place between superiors and subordinates. This communication goes through a more formal chain of command. It disseminates instructions, policies, and reports.
Lateral communication encourages collaboration and fosters team-building activities. . It is very open and lets employees work with each other very easily. On the other hand, vertical communication can even create power differences. This hierarchy may restrict employees from sharing ideas, adversely impacting organisational communication and collaboration.
Lateral Communication FAQs
1. What is lateral communication in an organization?
Lateral communication is the flow of information among peers or departments at the same hierarchy level.
2. What are the benefits of lateral communication?
It enhances coordination, accelerates decision-making, enhances morale, enhances innovation, and facilitates problem-solving.
3. How to enhance lateral communication at work?
Lateral communication can be enhanced by promoting open communication, having a collaborative culture, and applying communication tools.
4. In what way is lateral communication different from vertical communication?
Lateral communication occurs among colleagues. Vertical communication occurs among superiors and subordinates at organizational levels.
5. What is one example of lateral communication?
Instances of lateral communication are a problem-solving project team. Discussion among the sales team and the marketing department to reach strategies.
