An organization is never healthy when it has not experienced episodes of conflict that may bring about feelings of uneasiness and to a certain extent, embarrassment to fellow members.

I write this as a 27-year old officer, former officer, member, ex-member, lurker, observer, stalker, loyalist, fan, and patriot of several organizations which shaped me to become the kind of person that I am now. I am no expert in organizational management but one thing I learned about being a part of an organization is the importance of communication in resolving conflicts.

This brings to mind the day when I was still a Mass Communication fresh(wo)man at the University of the Philippines Cebu College when Atty. Ian Vincent Manticajon introduced David Berlo to our class composed of fresh high school graduates hailing from different provinces all over the county.

I remember Berlo over Shannon, Weaver, Laswell and Schramm (and their communication models) because in that 7:30 a.m. class, Sir Ian wrote down on a white board something that this man said.

“Meanings are in people, not in words.”

Berlo just became my new best friend.

The successes and failures of my involvement and participation in different organizations at UP Cebu evolved around this phrase. When I failed as a leader in one organization owed primarily to arrogance and inability to accept my weakness, I can almost picture out Berlo standing infront of me with a huge placard in which the words “meanings are in people, not in words” were written in a bold, capital letters.

I thought about it when in a news coverage, I was told that I said something that offended a fellow journalist. I was clueless about what I said that hurt her but…

Meanings are in people, not in words.

Berlo further said that communication does not consist of transmission of meanings, but of the transmission of messages. In short, meanings are not in the message; they are in the message users. To make this even shorter, he is saying that words do not mean at all; only people “mean.”

Why is this so? Because people have different experiences. Meanings change as people’s experiences change. It can be inferred that no two people can have the same meaning for one word.

From there, Berlo’s communication model looks like this:

Sender -> Message -> Channel -> Receiver

(I remember my college notes and this model had some more components underneath each element but sorry, I can’t remember them but you will my point later.)

And this is where my communication learning and my experience as part of an organization meets. Because if you look at Berlo’s model, it is linear. It basically means that a sender sends his/her message through a channel and it reaches the receiver.

But in your organization, how would you (sender) know that the message you sent was understood by your members (receiver) in the way you intended it to be?

Do you just assume that they understood what you meant?

This is where feedback comes in.

An element absent in Berlo’s model but later appeared in Schramm (I am writing from memory and I do not have plans of googling this part of this random entry so please correct me if I am wrong) is feedback, where the receiver tells the sender about the message (that passed through a certain channel) that was received.

In organizational communication, I learned that you can’t assume that people know what you mean when you send them out a message. You have to make sure that they interpret/understand your message in the way that it was intended.

How to do it? Feedback, the communication model say.

In most cases, feedback might be a face-to-face interaction, a one-on-one meeting or it can be a focus group discussion. But “confrontation” – as in facing each other – especially when the message (or issue) is about something sensitive may not be the best way to generate feedback and come up with a solution.

This is a very tricky situation; one that I am not happy to be involved with but has the responsibility to come up with, if not suggest, a solution. I am a swinger between confrontation and silent resolve and so I can be the middle(wo)man for negotiations. But it’s tiring and exhausting; sometimes it can be plainly uninspiring to wake up each day thinking about being lodged in between two mountains that are waiting to smash against each other.

It is easy to give up and say “I have had enough.” I can always do that. I am a Mother of twins running a multi-cultural household in a country that speaks a very different language. It’s crazy.

But I can’t quit. I won’t quit. I refuse to quit.

In the midst of my attempt to find a solution to an organizational challenge using a communication model, my husband, upon seeing how absorbed and worried I was, said: “That’s the beauty of an organization. Everyone is different, everyone has something to put on the table.”

“The beauty and strength of an organization is not only measured by the successes you created together; but the failures and mistakes you dealt together. It may not be a confrontational scene, it may be a silent agreement. But as long as it is directed towards resolving something, I think you will find a solution.”

I knew what to do.

I end this entry with the wisdom from my husband, who is so patient with me when I talked about anything that my crazy mind dictates me to say even at 2:00 a.m.