ABSTRACT
Communications 9 There is an old story that during the First World War, a message was sent ‘‘send rein-
forcements, we are going to advance’’ and having passed along a long chain of
communications it arrived as ‘‘send three and four pence, we are going to a dance’’.
(‘‘Three and four pence’’ was a sum of money at that time.) Many readers may have
played a children’s game, which in the UK is known as ‘‘Chinese whispers’’. In this game a message is spoken to a first recipient who then repeats it to a second recipient, and so
on down a long line of recipients. The message that arrives is rarely recognisable from
the message that started. In organisations, the importance of good communications, or
the cost of poor communications, cannot be exaggerated.
