Communication

Communication

Questions for Consideration

 How can we improve communication?

 How does communication flow in organizations?
 Do men and women communicate differently?
 Communication Problems
 People spend nearly 70 percent of their waking hours
communicating—writing, reading, speaking, listening
 WorkCanada survey of 2039 Canadians in six industrial and
service categories found
 61 percent of senior executives believed that they did a good job of
communicating with employees.
 Only 33 percent of the managers and department heads believed that
senior executives were effective communicators.
 Only 22 percent of hourly workers, 27 percent of clerical employees,
and 22 percent of professional staff reported that senior executives
did a good job of communicating with them.
 Canadians reported less favourable perceptions about their
company’s communications than did Americans
 Communication Terms
 Communication
 The transfer of meaning among people
 Sender
 Establishes a message, encodes the message, and
chooses the channel to send it
 Receiver
 Decodes the message and provides feedback to
the sender
 Exhibit 6-1 The Communication
Process Model

Source Receiver

Chooses a Encodes the Chooses the Decodes the Provides

message message channel message feedback

 Communication Terms
 Message
 What is communicated.
 Encoding
 Converting a message to symbolic form.
 Channel
 The medium through which a message travels
 Decoding
 Retranslating a sender’s message.
 Choosing Channels
 Channels differ in their capacity to convey
information.
 Rich channels have the ability to
 Handle multiple cues simultaneously
 Facilitate rapid feedback
 Be very personal
 Exhibit 6-2
Hierarchy of Channel Richness

Channel Type of Information

richness message medium
Richest Nonroutine, Face to face
ambiguous talk

Telephone

Computer

Memos,
letters

Flyers, bulletins
Leanest Routine, general reports
clear
 Barriers to Effective
Communication
 Filtering
 Refers to a sender manipulating
information so that it will be seen more
favourably by the receiver.
 Selective Perception
 Receivers in the communication process
selectively see and hear based on their
needs, motivations, experience,
background, and other personal
characteristics.
 Barriers to Effective
Communication
 Defensiveness
 When individuals interpret another’s message as
threatening, they often respond in ways that
retard effective communication.
 Language
 Words mean different things to different people.
 Communication Flows in
Organizations
 Downward
 Communication that flows from one level of a group to a
lower level
 Managers to employees
 Upward
 Communication that flows to a higher level of a group
 Employees to manager
 Lateral
 Communication among members of the same work group,
or individuals at the same level
 Networks
 Connections by which information flow
 Formal
 Task-related communications that follow the authority
chain
 Informal
 Communications that flow along social and relational
lines
 Exhibit 6-3 Networks and
Their Effectiveness
Chain Wheel All-Channel

Speed Moderate Fast Fast

Accuracy High High Moderate
Emergence of a leader Moderate High None
Member satisfaction Moderate Low High
 The Grapevine
 75 percent of employees hear about matters first
through rumours on the grapevine
 Grapevine: the organization’s informal network
 Grapevine has three main characteristics
 Not controlled by management
 Most employees perceive it as being more believable and
reliable than formal communiqués issued by top
management
 Largely used to serve the self-interests of those people
within it
 Purpose of Rumors
 To structure and reduce anxiety
 To make sense of limited or fragmented
information
 To serve as a vehicle to organize group
members, and possibly outsiders, into
coalitions
 To signal a sender’s status or power
 Exhibit 6-4 Reducing the Negative
Consequences of Rumors

1. Announce timetables for making important

decisions.
2. Explain decisions and behaviors that may appear
inconsistent or secretive.
3. Emphasize the downside, as well as the upside, of
current decisions and future plans.
4. Openly discuss worst case possibilities; it is almost
never as anxiety provoking as the unspoken fantasy.
 Creating Effective Mechanisms for
Communication

 Mechanisms
 The practices that bring what you stand for to life
and stimulate change
 They are intended to demonstrate how the
communication should be accomplished
 Nonverbal Communication
 Messages conveyed through body movements, facial
expressions, and the physical distance between the
sender and the receiver
 Kinesics
 The study of body motions, such as gestures, facial
configurations, and other movements of the body
 Proxemics
 The study of physical space in interpersonal relationships
 Communication Barriers
Between Men and Women
 Men use talk to emphasize status, women use
it to create connection
 Women and men tend to approach points of
conflict differently
 Communication Barriers
Between Men and Women
 Men and women view directness and
indirectness differently
 Women interpret male directness as an assertion
of status and one-upmanship
 Men interpret female indirectness as covert,
sneaky, and weak
 Men criticize women for apologizing, but
women say “I’m sorry” to express empathy
 Cross-Cultural
Communication Difficulties
 Sources of barriers
 Semantics
 Word connotations
 Tonal differences
 Culture Contexts
 Cultures differ in how much the context
makes a difference in communication
 High-context cultures
 Culturesthat rely heavily on nonverbal and subtle
situational cues in communication.
  Low-context cultures
 Cultures
that rely heavily on words to convey meaning
in communication
Exhibit 6-5
High- vs. Low-Context Cultures

High Chinese
context
Korean
Japanese
Vietnamese
Arab
Greek
Spanish
Italian
English
North American
Scandinavian
Low Swiss
context German
 Cross-Cultural Communications:
Helpful Rules

 Assume differences until similarity is proven.

 Emphasize description rather than
interpretation or evaluation.
 Practice empathy.
 Treat your interpretations as a working
hypothesis.
 Tips for Writing and
Sending E-mail
 Don’t send e-mails without a subject line
 Be careful in your use of emoticons and
acronyms for business communications
 Write your message clearly and briefly
 Copy e-mails to others only if they really need
the information
 Sleep on angry e-mails before sending to be
sure you are sending the right message
 Summary and Implications:
Communication
 A common theme regarding the relationship between
communication and employee satisfaction
 The less uncertainty, the greater the satisfaction
 Distortions, ambiguities, and incongruities all increase uncertainty
 Less distortion in communication equals
 More goal attainment, and better feedback
 Reduction in ambiguity and distortion
 Ambiguity between verbal and nonverbal communiqués
increase uncertainty and reduce satisfaction
 The goal of perfect communication is unattainable
 The issue of communication is critical to motivation