Running head: COMMUNICATION 1

Communication

Ben Sunderman

Siena Heights University

11/29/2019
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Communication

When looking at an organization, an important process to analyze is communication. An

organization is a group of people that share a common goal, most notably in business. For

individuals to share their goal, communication in many different channels and formats must

happen. Communication is more than just analyzing communication formats and channels.

Communication digs deeper into the reactions to various communications that can happen in an

organization. Effective communication is then defined as communication methods and messages

that achieve a desired outcome or solution. This is typically seen when looking into the aspect of

change in an organization. An organization may be changing to a new time clock system. In the

past they have always been working with paper time sheets, and now they have invested in a

digital time clock that an employee punches in on. The change that is needed is employees to use

this time clock, as opposed to using the paper time sheets, which are supposed to be used only

during the time periods that the time clock is not working. Effective communication of this

change would be measured by the amount of employees that make this transition in policy.

Whetten describes four major conceptual blocks to effective and creative communication

in an organization. The four major conceptual blocks are the constancy blocks, commitment

blocks, compression blocks, and complacency blocks. These are defined as blocked because in

each conceptual blocks are common problems in mindset that block the progress of change in an

organization.

The first kind of conceptual block is the constancy blocks. The constancy block is where

creativity is blocked by a lack of consistency. This happens in an organization when there is

constant changes in leadership policies, procedures, or people. The constancy block houses two

types of problems in a leaders or employees way of thinking. Vertical thinking is the first
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problem that is in this block. This is when a problem in an organization is too narrowly defined.

When a problem has a narrow minded definition, the ability to create innovative and new

solutions is limited. The problem solving methods are limited to the scope that all steps of the

process look into. Defining a problem is at the top of most problem solving methods and if the

problem is already in a narrow scope, then the solutions that can be thought of are also limited.

The second problem in this block is using one thinking language. When defining a problem, it is

important to not only define your problem broadly enough to allow for creative solutions, but

also broadly enough to use different types of thinking languages. Thinking languages are similar

to the concept of learning styles. Some individuals understand problems better when statistics are

displayed to them to show the problem, while others want to be able to see pictures to visually

see and understand where the problem is. If the way a problem is being defined is too statistics

heavy, then those that need to see things will not fully understand the scope of the problem,

limiting the types of creative solutions that can be provided.

The second type of conceptual block to creative problem solving is commitment blocks.

Commitment blocks happen when an individual gets committed to a certain way of thinking and

are not likely to change their way of thinking to a creative one. This kind of block can happen in

an organization when leadership policies, procedures, or people have been in place for long

enough that employees have gotten “set in their ways.” The first problem housed in this block is

stereotyping problems based on past experiences. When stereotyping problems becomes an issue

is when people believe that the problem they are experiencing is the same as the problems that

they have experienced in the past and default to wanting to use the previous successful solution

again. The issue with this form of thinking is that the problem may not have been fully resolved

if the problem, or something similar, is coming back. A second problem in this block is ignoring
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commonalities. When ignoring commonalities, people fail to be able to find small commonalities

between past problems and the current problem. A great tool to creatively solve problems is to

use small pieces of various solutions, but if someone is not willing to find those similarities they

will not be able to put those pieces together into a creative solution.

The third block to creative problem solving is the compression conceptual block. The

compression block is the narrowing, or compression, of the way of thinking about a solution or

problem. This one is related to the constancy block, but different in the fact that these blocks

focus on the screening out of “irrelevant” data when the data might be relevant to finding the

creative solution. This kind of block occurs when there is someone that is trying to work too hard

to find a solution and are not working well as a team. This block is typically paired with poor

communication overall. The first problem in this block is the creation of artificial constraints.

This is when people narrow the scope of the problem or solution so far that the problem becomes

impossible to solve. The second problem in this block is not separating the figures from the

ground. The ground is all the information, and the figures are the relevant information. This

problem is when people have issues pulling out the totally irrelevant information and are trying

to solve too broad of a problem. When a problem is not clearly defined, or too broad, a solution

will not be able to be found.

The last block to creative problem solving is the complacency conceptual block. The

complacency block is when there is a lack of questioning and a bias against thinking. This block

occurs in an organization when the problem solvers are being overworked and do not want to

devote the time or energy into actually thinking through the problem solving process. This is also

possible to occur if the wrong people are in leadership and the leadership is looking for quick

and easy solution, not the right solutions for the organization. The first problem presented in this
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block is non inquisitiveness. As the name of the problem suggests, this problem is simply just not

asking questions to clarify a problem or steps of a solution. By not being critical of proposed

solutions, other people's points are not being considered in the solutions. This can be an inhibitor

to creative solutions because there is no need to compromise or change potential solutions into a

more creative and potentially successful procedure. The second problem in this problem is the

problem of nonthinking. This problem is when people are biased to action instead of being

contemplative about the problem. By wanting to rush into action, a potential solution will be

found too quickly and creativity is something that cannot be rushed.

In my experience in the workforce, the retail industry is flooded with examples of the

complacency concept block. The main front lines for a retail store are the cashiers and stockers.

These individuals get paid very low wages, and have a written out process on how to do their

job. The learning required to do the job is low, however, being a creative problem solver can

make a large difference in this type of position. I had cashiers, in a retail establishment I worked

for, come up with new ways to say certain lines of the cashiering process that prompt the

customer to complete their actions faster. The faster the transactions, the higher the cashier got

rated. Since cashiers did not make many decisions besides “on the spot” decisions, many cashiers

will defer to the supervisor to fix larger issues. The theory many of the cashiers told me when I

worked there was, “I am only going to put in what they pay me to. Raise my pay and I’ll start

fixing things.”

Currently, I work for the public school system, and the biggest conceptual blocks I see

are commitment blocks. Most of the educators I see try to fix problems with solutions they have

already done. Many problems that they currently have, however, are new problems with the rise

and influence of technology. Many older educators are feeling overwhelmed with the societal
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changes, and many younger educators are looking like rockstars. The younger educators do not

already have previous solutions to draw back on. For the young educator, most problems are the

first time they see it. When someone gets introduced to a new problem, and they do not have

years of experience to draw upon, they will likely do something seen as creative. A common

problem I see is inappropriate technology use. At my school, every student is provided a laptop,

and the laptop is what the student is expected to complete homework on. During class, however,

the students want to play games on their laptops. This presents a confusing problem to many

experienced educators. They want to make the students write their notes by hand, but the issue is

that the students are expected by the district to take notes on the laptop. Some of the younger

educators have chosen to make notes interactive or an assignment to turn in. The notes you take

are interactive because each student is expected to look up a website about the topic being

discussed, share it with the class, and submit the website in their learning portal. This kind of

creativity can only be accomplished if the educator is not looking to fix the issue the same way

other issues have been, such as removing the problem. The creative and young educators change

the focus of the student to a different and fun task.

Many of these blocks can be avoided, but avoiding these blocks requires planning. The

first block looking to be avoided is constancy blocks. Since the constancy block is caused by a

change in leadership policies, leadership procedure, or people, the first step to stopping this

creative block is by creating a full constant. In my experience creating change for the eSports

team at Siena Heights University, I have left leadership roles that I have put in place as constant,

while I go about changing team policies and procedures. I know that if I change too much, too

fast, I will get an uproar about how the team can mentally prepare. An organization should have

a set of policies that are the backbone of the organization. If there is no backbone policies in
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place, the existing people should set some up so that the organization can survive past their time

with the organization.

The second block is the commitment block. This block is caused when leadership has

remained stagnant for a long time. In my time in the retail industry, I worked under a manager

who was in charge of the store for many years. He did the same sales at the same times of the

year, but over time, they were decreasing in success. He was not willing to adapt to the new

times and corporate leadership replaced him. After the replacement, new sales and ideas

revitalized the retail establishment. The second step to holding these blocks at bay is to analyze

the success of many initiatives an organization is running. When success dips, the organization

should swiftly make changes to keep the organization fresh and exciting, not stagnant.

The third block is compression block. This block is caused when leadership hierarchy is

not distributed well and someone is trying to do too much. I see this problem often in my work at

eSports. At the start of the season, I was having many issues keeping my team motivated and

directing the team to make necessary mental changes for the team. The changes I made were,

however, with the way I was running practices and games. I was micromanaging every detail, to

the point that players came to me with frustrations that I was getting upset with them when I was

not telling them enough information. I knew I needed to start delegating leadership onto the

team. The team felt that the progress of everyday was my responsibility, not theirs. This was a

backwards philosophy. The third step to holding back the blocks to creative problem solving is

the make sure that leadership is properly delegated so that leadership has time to be creative in

their problem solving.

The last conceptual block to creative problem solving is the complacency block. This

block occurs in many different ways. Complacency can occur when workers are overworked, but
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also when they feel undervalued. My personal example of this block in action is during my work

in retail. Many of the front line workers were happy to put in minimum effort to get their

paycheck and go home. A few workers, myself included, felt honored to be receiving money and

put in creative solutions to simple problems to make work more fun or easier. We would have

small competitions over metrics, or make jokes about the candy in our aisles. The last step to

holding back these blocks is to make your team feel valued, which also means to make sure your

team is not being overworked. Those that believe their organizations care for them are more

willing to attempt to solve solutions in operations.

The proposed action plan starts with creating a backbone for the company, similar to a

mission. Pearce and David state that mission statement is a unique purpose that sets an

organization apart from the rest (Pearce & David, 1987). When an organization is set apart, they

have a unique culture, and culture is what can hold a company firm through large amounts of

changes in leadership. The plan continues by the leadership continually looking into way to

improve, never settling for the successes of yesterday being the successes of today. The third

step is for leadership to delegate responsibilities and tasks as needed to allow themselves time to

be involved in the creative problem solving process. Mintzberg and Quinn describes write in a

selection about many corporate analysis traits, the importance of analysing feasibility. Feasibility

is the concept that something can actually happen, by either resources or knowledge (Mintzberg

& Quinn, 1998). Time is a valuable resource used in the problem solving process. The last step is

to dedicate programs and resources into creating and maintaining employee commitment to the

company. Kamau describes on page 10 that many decisions made from leadership make an

impact on lower level workers. Decisions that are seen as questionable lower the employees

commitment to an organization (Kamau, 2015). This knowledge can be paired with knowledge
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from Erat, Kitapci, and Comez; who found in 2017 that those with lower work commitment do

not perform at as good quality (Erat, Kitapci, & Comez, 2017). When these two pieces of

information are looked at together, the logic can be seen that work environment and culture can

play an important role, not only in problem solving and performance. The impact can extend into

creativity as well.
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Erat, S., Kitapci, H., & Comez, P. (2017) The effeoct of organizational loads on work stress,

emotional commitment, and turnover intention. International Journal of Organizational

Leadership.(6). p. 221-231.

Kamau, R. W. (2015) Factors influencing employee commitment and its impact on

organizational performance: A case study of Kenya airports authority. Unpublished

manuscript. United States International University.

Mintzberg, H. & Quinn, J. B. (1998) Readings in the strategy process. Upper Saddle River, New

Jersey. Prentice Hall.

Pearce, J. A., & David, F. (1987) Corporate mission statements: The bottom line. Academy of

Management(1), p.109–115, https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1987.4275821