ASSIGNMENT COVER

Course code: MBA 505

Course name: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Assignment title: UNSUCCESSFUL COMMUNICATION IN WORK

Instructor’s name: Mr. VESSELIN TODOROV

Student’s name: JAROSLAVA KONOVA

Date: NOVEMBER 15, 2012

Comments:

Grade: /100
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 2

Unsuccessful Communication in Work

Jaroslava Konova

j.konova@cityu.gr

MBA 505 Business Communications

Instructor : Vesselin Todorov

Communication Case Analysis

November 15, 2012

Table of Contents:
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 3

Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………3

Extract………………………………………………………………………………….4

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….5

Problem description ………..………………………………..………………………...6

Problem analysis……………………………………………………………………….8

Alternative solutions…………………………………………………………………...9

Improvement plan…………………………………………………………………….12

Evaluation…………………………………….…………..…………………………..15

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………....16

References…………………………………………………………………………….17

Extract
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 4

This paper shows problematic situation which happened to manager of one company.

Situation becomes problematic because few meetings planned for one day in 2 hours intervals

become one big chaotic meeting. This situation was caused by the inefficient and

unsuccessful communication between manager and participants of the meeting. This paper

explains few possible improvements which can be made by company in order to avoid similar

or same situations in future. There is also evaluation of all these alternatives. The

improvement plan using the best possible alternative is described here as well. And the

evaluation of this plan is mentioned.

Business communication is very important part of business and its use is needed in

any kind of business in every country, every time and in any kind of communication
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 5

(Brownell, 1991). Bad communication or lack of professional communication causes

conflicts, problems, misunderstandings and many other negatives (O’Rourke, 2012).

Especially if there are more than one participant of conversation who does not know how to

communicate, the serious misunderstandings can be caused.

Communication at work is one of the most important parts for successful outcomes

of work. If there is a lack of competent and professional communication at work it causes a

lot of problems – conflicts, wrong decisions, misleading and misunderstandings, low

profitability, losses, difficulties, delays (McEwen, 2008). Communication at work has many

forms – emails, letters, interviews, meetings, proposals, phone calls, memos, and many others.

Each form has own rules which define what is right or wrong and how to express in right way

what should be interpreted. In the case of wrong choice of words, form, language, or by any

other mistake the message could be not expressed in right way and recipient can either

understand it wrong or not understand it at all (Hall, 2012). In many cases even the nonverbal

communication shows a lot and the wrong use of it can cause misunderstandings, conflicts or

problems (Hall, 2012). The right usage of communication at work is more than important or

very necessary. It is also very helpful in different parts of business. It can be competitive

advantage for company, it can increase the profit of corporation, it can also create better

working atmosphere, better relationships with suppliers or customers, and it can even bring

more customers to particular business (O’Rourke, 2012). No matter what business people do,

the communication is always very important part of it and business communication should be

on high professional level. And there is no exception for any worker, employee or employer

involved in business to not know how to communicate.

Problem description
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 6

The lack of professional business communication can be seen also in the case from

this summer. In the company AG Spices there was situation when the unprofessional

communication caused chaotic and unprofitable situation. This whole situation caused serious

problems for time schedule of project of company as well as very uncomfortable time for

manager and for all participants.

At the beginning of May 2012, company decided to created new building for storage

and production purposes and the project for the completing this new place was created. The

schedule was very tuff since there was pressure from customers which needed more products

in short period of time. To obligate their claims company had to create new place and start to

use it as fast as possible. The company is small and has just few employees and manager of

company decided to take care about this project instead of hiring somebody new who does not

know the company well. Manager had to organize her time in order to be able to do the usual

work but also to complete and manage the new project. The project had to be completed in

two months. The every working day of those two months was important for some specific

actions of project. For one particular day manager organized few meetings connected with the

project. Since the new building was already found, some specific works had to be done in

order to prepare the place for particular work. The meetings on that day had to do with works

on water pipes, in garden, on the garage building, and the mobile crane was supposed to come

since the two external cabins should arrived that day. Manager organized meeting with the

water-technicians at 8 a.m., another meeting with the mobile crane and the suppliers of

external cabins at 10 a.m., other meeting with the architect at 12 a.m., and the last meeting of

the day was scheduled with gardener at 14 a.m.. Manager asked everyone to call her half hour

before their arrival on the place of meeting since she was working in her office placed far

from the place of new building. On the day these meetings was scheduled for, the reality

totally differed from what was planned. The fife meetings planned for four different times
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 7

become one huge chaotic meeting happening at one time. Manager waiting for water-

technicians at 8 a.m. was waiting uselessly since nobody came and she even did not receive

any message from them about delay. Their mobile phones were closed and thus there was no

way to communicate with them. Manager went back to office and received message from

mobile crane driver that he is in traffic jam and can not come on time but will come until 11

a.m.. Manager tried to contact the driver of track with external cabins to inform him about

delay of crane but he did not answer his hone. Managers decided to contact his manager who

assured her that he will contact driver and let her know about the outcome. At 11:45 a.m.

manager received call from the driver of external cabins that he arrived there and nobody is

on the place to open him the gate. Manager told him that since he did not call her early

nobody is there and he has to wait for her to come. Driver was worry about the situation and

blame manager for it. Manager kindly explained him that he was asked to contact her half

hour before reaching the place. She decided not to analyze or even mention the fact that he

did not answered 7 phone calls from her that day and his manager did not contact her back as

promised. Big surprise waited for manager of AG Spices at the place where new building was

preparing. The diver with cabins was waiting for her, but he was not the only one. The

gardener scheduled for 2 hours later was there, architecture was there and even the water-

technician was waiting there. None of them called before, neither about changing the time of

meeting, not the half hour before arriving to place. Manager decided to deal with situation in

best possible way she could at time. Since she was not able to close all meetings and replace

them for another day (due big possible delay in project), she decided to try to manage them all

together. The biggest problem was angry driver of track with cabins who was blaming for his

mistakes manager of AG Spices and brings bad atmosphere to whole situation. The absence of

mobile crane which was already one hour late did whole situation even worst since cabins was

not able to be replaced from the track without it. Manager decided to ask him for patient and
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 8

offered him to order for him some snack of coffee since he is waiting. Driver agreed and

manager moved to other participants. She asked all of them for little patient and started

dealing with Water-technician. She showed him place of work and explained what needs to be

done there. He let him to review the space and thing about possible solutions while speaking

to gardener. She explained to him what requirements for garden final look are and let him to

see the place by himself while talking to architect. Architect was very accommodating person

and decided to help to manager in difficult situation. He explained only the most important

parts of plan and suggested to make Skype-meeting in late afternoon in order to discus more

about details. After manager finished with him the crane arrived and thus she explained where

the cabins should be placed and let drivers to do their job by themselves. She returned to

water technician and after finishing with him she discussed garden task with gardener. Finally

everything was done but there were a lot of stress, disagreements, uncomfortable moments

and time pressure. (personal experiences)

Problem Analysis

In this case the main problem as well as few smaller conflicts was caused by

unprofessional business communication. The lack of professional communication caused that

meetings planned for specific times with 2 hours intervals became one big meeting full of

chaos, bad atmosphere, negative feelings and delays. There are few factors with caused this

problem. First of all members of meetings did not informed the manager about changing the

time of meeting. That means manager did not have even chance to manage changes.

Participants also did not inform manager that they are already near to meeting-place thus

manager did not have time to arrive before them. Another factor was aggressive behavior of

one of participants who blamed others instead of dealing with own lack of communication

skills (O’Rourke, 2012). In this case it can be seen how important right communication is.
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 9

Since most of meeting-members neglected very important part of business- communication,

the huge chaos was caused and very stressed and uncomfortable situation was caused. A good

example of business communication can be saw here is well. One participant-architect

understood the difficulty of situation and decided to act in way which could possible help to

resolve it at least little bit. He decided to reschedule his own working time and instead of

keeping manager busy for long time at the place of chaotic meeting he suggested to make

another meeting later. He consulted with manager only the most important issues on the place

and proposed to discuss the rest of issues on Skype-meeting later that day. This is clear

example of professional and very accommodating access and it shows very good use of

knowledge about business communication (Teatro, 2011). The architect was polite, acting fast

and profitably and he made his business communication skills to become the competitive

advantage for him (Buckingham & Coffman, 1999). Another example of good business

communication showed the manager of AG Spices. She had really hard time by dealing with

as many people at the same time and it was clearly not her fall that chaotic situation

happened. But she did not blame anybody and did not get worry. She just politely asked

everyone to be patient and organized the situation in way which was in her eyes the best. She

also managed to calm down the angry driver. She definitely needed self-control and

communication skills in order to be able to do what she did (Lorette, 2012). She also used

communication skills to become her strength and it helped her a lot to manage situation in

right and profitable way.

Alternative solutions

In order to avoid same or similar difficult situations in future, manager should take

some actions. There are few ways which can be chose in order to make improvement. Almost

every time there is more than one choice for improvement. It has a lot of analyzing and
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 10

searching to find possibilities and to evaluate them (Robbins & Judge, 2012). It depends on

manager and on the company which is the best and which will be and can be applied. Of

course, there is also ability to stop coordination with anybody who was late and irresponsible

in particular case. All of participants are people who can be replaced by others, especially

nowadays in the world of strong competition in business (Argyris, 2004). But by this action

company would cause some negatives for it selves. First of all there would be delay in project

completing. And second, company would be likely to face same or similar chaotic situation in

the future again. Since there would be no improvements made, company would be not ready

to avoid them and it could cause less or more serious problems, conflicts or difficulties

(Argyris, 2004).

In this specific case there is no very wide scale of choices but there are still few

ways in which the situation could be improved in future. Three specific improvements could

be mentioned as most profitable and realistic.

One alternative is to reschedule the project to make it less tuff and that gives the

opportunity to make fewer meetings for one working day. In this case few delays in plan

would be not as serious since there would be still time in another day to make more meetings

and do the work which was not done on time (Deresky). Also it would give time to manager

to deal with any participant of the meeting since there would be les meetings on one day and

she would be able to manage her time according to changes of meetings. But this alternative

has few negatives as well. First of all the deadline for the start of widened production of the

company would be delayed. And that could cost company lost of customers (actual or new) as

well as lost of money (since profitability of company would be lower as long as new building

start production). Another negative is fact that manager is not working only on the project of

new building and she has also other working duties. That can cause situation when she has

difficulties to come on the place of meeting in time another than agreed one. If the company
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 11

would choose this alternative, they should try to find the way how to keep customers (at least

the actual). In order to do it, manager or dealers should contact its customers about delay in

widened production and they would have to find the way to manage how not to loose them

(Hill, 2011). They would have to use their skills (most of all communication skills) and ask

them in very polite way to patient and/or give them some other positive or privilege as

compensation for what they loose (Bottos & Dovey, 2011).

Another alternative is to divide and organize the work of manager in different way.

Manager could possibly organize the work in way which could easily and helpfully separate

her work in office from the work on the project (CADDManager, 2011). That means the day

when she has many meetings on the place of new project, she could possibly be on that place

from the time of first meeting until the end of last one. That would give her ability to avoid

situations when people just forget to contact her before they arrive and she could be there

even earlier for most of meetings what would avoid waiting of participants of meeting if

coming earlier. Manager would need to do the most of its office-work day before or day after

and separate some days only for meetings about the project (CADDManager, 2011). That

could help her to be fully concentrated on the project and to be at place for anyone who needs

her there. By informing about days when she is on the place of project she could avoid

waiting of others and maybe also their phlegmatic attitude that if no time today, there will be

tomorrow. In this case negative is that manager would have to carefully manage the work and

in the case when something just unexpectedly come out she would have to find the way to

solve it without being in the office or on the place of project (Robbins & Judge, 2012). This

alternative would create more strict rules and more clear picture for other workers but would

possibly cause difficulties to solve unexpected problems connected with the opposite site of

work (like office issues on the day of project and opposite).

 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 12

The third possible option would be to improve the communication of manager in

order to avoid similar or same situations. Since the other participants did not communicate in

appropriate way or they did not have communication skills needed, manager has to know how

to avoid problematic situations even when dealing with people without all business skills

(O’Rourke,2012). In this particular case manager should increase the level of communication

with the participants and make sure that she avoided misunderstandings as much as possible

(Finkle, 2011). Manager should make sure every participant received her messages and

understood them, she should be sure she has contact on participants of meeting and they have

her contact too. She should be able to speak both with the manager of other company and with

the people who should participate on meeting. All these ways could avoid situations when

somebody did not sent forward the message or do not receive message. It will also help to

manager to get contact for all participants and have at least some chance to contact them if

needed. By having her contact she can make sure participants have all needed info to inform

her if needed and they also recognize her if she tries to contact them. This alternative is the

less conflicted since the only thing which it costs is time of manager while contacting

everyone and verifying everything needed (Finkle, 2011). This alternative gives the

opportunity to clear the situation to all parts and to make it possible for manager to be as

much prepared as possible.

Improvement Plan

According to the company in the case, we have to consider few facts which are very

important in the process of choosing right improvement. One of the facts is the time pressure

the company has. Most likely customers of this company do not care about some more

privileges but about the bigger amount of goods which they like and face shortage of it. They

can still go to some competitor of AG Spices but since they find positive attitude when asking
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 13

for more goods, they will very likely stay with current supplier. That means company should

look for way which will not delay them in widened production instead of looking on the way

how to compensate the delay made by other improvement (Ehmke). The company created

tuff-timed project in order to meet deadlines and because of that it is better to look on the

alternatives which do not delay the project. Even if there is still chance to find the other way

to keep customers, it is better to look on other choices (Ehmke). The other fact significant in

the whole case is that company is small and has little employees. That means one person is

assigned to more than one work since none of works is so wide to not be able to be coordinate

with other (Robbins & Judge, 2012). This is same for manager too. Manager has to deal with

her office-work duties and to manage the project at the same time. And since there are no

other employees doing same kind of job, manager has to be able to act in any situation and be

available for any duty connected with either office-work or the project work. That means

manager could face difficulties by dividing her working days for two kinds- those in office

and those in project place. It is very possible that, since she is the only one doing particular

works, she will be asked to do work or duties which are not connected with work of particular

day (Robbins & Judge, 2012). For example: if somebody calls her to make invoice for some

order and send it by email until the end of that day and manager is in the place of new

building instead of being in office, she can not do that and it can cause smaller or bigger

difficulties or troubles. Because of that it is quite difficult to separate her days into two kind

and totally separate work. Even if it would put more strict rules on work, since there would be

just few days in week to contact her about project or office work, what would possibly make

people to hurry up with duties and be on time, it could still make some difficulties (Robbins &

Judge, 2012). Some people could have also difficulty with remembering the days in office and

days in new building.

 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 14

The best choice for the company seems to be the one improving the business

communication. This kind of improvement does not delay the project; neither needs work

division or separate person for work (McLean, 2010). This improvement has to do clearly

with the communication. It also does not cause anything according to money and there are not

specific trainings needed. The only thing which has to be done is to improve business

communication of manager. By improving business communication it is meant to increase the

communication of managers with other people, to be sure messages are sent and received and

making sure there is always all important information given where needed. After doing this,

manager will be sure that she did all possible things to inform, to explain and to prepare

everybody for situation and that she did everything to avoid problems (McLean, 2010). If

some still happen, it will not be her responsibility. According to do this improvement,

manager has to make clear what should be done in the last (problematic) case and that will

give her understanding of what should be done in future and how to react in next

situations(Zahorsky, 2012). Manager has to replay the situation in her mind and realize what

should be done differently. In this case, she should communicate not only with managers of

other companies but ask managers to have ability to communicate with people who will come

to meeting too. This would give her ability to explain them the conditions of meeting and

make sure everyone received message (like call half hour before arriving). She should also

gave to managers as well as to people coming on meeting her contact information and ask

them for some their. That would help her to be able to contact participants of meeting if they

are late or if there are any changes and at the same time she could be sure they know her

telephone number, name and some other information what will help them to recognize easily

who is talking to them as well as having opportunity to contact her if they need something. By

doing these steps in future time, manager can easily solve the main problems of last problem

even before the problem appears (McLean, 2010). Since manager talked only to managers,
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 15

not to participants of meeting, it was very easily possible that she did not get right phone

numbers, that managers did not inform participants about calling half hour before or even told

them wrong time of meeting, that participants did not have any telephone number to call to

inform about delay and many others. Surely, there can be still some problems like delays or

uninformed surprised but their possibility will be decreased by steps explained above. In order

to be sure that all needed steps are done in future situations, manager can write one list of

needs and steps which have to be done and always use it when preparing something to control

if everything needed was done, eventually make some additional arrangements (McLean,

2010).

Evaluation of plan

To evaluate if this improvement really works in reality, manager has to pass again

some situation by using her list of improvements and if all of them are done, she will see if

final effect is positive or negative (Bureau of School Improvement, 2009). If would be good

to do it in the nearest time, with nearest meetings. Or she can even arrange some trial situation

with her friends or other employees of her company. For example: she can try to arrange

meeting over coffee with 2-3 friends who she did not see a longer time and see if it her list of

improvements really works. Or she can try to make company meeting and apply her

improvement list. This can also show some results. If she will still see some problems she

could reevaluate the list and try to find which point was not completed or what other steps add

to the list (Bureau of School Improvement, 2009).

The best evaluation of this improvement plan can be done after longer period of time

after doing at least 5 or 6 another meetings (in not even more), or to make at least 2-3 busy

days with few meeting each day, to see if applying the improvement list really worked, if

there were any new problems and if there are some more improvements which have to be
 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 16

done (Bureau of School Improvement, 2009). But if manager really improve the

communication and follow the basic steps explained above, the serious problems like the last

one should not be repeating again.

Communication in the company, with coworkers, with customers and with suppliers or

with other companies is very important part of business and there is huge need to do this

communication in right way. It can be very destroying if communication is not on right level,

and on the other site, it can be very helpful and profitable if the communication is on high

level. Communication is one of the biggest parts of business, it takes about 70% of our time at

work (O’Rourke, 2012) and because of that we have to be very careful about the level of

professionalism of our business communication. Bad communication can be destroying, good

communication can be beneficial (O’Rourke, 2012). No matter what the business is, it is

always very important to know how to communicate. Right communication can help to avoid

situation like one analyzed in this paper. In this case, chaotic and unorganized meeting could

be prevented by better communication of manager with participants of meeting. It is small

thing to do which brings huge improvements to business life. Improvement of communication

is very often the easiest and cheapest solution to many problems, conflicts or difficulties

(Shimal, 2012). Effective communication can decrease the level of stress, make stronger

relationships, build effective teams, minimize risks, brings better ideas, effective dealing,

limit negative outcomes, and many others (Shimal, 2012).

 Unsuccessful Communication in Work 17

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