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Chapter 2
Communicating Strategically
This chapter provides an excellent bridge from the traditional material that most
management communication courses cover on communication strategy to material
that is applicable for business students who will encounter communications
challenges daily. I would strongly urge you to read Chapter One in Mary Munter's
Guide to Managerial Communication, 9th Edition, published by Prentice-Hall in 2011,
as a companion piece to this chapter. This is a very useful book that is successful in
getting students to consider the “how” and “why” of their communications
strategies.
Faculty trained in classical rhetoric can make much more of the section on
communication theory since so much has been written on this subject. In fact, this
might be an area to spend an extra day on if you are so inclined.
I think the chapter is self-explanatory, so will not go into more detail here, but Janis
Forman of UCLA and I have written a chapter called "The Communication
Advantage: A Constituency-Focused Approach to Formulating and Implementing
Strategy," in The Expressive Organization, ed. Majken Schultz, Mary Jo Hatch, and
Mogens Holten Larsen, published by Oxford University Press in 2000. It gives more
examples and color that will help you to teach this chapter, if you are not familiar
with either Aristotle or Munter.
In my view, the most important concepts in this chapter are the notions of corporate
credibility and constituency analysis. You can give students many interesting
exercises in association with these concepts. For example, have them analyze the
credibility of a group of local companies by surveying people in the community. Or
use published information about a larger corporation to determine which would be
the most important constituencies for external communications. Although students
should easily be able to identify key constituents, this is a useful exercise as it forces
them to consider similarities and differences among these groups in terms of level of
knowledge, motivation, preferred communication method, etc.
Another possibility for the material in this chapter is to work with the faculty who
teach management or strategy at your school to discuss the connection between
corporate communication and the corporation’s mission, vision, and values. You
could organize group projects where students think about how mission and overall
strategy are connected to communication in specific companies, identifying how
particular company actions reflect (or fail to reflect) different components of their
mission. These sorts of strategic alliances with other faculty help to strengthen the
overall curriculum at your school while anchoring this subject through associating
its concepts with more familiar, established fields like strategy. Reading “The
Strategic Communication Imperative,” an article I wrote with Robert Howell and
Karen Beck, published in the Spring 2005 edition of MIT Sloan Management Review
2-1
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whole or part.
The PowerPoint slides I have created for this chapter come out of both Munter’s
model and my own. Although this chapter comes second in the book, it is the core of
the book in terms of importance. I debated putting this chapter, or Chapter Three,
first. I decided on the current structure so that students could gain a sense of why
corporate communication is important first, then move on to consider how to
approach it strategically, followed by an overview of the function.
Teaching Note
Galen Healthcare System
This is a case based on many others you may be familiar with. I think it is deceptive
in that students tend to think it is easy because it is so short. Instead, the case can be
an excellent focus of discussion for classes ranging from 30 to 60 minutes.
The way I teach the case is to start by getting students to discuss the first and
second case questions: “What problems does Galen Healthcare System have that will
affect its communications?” and “What specific problems does Mr. Gunerson have as
a result of his communications to department leads?”for about 40 minutes. Once you
have discussed these problems, get them to focus on how it all relates back to the
corporate communication strategy model (see figure 2.1, Chapter Two) and the
expanded version of the same model (see figure 2.2, Chapter Two) for about 40
minutes. Supplement this discussion by having them talk about their own
experiences. I end with a discussion of possible solutions. Twenty minutes allows
you to do this as a role play.
2-2
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distribution in any manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in
whole or part.
Chapter 02 - Communicating Strategically
Teaching Note
Here are the kinds of problems you are likely to get from students.
1. Bad timing – the end of the budget cycle might be a busy time of year,
reporting rules start immediately.
2. Gunerson has low credibility.
3. Wrote to wrong audience.
4. Was not clear about his true objective (to centralize).
5. Didn’t listen to Friberg – visiting would have helped.
6. No motivation for purchasing department leads to respond.
7. Purchasing department leads were not positive about doing what Gunerson
asks.
8. Mentions inefficiencies and redundancies, implies that they might be
department leads’ fault
9. Department leads’ might assume that their positions will be eliminated if
Gunerson implements his new procedures.
10. Communication is one-way.
11. Board of directors irrelevant to purchasing department leads.
12. Gunerson didn’t have enough information.
13. Gunerson’s appointment had been announced, however, the scope of his role
may not have been.
14. Gunerson is attacking department leads’ positive relations with local
suppliers.
15. Return letter implied Gunerson’s request was a “suggestion”.
16. Tone of Gunerson’s memo is pompous.
17. Tone of response is very informal and could be seen as insulting.
18. Possibility that many orders coming in under $100,000.
When you analyze the case in terms of the corporate communication strategy model
put the model up on an overhead transparency or on a PowerPoint slide and write
in students’ comments about all four parts of the model.
1. Objectives
2-3
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VIEW FROM NCHICHIRA OVER THE ROVUMA, LAKE
NANGADI, AND THE MAVIA PLATEAU
The plateau, here, at the centre of its southern edge, is much lower
than at Newala; it may be estimated at from 1,300 to 1,500 feet. And
yet the valley of the Rovuma, with a breadth of from six to nine miles
and a height above sea-level, at its lowest point, of barely 200 feet,
makes the impression of a vast eroded ravine. Its two edges are
absolutely similar, and it must be clear to any child that the Mavia
plateau on the other side and the Makonde highlands on this are of
the same age and have the same origin. The Rovuma, working
downward like a saw, has gradually excavated this cañon across the
old tableland. Now at the end of the dry season, the river looks more
poverty-stricken than ever—a scanty thread of water trickling along a
bed over half-a-mile wide, filled with enormous banks of gravel and
sand. The river in flood must be a grand sight, but to-day the
prevailing note of the scenery is gentle and cheerful. A whole series
of terraces marking different flood-levels are visible to the naked eye
below us, while similar ones can be made out with a field-glass on
the Portuguese side of the river. The grey strip with the shining silver
thread in it looks near enough to be touched by the hand, yet
Knudsen says it is a good two hours’ walk to the river-bank—so
deceptive is the wonderfully clear air. It is true that here, too, there
are clouds of smoke rising to the sky—they are at times particularly
dense and frequent on the other side of the valley, between the river
and the Nangadi Lake. I am almost tempted to think that the Mavia
want to smoke out the unlucky Portuguese who is probably
meditating in his boma—easily distinguishable with the glass—on the
reason why he has been condemned to pass his life here: so
numerous are the concentric zones of fire which seem to surround
his lonely abode. To our right the grey bed of the river with its green
margins stretches away westward till it is lost in the distance. The
Lidede Lake is by no means near, yet it, too, by an effect of
perspective, seems to lie at our feet, so far can I look beyond it into
the interior of the continent. And over all this the western and
southern horizon glows in a thousand brilliant tints. It almost seems
as if the sun, for love of so much beauty, were departing less quickly
than he usually does between the tropics; the sunset hues pale and
fade away only very gradually. It was with difficulty that I could tear
myself away from this picture in order to take one or two
photographs of it with my smallest stop, while my dark friends stood
behind me in silence, evidently as much impressed as their master.
At first the darkness came on by slow degrees, but after a while the
shadows, growing deeper and deeper, descended more quickly over
Lidede and Nangadi; then the first sombre tones touched the
meadows and the green forest, and only the light grey of the river bed
showed up for a while amid the gathering darkness. I am a very
prosaic person, on the whole; but I am quite willing to admit that a
single sunset like this would have amply repaid me for the march to
Nchichira, even had I found no Wangoni living there.
In this valley, then, Nils Knudsen has been pursuing the pleasures
of the chase. At any time, the first chance native who comes to him
with the remark, “Master, there are elephants down there,” is enough
to send him off in ten minutes at the best pace of which his rolling
seaman’s gait will permit. He is sensible enough, however, to trust no
longer to his ancient blunderbusses, but has asked me for the loan of
one of my rifles.
One afternoon, I am sitting as usual with my native tutors. Our
Kingoni studies are not progressing very satisfactorily. If I direct the
intelligent Saidi to translate, “Your father is dead,” I infallibly get a
sentence which, when afterwards checked, turns out to mean, “My
father is dead.” If I want him to tell me the Kingoni for “My father is
dead,” he translates (quite correctly from his point of view), “Your
father,” etc., etc. I am now so far used to these little jokes that they
no longer excite me, but a worse difficulty lies in ascertaining the
forms of the personal pronouns: “I, thou,” etc. They caused me no
end of trouble even at Newala, where my teachers were by no means
stupid. Here, whatever I do, I cannot succeed in getting the third
person singular and plural. I have arrived at the first and second, of
course, by the rule of contraries; for, if I say “I,” involuntarily
pointing to myself, I am sure to get the word for “you,” and vice
versa. Resigning myself to disappointment, I am just about to light a
cigar to soothe my nerves, when I become aware of a perceptible
excitement all round me. At a rate compared with which
Pheidippides must have come from Marathon at a snail’s pace, one of
Knudsen’s boys arrives, spluttering out something which I cannot
understand. My men are all assembled in no time, and from them
and the inhabitants of the boma I hear the news of Knudsen’s
success in bringing down a large elephant. Its tusks are “so big”—the
fellows stretch out their, long, gibbon-like arms to show their girth—
and as for meat...! I could see how their mouths were watering at the
thought.
That day and the next were entirely dominated by the slain
elephant. The men kept bringing in veritable mountains of meat, and
the whole countryside smelt anything but agreeably of African
cooking. Then arrived the four feet, then the tusks, and last of all the
successful hunter himself. His triumph, however, was somewhat
damped by the fact that the tusks were small in proportion to the size
of the animal, weighing, by our reckoning, certainly not over forty
pounds. To make up for this, he brought me another piece of news,
to my mind much more welcome; the people in the valley had houses
of a style totally different from anything to be seen up here—in fact,
constructions of several stories. Nils was obliged to asseverate this in
the most solemn way before I would believe him; but once convinced
of his bona fides, I could not stay another day on the plateau. Early
the very next morning, we were clambering like monkeys down its
bordering cliffs into the river-valley.
For the last few days we have been encamped here close to the left
bank of the main river, in the scanty shade of stunted trees,
surrounded by a tangle of reeds and tall grass, in which our people
with some trouble cleared a place for the tents. At this spot there is
an extensive view both up and down stream, and, for a wonder, this
reach is free from the islands which elsewhere obstruct the channel,
so that the eye can range unhindered across a sea of sand-banks to
the further shore. The steep, eroded banks whose acquaintance we
made on the central course of the river are here, too, the rule. Sitting
at the top of one of these steep slopes, it requires some skill to hit the
hippos which from time to time unexpectedly rise in the river; even
Nils, usually a dead shot, misses time after time, to his great disgust.
These slopes are the only picturesque point in the vast desolation of
the river-bed where nothing is to be seen except sand and gravel,
gravel and sand. Between these great masses of drift, the Rovuma is
still more broken up into small streams than is the case higher up at
the mouth of the Bangala, and the wandering Wamatambwe, here
more numerous than on the upper river, have no need to exercise
their famous powers of swimming and diving, but can wade at their
ease across the shallow channels.
This is rather unfortunate for Knudsen, as it deprives him of an
opportunity to prove the truth of a story he is never tired of telling
me about the Wamatambwe. Not content with saying that they are
excellent swimmers, and not afraid of crocodiles, partly because of
their faith in the charms with which they are always provided and
partly because they are much more agile in the water than the
reptiles—he insists that they cross the river at its highest level, when
the current is too strong to launch their canoes, by simply walking
through, though the water is far above their heads. Though unable,
in face of his superior knowledge, to disprove this assertion, I find it
somewhat difficult to believe.
The state of the river, as I have already remarked, will not allow
them to show off their diving at present, and as regards their trust in
the dawa for protection against crocodiles, my own observation does
not bear out what he tells me. At least, I see that the Wamatambwe
whom he sends across the channel at our feet, in order to pick up the
numerous ducks shot by him, always look about them uneasily when
they chance upon a deeper spot and make the best of their way to
shore.
But this is not the purpose for which I came down to the Rovuma,
and I may give myself credit for devoting to the river only the
afternoons of my scanty leisure. Every forenoon is occupied with the
discovery as to which Knudsen was so enthusiastic. This time, for
once, he was right; but, as the simplest photograph tells more than
the fullest description, I refer the reader to the accompanying
illustrations and only give such additional comments as are
absolutely necessary to make them comprehensible.
Our departure from Nchichira was slightly delayed by a warm
shower, falling in straight, vertical lines on the dry sand. Both nature
and man drew a long breath at this first symptom of the approaching
rains. But the pitiless sun reasserted his rights only too quickly, and
the procession started on its way, soon vanishing down the
precipitous slope. After descending a few yards, the steep path
ceased to be slippery; hot, dry stones crunched under our feet—the
atmosphere, too, into which every step plunged us another fraction
of a yard deeper, was likewise hot and dry; it became evident that the
rain must here have evaporated before it reached the ground. At last
we arrived at the bottom and entered a dense forest of huge trees.
But even here we did not find the pleasant coolness of our German
forests; the air we encountered was hot, moist and mouldy-smelling,
and the foot had to feel its way uncertainly over the quaking soil.
“If the Department of Woods and Forests only knew—there is
plenty of timber to be had here!” I was just saying to myself, when we
suddenly came to the end of it. It looked as though a hurricane had
passed, or an avalanche ploughed its way down the neighbouring
precipice. The mighty boles lay like broken matches, across one
another in all directions; a lamentable sight indeed to an economical
European eye. With great difficulty we scrambled on; the ground
became drier; here and there we stepped into heaps of ashes, and
then a glance round revealed the true state of the case. Even here, it
is man who will not leave nature in peace. The Makonde plateau,
with its area of 6,000 square miles, might surely be expected to
afford subsistence for a mere trifle of 80,000 or 90,000 natives with
their simple wants. As a matter of fact, however, we see that it is not
sufficient for them. In this case the underwood had been cut down
and burnt over a considerable distance, and the large trees had been
attacked, as usual, with axe and fire. Everywhere fallen logs still
smouldered, and the vanished shapes of splendid trees were traced
on the ground in outlines of white ashes. While I was still gazing in
horror at the work of destruction, my men brought forward one of
the criminals—no other than old Majaliwa himself. He had his axe
still in his hand, and was grinning all over with pride at his
achievements.
German East Africa has no superfluity of real, commercially
valuable timber; the famous Shume forest in Usambara and a few
others (remarkable on account of their rarity) are but the exceptions
proving the rule. The necessity, therefore, of protecting the hitherto
untouched forest areas on the Rovuma from the wasteful farming of
the natives is all the more urgent. We have a well-founded right to
prohibit the tribes living in the neighbourhood of this valley from
cutting down a single tree in it, since it is solely in consequence of the
security afforded by the German administration that they are able to
cultivate any new ground at all outside their hereditary seats on the
plateau. If the boma of Nchichira had not been planted on the top of
the escarpment, bidding defiance to the Mavia across the valley, no
Mngoni or Makonde would dream of sowing a single grain of maize
beyond the edge of the tableland. So to-day, knowing that, under our
protection, they are quite safe from Mavia raids, even in the valley,
they go down and destroy our finest forests.
A little farther on, having reached the top of an undulation in the
soil, we at last came to the wonder we were in search of—two
specimens at once. With astonishment I found myself before a
regular tower, and saw my men staring uncomprehendingly at a style
of architecture quite new to them. Majaliwa’s new palace—it was
here then, that the old man retired every day after our shauri was
over—is not, indeed, as Nils Knudsen had asserted, a three-storied
house, but, with a little goodwill we can easily make out two stories
and an attic. The ground floor is a square apartment with grass walls,
filled with pots, calabashes, ladles and the rest of a native woman’s
household requisites, and having the usual fire smouldering between
the three lumps of earth in the centre. The first floor is much more
elegantly appointed, only the access to it is less convenient than
might be wished. My early training in gymnastics enables me to
negotiate without difficulty the primitive ladder, consisting of cross-
pieces lashed to the supporting piles at intervals of about a yard; but
they give Knudsen a good deal of trouble, and how old Majaliwa and
his wife get up it every night, like chickens going to roost, is beyond
my comprehension. Their sleeping apartment is quite comfortable—a
thick layer of straw covers the logs of the floor, and the mats which
make up the bedding are of a quality by no means to be despised. As
the matriarchate is not in force among the Wangoni, no rule of
propriety is violated by the fact that Abdallah, the heir to the house,
lives in the attic. This, too, is, for a native dwelling, very neatly
arranged, with its soft bed, mats and baskets of provisions.
PILE-DWELLING ON THE ROVUMA, NEAR NCHICHIRA
MAKONDE KELOIDS
This, in fact, seems to be the sole reason for the keloid decoration
being applied at all, as well as for the choice of pattern in each
individual case. At Newala, at Nchichira, and now, at Mahuta, I have
photographed, or at least inspected several hundred persons with the
result, so far as I can come to any conclusion at present, that it is
impossible to discover from any of the patterns the nationality of the
wearer. Each of these figures has been chosen on the same principle
of “ninapenda.”
MATAMBWE AND MAKUA WOMAN, WITH KELOIDS
But it is above all the mitete, the little wooden boxes in which the
people keep their snuff, their medicines, and sometimes their
gunpowder—which show real taste and a style and execution which
can pass muster even from our point of view. The ornamentation
which the elder generation of men carry about on their skins in the
form of keloids is applied to the lids of these boxes. Some of them
take the shape of heads of animals: various kinds of monkeys, the
gnu, the bush-buck, and other antelopes, but oftenest the litotwe.
This is a creature of all others likely to catch the artist’s eye and
tempt him to reproduce it. It is a large rat, about the size of a rabbit,
and with a head which, by its shape, suggests that of the elephant, or
at least the ant-eater, the snout terminating in a long delicate
proboscis. At Chingulungulu Salim Matola caught one of these
creatures for me, but it escaped before I had time to sketch more
than its head.
AFRICAN ART. CARVED POWDER, SNUFF AND CHARM-
BOXES FROM THE MAKONDE HIGHLANDS
THE LITOTWE