MCom I Semester Organizational Behavior Choice Communication Channel Study Material
Table of Contents
MCom I Semester Organizational Behavior Choice Communication Channel Study Material: Barriers to Effective Communications Current Issues n Communication Apprehension Emotions Language Silence as Communication Cross-Cultural Communication Politically Correct Communication Summary and Implications for Managers
Multitasking SSC English Question Answer Solved paper 2013
Choice of Communication Channel
Neal L. Patterson, CEO at medical software maker Cerner Corp., likes e-mail. Maybe too much so. Upset with his staff’s work ethic, he recently sent a seething e-mail to his firm’s 400 managers.” Here are some of that e-mail’s highlights:
“Hell will freeze over before this CEO implements ANOTHER EMPLOYEE benefit in this Culture…. We are getting less than 40 hours of work from a large number of our Kansas City-based employees. The parking lot is sparsely used at 8 A.M.: likewise at 5 P.M. As managers-you either do not know what your EMPLOYEES are doing; or YOU do not CARE…. You have a problem and you will fix it or I will replace you…. What you are doing, as managers, with this company makes me SICK.”
Patterson’s e-mail also suggested that managers schedule meetings at 7 A.M., 6 P.M., and Saturday mornings, promised a staff reduction of five percent and institution of a time-clock system, and Patterson’s intention to charge unapproved absences to employees’ vacation time.
Within hours of this e-mail, copies of it had made its way onto a Yahoo! Web site. And within three days, Cerner’s stock price had plummeted 22 percent. Although one can argue about whether such harsh criticism should be communicated at all, one thing is certainly clear: Patterson erred by selecting the wrong channel for his message. Such an emotional and sensitive message would likely have been better received in a face-to-face meeting.
Choice Communication Channel
Why do people choose one channel of communication over another-for instance, a phone call instead of a face-to-face talk? Is there any general insight we might be able to provide regarding the choice of communication channel? The answer to the latter question is a qualified “Yes.” A model of media richness has been developed to explain channel selection among managers.
Research has found that channels differ in their capacity to convey information. Some are rich in that they have the ability to (1) handle multiple cues simultaneously, (2) facilitate rapid feedback, and (3) be very personal. Others are lean in that they score low on these three factors. As Exhibit 10-7 illustrates, face-to-face conversation scores highest in terms of channel richness because it provides for the maximum amount of information to be transmitted during a communication episode. That is, it offers multiple information cues (words, postures, facial expressions, gestures, intonations), immediate feedback (both verbal and nonverbal), and the personal touch of “being there.” Impersonal written media such as formal reports and bulletins rate the lowest in richness.
Choice Communication Channel
The choice of one channel over another depends on whether the message is routine or nonroutine. The former types of messages tend to be straightforward and have a minimum of ambiguity. The latter is likely to be complicated and have the potential for misunderstanding. Managers can communicate routine messages efficiently through channels that are lower in richness. However, they can communicate non-routine messages effectively only by selecting rich channels. Referring back to our opening example at Cerner Corp., it appears that Neal Patterson’s problem was using a channel relatively low in richness (e-mail) to convey a message that, because of its nonroutine nature and complexity, should have been conveyed using a rich communication medium.
Evidence indicates that high-performing managers tend to be more media-sensitive than low-performing managers. That is, they’re better able to match appropriate media richness with the ambiguity involved in the communication.
The media richness model is consistent with organizational trends and practices during the past decade. It is not just a coincidence that more and more senior managers have been using meetings to facilitate communication and regularly leaving the isolated sanctuary of their executive offices to “manage by walking around. These executives are relying on richer channels of communication to transmit the more ambiguous messages they need to convey. The past decade has been characterized by organizations closing facilities, imposing large layoffs, restructuring, merging, consolidating, and introducing new products and services at an accelerated pace-all nonroutine messages high in ambiguity and requiring the use of channels that can convey a large amount of information. It is not surprising, therefore, to see the most effective managers expanding their use of rich channels.
Barriers to Effective Communication
A number of barriers can retard or distort effective communication. In this section, we highlight the more important of these barriers.
Filtering
Filtering refers to a sender’s purposely manipulating information so it will be seen more favorably by the receiver. For example, when a manager tells his boss what he feels his boss wants to hear, he is filtering information.
The major determinant of filtering is the number of levels in an organization’s structure. The more vertical levels in the organization’s hierarchy, the more opportunities there are for filtering. But you can expect some filtering to occur wherever there are status differences. Factors such as fear of conveying bad news and the desire to please one’s boss often lead employees to tell their superiors what they think those superiors want to hear, thus distorting upward communications.
Selective Perception
We have mentioned selective perception before in this book. It appears again here because the receivers in the communication process selectively see and hear based on their needs, motivations, experience, background, and other personal characteristics. Receivers also project their interests and expectations into communications as they decode them. The employment interviewer who expects a female job applicant to put her family ahead of her career is likely to see that in female applicants, regardless of whether the applicants feel that way or not. As we said in Chapter 5, we don’t see reality, we interpret what we see and call it a reality.
Information Overload
Individuals have a finite capacity for processing data. When the information we have to work with exceeds our processing capacity, the result is mails, Instant messaging, phone calls, information overload. And with e-mails, instant messaging. phone calls. meetings, and the need to keep current faxes, meetings, and the need to keep current in one’s field, the potential s field, the potential for today’s for today’s managers and professionals to suffer from overload is high. What happens when individuals have more information than they can fers and professionals to suffer from sort out and use? They tend to select out, ignore, pass over, or forget infor nation) overload is high mation. Or they may put off further processing until the overload situation is over. Regardless, the result is lost information and less effective communication
Emotions
How the receiver feels at the time of receipt of communication will influence how he or she interprets it. The same message received when you’re angry or distraught is often interpreted differently from when you’re happy. Extreme emotions such as jubilation or depression are most likely to hinder effective communication. In such instances, we are most prone to disregard our rational and objective thinking processes and substitute emotional judgments.
Language
Words mean different things to different people. Age, education, and cultural background are three of the more obvious variables that influence the language a person uses and the definitions he or she gives to words.
In an organization, employees usually come from diverse backgrounds. Further, the grouping of employees into departments creates specialists who develop their own “buzzwords” or technical jar gon. In large organizations, members are also frequently widely dispersed geographically-even operating in different countries-and individuals in each locale will use terms and phrases that are unique to their area. The existence of vertical levels can also cause language problems. For instance, differences in meaning with regard to words such as incentives and quotas have been found at different levels in management. Top managers often speak about the need for incentives and quotas, vel these terms imply manipulation and create resentment among many lower managers.
The point is that although you and I probably speak a common language English-our use of that language is far from uniform. If we knew how each of us modified the language, communication difficulties would be minimized. The problem is that members in an organization usually don’t know how those with whom they interact have modified the language. Senders tend to assume that the words and terms they use mean the same to the receiver as they do to them. This assumption is often incorrect
Communication Apprehension
Another major barrier to effective communication is that some people-an an estimated 5 to 20 percent of the population 50-suffer from debilitating communication apprehension or anxiety. Although lots of people dread speaking in front of a group, communication apprehension is a more serious problem because it affects a whole category of communication techniques. People who suffer from it experience undue tension and anxiety in oral communication, written communication, or both. For example, oral apprehensive may find it extremely difficult to talk with others face to face or become extremely anxious when they have to use the telephone. As a result, they may rely on memos or faxes to convey messages when a phone call would be not only faster but more appropriate.
Studies demonstrate that oral communication apprehensive avoid situations that require them to engage in oral communication. We should expect to find some self-selection in jobs so that such individuals don’t take positions, such as a teacher, for which oral communication is a dominant requirement. But almost all jobs require some oral communication. And of greater concern is the evidence that high-oral-communication apprehensive distort the communication demands of their jobs in order to minimize the need for communication. So we need to be aware that there is a set of people in organizations who severely limit their oral communication and rationalize this practice by telling themselves that more communication is,t necessary for them to do their job effectively
Current Issues in Communication
In this section, we discuss four current issues related to communication in organizations: Why do men and women often have difficulty communicating with each other? What role does silence play in communication? What are the implications of the politically correct” movement on communications in organizations? And how can individuals improve their cross-cultural communications?
Communication Barriers Between Women and Men
The classic studies by Deborah Tannen provide us with some important insights into the differences between men and women in terms of their conversational styles. In particular, Tannen has been able to explain why gender often creates oral communication barriers.
The essence of Tannen’s research is that men use talk to emphasize status whereas women use it to create connection. Her conclusions, of course, don’t apply to every man or cury woman. As she puts it, her generalization means “a larger percentage of women or men as a group talk in a particular way, or individual women and men are more likely to talk one way or the other.”36
Tannen states that communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. Intimacy emphasizes closeness and commonalities. Independence emphasizes separateness and differences. But here’s the kick: Women speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy: men speak and hear a language of status, power, and independence. So, for many men, conversations are primarily a means to preserve the independence and maintain Research indicates that women use status in a hierarchical social order. For many women, conversations are negotialanguage to create connection while men use language to closeness in which people try to seek and give confirmation and support. emphasize status and power. The
A few examples will illustrate Tannen’s thesis: businesswomen conversing here Men frequently complain that women talk on and on about their problems. illustrate that women speak and Women criticize men for not listening. What’s happening is that when men hear a language of a connection problem, they frequently assert their desire for independence and control by offer and intimacy ing solutions. Many women, on the other hand, view telling a problem as a means to promote closeness. The women present the problem to gain support and connect.tion, not to get the man’s advice, Mutual understanding is symmetrical. But giving advice is asymmetrical-it sets up the advice-giver as more knowledgeable, more reasonable, and more in control. This contributes to distancing men and women in their efforts to communicate.
Men are often more direct than women in conversation. A man might say, “I think you’re wrong on that point.” A woman might say, “Have you looked at the marketing department’s research report on that point?” (the implication being that the report will show the error). Men frequently see female indirectness as “covert” or “sneaky,” but women are not as concerned as men with the status and one-upmanship that directness often creates.
Women tend to be less boastful than men. They often downplay their authority or accomplishments to avoid appearing as braggarts and to take the other person’s feelings into account. However, men can frequently misinterpret this and incorrectly conclude that a woman is less confident and competent than she really is.
Finally, men often criticize women for seeming to apologize all the time. Men tend to see the phrase “I’m sorry” as a weakness because they interpret the phrase to mean the woman is accepting! blame, when he knows she’s not to blame. The woman also knows she’s not to blame. The problem is that women frequently use “I’m sorry to express regret and restore balance to a conversation: “I know you must feel bad about this; I do, too.” For many women, “I’m sorry” is an expression of understanding and caring about the other person’s feelings rather than an apology.
Choice Communication Channel
Silence as Communication
Sherlock Holmes once solved a murder mystery based not on what happened but on what didn’t happen. Holmes remarked to his assistant, Dr. Watson, about the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.” Watson, surprised, responds, “But the dog did nothing in the nighttime.” To which Holmes replied, “That was the curious incident.” Holmes concluded the crime had to be committed by someone with whom the dog was familiar because the watchdog didn’t bark.
The dog that didn’t bark in the night is often used as a metaphor for an event that is significant by reason of its absence. That story is also an excellent illustration of the importance of silence in communication.
Silence defined here as an absence of speech or noise has been generally ignored as a form of communication in OB because it represents faction or no behavior. But it’s not necessarily in action. Nor is silence, as many believe, a failure to communicate. It can, in fact, be a powerful form of communication. It can mean someone is thinking or contemplating a response to a question. It can mean a person is anxious and fearful of speaking. It can signal agreement, dissent, frustration. or anger.
In terms of OB, we can see several links between silence and work-related behavior. For instance, silence is a critical element of groupthink, in which it implies agreement with the majority. It can be a way for employees to express dissatisfaction, as when they suffer in silence.” It can be a sign that someone is upset, as when a typically talkative person suddenly says nothing-“What’s the matter with him? Is he all right?” It’s a powerful tool used by managers to signal disfavor by shunning or ignoring employees with “silent insults.” And, of course, it’s a crucial element of group decision-making, allowing individuals to think over and contemplate what others have said.
Failing to pay close attention to the silent portion of a conversation can result in missing a vital part of the message. Astute communicators watch for gaps, pauses, and hesitations. They hear and interpret silence. They treat pauses, for instance, as analogous to flashing yellow light at an intersection-they pay attention to what comes next. Is the person thinking, deciding how to frame an answer? Is the person suffering from communication apprehension? Sometimes the real message in communication is buried in the silence.
Choice Communication Channel
“Politically Correct” Communication
What words do you use to describe a colleague who is wheelchair-bound? What terms do you use in addressing a female customer? How do you communicate with a brand-new client who is not like you? Your answers can mean the difference between losing a client, an employee, a lawsuit, a harassment claim, or a job.58
Most of us are acutely aware of how our vocabulary has been modified to reflect political correctness. For instance, most of us have cleansed the words handicapped, blind, and elderly from our vocabulary and replaced them with terms like physically challenged, visually impaired, and senior. The Los Angeles Times, for instance, allows its journalists to use the term old age but cautions that the onset of old age varies from “person to person,” so a group of 75-year-olds aren’t necessarily all old.59
We must be sensitive to others’ feelings. Certain words can and do stereotype, intimidate, and insult individuals. In an increasingly diverse workforce, we must be sensitive to how words might offend others. But there’s a downside to political correctness. It’s complicating our vocabulary and making it more difficult for people to communicate. To illustrate, you probably know what these four terms mean: death, garbage, quotas, and women. But each of these words also has been found to offend one or more groups. They’ve been replaced with terms like negative patient outcomes, post-consumer waste materials, educational equity, and people of gender. The problem is that this latter group of terms is much less likely to convey a uniform message than the words they replaced. You know what death means: know what death means; but can you be sure that “negative patient outcome will be consistently defined as synonymous with death? No. For instance, the phrase could also mean a longer stay than expected in the hospital or notification that your insurance company won’t pay your hospital bill.
Some critics, for humor’s sake, enjoy carrying political correctness to the extreme. Even those of us with thinning scalps, who aren’t too thrilled at being labeled “bald,” have to smirk when we’re referred to as “follically challenged.” But our concern here is with how politically correct language is contributing a new barrier to effective communication.
Words are the primary means by which people communicate. When we eliminate words from use because they’re politically incorrect, we reduce our options for conveying messages in the clearest and most accurate form. For the most part, the larger the vocabulary used by a sender and a receiver, the greater the opportunity to accurately transmit messages. By removing certain words from our vocabulary, we make it harder to communicate accurately. When we further replace these words with new terms whose meanings are less well understood, we have reduced the likelihood that our messages will be received as we had intended them.
We must be sensitive to how our choice of words might offend others. But we also have to be careful not to sanitize our language to the point at which it clearly restricts clarity of communication. There is no simple solution to this dilemma. However, you should be aware of the trade-offs and the need to find a proper balance.
Choice Communication Channel
Cross-Cultural Communication
Effective communication is difficult under the best of conditions. Cross-cultural factors clearly create the potential for increased communication problems. This is illustrated in Exhibit 10-9. A gesture that is well understood and acceptable in one culture can be meaningless or lewd in another.60
Cultural Barriers One author has identified four specific problems related to language difficulties in cross-cultural communications.
First, there are barriers caused by semantics. As we’ve noted previously, words mean different things to different people. This is particularly true for people from different national cultures. Some words, for instance, don’t translate between cultures. Understanding the word sisu will help you in communicating with people from Finland, but this word is untranslatable into English. It means something akin to “guts” or “dogged persistence.” Similarly, the new capitalists in Russia may have difficulty communicating with their British or Canadian counterparts because English terms such as efficiency, free market, and regulation are not directly translatable into Russian.
Second, there are barriers caused by word connotations. Words imply different things in different languages. Negotiations between Americans and Japanese executives, for instance, are made more difficult because the Japanese word hai translates as “yes,” but its connotation may be “yes, I’m listen ing.” rather than “yes, I agree.”
Third are barriers caused by tone differences. In some cultures, language is formal, in others it’s informal. In some cultures, the tone changes depending on the context: people speak differently at home, in social situations, and at work. Using a personal, informal style in a situation in which a more formal style is expected can be embarrassing and off putting.
Fourth, there are barriers caused by differences among perceptions. People who speak EXHIBIT 10-10 High Versus Low different languages actually view the world in different ways. Eskimos perceive snow Context Cultures
What do these contextual differences mean in terms of communication? Actually, quite a lot Communication in high-context cultures implies considerably more trust by both parties. What may appear, to an outsider, to be casual and insignificant conversation is important because it reflects the desire to build a relationship and create trust. Oral agreements imply strong commitments in highcontext cultures. And who you are your age, seniority, rank in the organization is highly valued and heavily influences your credibility. But in low-context cultures, enforceable contracts will tend to be in writing, precisely worded, and highly legalistic. Similarly, low-context cultures value directness. Managers are expected to be explicit and precise in conveying intended meaning. It’s quite different in high-context cultures, in which managers tend to make suggestions” rather than give orders.
A Cultural Guide When communicating with people from a different culture, what can you do to reduce misperceptions, misinterpretations, and misevaluations? You can begin by trying to assess the cultural context. You’re likely to have fewer difficulties if these people come from a cultural context similar to your own. In addition, the following four rules can be helpful:
1 Assume differences until similarity is proven. Most of us assume that others are more similar to us than they actually are. But people from different countries often are very different from us. So you are far less likely to make an error if you assume others are different from you rather than assuming similarity until the difference is proven.
2. Emphasize description rather than interpretation or evaluation. Interpreting or evaluating what someone has said or done, in contrast to description, is based more on the observer’s culture and background than on the observed situation. As a result, delay judgment until you’ve had sufficient time to observe and interpret the situation from the differing perspectives of all the cultures involved.
3. Practice empathy. Before sending a message. put yourself in the recipient’s shoes. What are his or her values, experiences, and frames of reference? What do you know about his or her education, upbringing, and background that can give you added insight? Try to see the other person as he or she really is.
4. Treat your interpretations as a working hypothesis. Once you’ve developed an explanation for a new situation or think you empathize with someone from a foreign culture, treat your interpretation as a hypothesis that needs further testing rather than as a certainty. Carefully assess the feedback provided by recipients to see if it confirms your hypothesis. For important decisions or communiqués, you can also check with other foreign and home country colleagues to make sure that your interpretations are on target.
Choice Communication Channel
Summary and Implications for Managers
A careful review of this chapter finds a common theme regarding the relationship between communication and employee satisfaction: the less the uncertainty, the greater the satisfaction. Distortions, ambiguities, and incongruities in communications all increase uncertainty and, hence, they have a negative impact on satisfaction.64
The less distortion that occurs in communication, the more that goals, feedback, and other management messages to employees will be received as they were intended. This, in turn, should reduce ambiguities and clarify the group’s task. Extensive use of vertical, lateral, and informal channels will increase communication flow, reduce uncertainty, and improve group performance and satisfaction. We should also expect incongruities between verbal and nonverbal communiqués to increase uncertainty and to reduce satisfaction.
Choice Communication Channel
Findings in the chapter further suggest that the goal of perfect communication is unattainable. Yet, there is evidence that demonstrates a positive relationship between effective communication (which includes factors such as perceived trust, perceived accuracy, desire for interaction, top-man
agreement receptiveness, and upward information requirements) and worker productivity. Choosing the correct channel, being an effective listener, and using feedback may, therefore, make for more effective communication. But the human factor generates distortions that can never be fully decoded message in the mind of the receiver to represent his or her reality. And it is this “reality that will determine performance, along with the individual’s level of motivation and his or her degree of satisfaction. The issue of motivation is critical, so we should briefly review how communication is central in determining an individual’s degree of motivation.
You will remember from expectancy theory (see Chapter 6) that the degree of effort an individual exerts depends on his or her perception of the effort-performance, performance-reward, and reward-goal satisfaction links. If individuals are not given the data necessary to make the perceived probability of these links high, motivation will suffer. If rewards are not made clear, if the criteria for determining and measuring performance are ambiguous, or if individuals are not relatively certain that their effort will lead to satisfactory performance, then the effort will be reduced. So communication plays a significant role in determining the level of employee motivation.
A final implication from the communication literature relates to predicting turnover. The use of realistic job previews acts as a communication device for clarifying role expectations (see the “Counterpoint” in Chapter 5). Employees who have been exposed to a realistic job preview have more accurate information about that job. Comparisons of turnover rates between organizations that use tic job preview versus either no preview or presentation of only positive job information show that those not using the realistic preview have, on average, almost 29 percent higher turnover. This makes a strong case for managers to convey honest and accurate information about a job to applicants during the recruiting and selection process.
