Communication

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• Communication

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Communication Terms

• Communication
• The transfer and understanding of a message
  between two or more people.
• Sender
• Establishes a message, encodes the message, and
  chooses the channel to send it.
• Receiver
• Decodes the message and provides feedback to the
  sender.

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Barriers to Effective Communication

• Filtering
• Refers to a sender manipulating information so
  that it will be seen more favourably by the
  receiver.
• Selective Perception
• Receivers in the communication process
  selectively see and hear based on their needs,
  motivations, experience, background, and other
  personal characteristics.

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Barriers to Effective Communication

• Defensiveness
• When individuals interpret anothers message as
  threatening, they often respond in ways that
  retard effective communication.
• Information Overload
• When the information we have to work with exceeds
  our processing capacity.
• Language
• Words mean different things to different people.

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Organizational Communication Direction of
Communication

• Downward
• Communication that flows from one level of a
  group to a lower level.
• Managers to employees
• Upward
• Communication that flows to a higher level of a
  group.
• Employees to manager
• Lateral
• Communication among members of the same work
  group, or individuals at the same level.

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Networks

• Connections by which information flow.
• Formal Networks.
• Task-related communications that follow the
  authority chain
• The Grapevine Informal Networks.
• Communications that flow along social and
  relational lines

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The Grapevine

• 75 percent of employees hear about matters first
  through rumours on the grapevine.
• Grapevine has three main characteristics
• Not controlled by management.
• Most employees perceive it as being more
  believable and reliable than formal communiqués
  issued by top management.
• Largely used to serve the self-interests of those
  people within it.

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Purpose of Rumours

• To structure and reduce anxiety
• To make sense of limited or fragmented
  information
• To serve as a vehicle to organize group members,
  and possibly outsiders, into coalitions
• To signal a senders status or power

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Transactional Model of Communication
Feedback
Speaker Decodes
Listeners Encode
Noise
Listeners Decode
Speaker Encodes
Frame of Reference
Message
Context
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Personal Approaches to Improving Communication

• There are some basic principles of effective
  face-to-face communication
• Good communication takes time.
• Be accepting of the other person.
• Do not confuse the person with the problem.
• Say what you feel. Make sure your words,
  thoughts, feelings, and actions exhibit
  congruence that they all contain the same
  message.

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Personal Approaches to Improving Communication
(continued)

• Listen actively Active listening is a technique
  for improving the accuracy of information
  reception by paying close attention to the
  sender.
• Give timely and specific feedback

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Cultural Context and its Effects on Communication
high context/implicit
High
Japan Middle East Latin
America Africa Mediterranean
England France North
America Scandinavia
Germany Switzerland
Context
low context/explicit
Low Low
High
Explicitness of communication
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AUDIENCE PAYS ATTENTION TO

• MORABIAN
• 55 NON VERBAL
• 38 VOICE

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Exhibit 7-6 Emoticons Showing Emotions in Emails
-
(
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Electronic CommunicationsTips for Writing and
Sending E-mail

• Use a subject line.
• Use emoticons and acronyms sparingly for business
  communications.
• Write clearly and briefly.
• Copy e-mails to others only if they really need
  the information.
• Sleep on angry e-mails.

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Nonverbal Communication

• Messages conveyed through body movements, facial
  expressions, and the physical distance between
  the sender and the receiver.
• Kinesics
• The study of body motions, such as gestures,
  facial configurations, and other movements of the
  body.
• Proxemics
• The study of physical space in interpersonal
  relationships.

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Communication Barriers Between Men and Women

• Men and women view directness and indirectness
  differently.
• Women interpret male directness as an assertion
  of status and one-upmanship.
• Men interpret female indirectness as covert,
  sneaky, and weak.
• Men criticize women for apologizing, but women
  say Im sorry to express empathy.

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Cross-Cultural Communication Difficulties

• Sources of barriers
• Semantics
• Word connotations
• Tonal differences

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Culture Contexts

• Cultures differ in how much the context makes a
  difference in communication.
• High-context cultures
• Cultures that rely heavily on nonverbal and
  subtle situational cues in communication.
•  Low-context cultures
• Cultures that rely heavily on words to convey
  meaning in communication.

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OB at Work
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For Review

• 1. Describe the communication process and
  identify its key components. Give an example of
  how this process operates with both oral and
  written messages.
• 2. Contrast encoding and decoding.
• 3. Identify three common formal small-group
  networks and give the advantages of each.
• 4. What conditions stimulate the emergence of
  rumours?
• 5. What are the advantages and disadvantage of
  email? Of instant messaging?

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For Review

• 6. What is nonverbal communication? Does it aid
  or hinder verbal communication?
• 7. What does the expression sometimes the real
  message in a communication is buried in the
  silence mean?
• 8. What are the managerial implications from the
  research contrasting male and female
  communication styles?
• 9. List four specific problems related to
  language difficulties in cross-cultural
  communication.
• 10. Contrast high- and low-context cultures. What
  do the differences mean for communication?

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For Critical Thinking

• 1. Ineffective communication is the fault of
  the sender. Do you agree or disagree? Discuss.
• 2. What can you do to improve the likelihood
  that your message will be received and understood
  as you intended?
• 3. How might managers use the grapevine for
  their benefit?
• 4. Using the concept of channel richness, give
  examples of messages best conveyed by email, by
  face-to-face communication, and on the company
  bulletin board.
• 5. Most people are poor listeners. Do you
  agree or disagree? Defend your position.

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HR Implications

• Providing Performance Feedback

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When to Use 360-degree Feedback

• For employee development rather than for
  personnel decisions
• As part of a formal goal-setting system
• On a regular basis and not just once

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Making Feedback More Effective

• Feedback to those being evaluated should be
  anonymous and aggregated.
• Raters should only evaluate employee behaviour
  that they know about and have experienced
  first-hand.
• Raters should receive orientation and training to
  do the evaluations.
• Recipients should receive guidance on how to
  interpret the feedback.

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Breakout Group Exercises

• Form small groups to discuss the following
  topics
• 1. What differences have you observed in the ways
  that men and women communicate?
• 2. How do you know when a person is listening to
  you? When someone is ignoring you?
• 3. Describe a situation in which you ignored
  someone. What impact did it have on that persons
  subsequent communication behaviours?

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Effective Listening

• If you want to improve your listening skills,
  look to these behaviours as guides
• Make eye contact.
• Exhibit affirmative head nods and appropriate
  facial expressions.
• Avoid distracting actions or gestures.
• Ask questions.
• Paraphrase.
• Avoid interrupting the speaker.
• Dont overtalk.
• Make smooth transitions between the roles of
  speaker and listener.

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Supplemental Material
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Nonverbal Exercise

• Rank order in terms of importance for leadership
• Extroverted personality
• Sensitivity to others
• Technical expertise
• Strong ethical values
• Concern for getting the task done
• Charisma
• Internal locus of control
• Power
• Directions Sit on your hands. Use NO nonverbal
  communication (gestures, facial movements, body
  movements, etc.).

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Nonverbal Exercise Questions

• How effective was communication?
• What barriers to communication existed?
• What happens when nonverbal communication is
  absent?
• What purpose does nonverbal communication serve?

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Communication Questions

• What types of difficulties have you experienced
  when communicating with someone from a different
  culture than yours?
• How do you let the other person know you have
  heard what they are saying? How often do you do
  this?
• Describe an example of communication breakdown.
  What led to the breakdown?