Chapter 17 Communication and interpersonal skills

1
Chapter 17Communication and interpersonal skills

• Study questions
• What is the communication process?
• How can communication be improved?
• How does perception influence communication?
• How can we deal positively with conflict?
• How can we negotiate successful agreements?

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What is the communication process?

• Communication is essential for
• establishing and maintaining interpersonal
  relationships
• listening to others
• gaining the information needed to create an
  inspirational workplace
• handling conflict
• negotiating successfully
• leading successfully.

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What is the communication process?

• Communication
• An interpersonal process of sending and receiving
  symbols with messages attached to them
• Key elements of the communication process
• Sender
• Message
• Channel
• Receiver
• Interpreted meaning.

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What is the communication process?

• Effective and efficient communication
• Effective communication
• Occurs when the intended meaning of the sender is
  identical to the interpreted meaning of the
  receiver
• Efficient communication
• Occurs at a minimum resource cost
• Potential trade-offs between effectiveness and
  efficiency must be recognised.

5
What is the communication process?

• Sources of noise in communication
• Poor choice of channels
• Poor written or oral expression
• Failure to recognise non-verbal signals
• Physical distractions
• Status effects.

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What is the communication process?

• Poor choice of channels
• Choose the channel that works best.
• Written channels work for messages that
• are simple and easy to convey
• require extensive dissemination quickly
• convey formal policy or authoritative directives.
• Oral channels work best for messages that
• are complex or difficult to convey where
  immediate feedback is needed
• attempt to create a supportive, even
  inspirational, climate.

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What is the communication process?

• Poor written or oral expression
• Semantic barriers occur as
• encoding errors
• decoding errors
• mixed messages.
• Managers need to speak and write clearly.

8
What is the communication process?

• Guidelines for making presentations
• Be prepared.
• Set the right tone.
• Sequence points.
• Support your points.
• Accent the presentation.
• Add the right amount of polish.
• Check your technology.
• Dont bet on the Internet.
• Be professional.

9
What is the communication process?

• Failure to recognise non-verbal signals
• Mixed messages occur when a persons words
  communicate one message while his/her non-verbal
  signals communicate something else.
• The growing use of communication technologies
  causes important non-verbal communication to be
  lost.

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What is the communication process?

• Physical distractions
• Interruptions from telephone calls and drop-in
  visitors
• Can interfere with the effectiveness of a
  communication attempt
• Can be avoided or at least minimised through
  proper planning.

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What is the communication process?

• Status effects
• Occur when an organisations hierarchy of
  authority creates a barrier to effective
  communication
• Status effects include
• Filtering the intentional distortion of
  information to make it appear favourable to the
  recipient
• Subordinates acting as yes men.

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How can communicationbe improved?

• Active listening
• The process of taking action to help the source
  of a message say what he or she really means
• Rules for active listening
• Listen for message content.
• Listen for feelings.
• Respond to feelings.
• Note all cues, verbal and non-verbal.
• Paraphrase and restate.

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How can communicationbe improved?

• Feedback
• The process of telling others how you feel about
  something they did or said, or about the
  situation in general
• Constructive feedback guidelines
• Give it directly.
• Make it specific.
• Give it when the receiver is willing/able to
  accept it.
• Make sure it is valid.
• Give it in small doses.

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How can communicationbe improved?

• Ways to keep communication channels open
• Management by wandering around (MBWA)
• Open office hours
• Formal employee group meetings
• Employee advisory councils
• Suggestion boxes
• Communication consultants
• 360 feedback.

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How can communicationbe improved?

• Proxemics and space design
• Proxemics is the use of interpersonal space.
• Interpersonal space is an important non-verbal
  cue.
• Workspace layout is often overlooked as a form of
  non-verbal communication but is being
  increasingly recognised for its impact on
  communication and behaviour.

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How can communicationbe improved?

• Technology use
• New information technologies facilitate
  communication and are growing in importance in
  organisations.
• Managers must be able to use information
  technology while maintaining good interpersonal
  relations.

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How can communicationbe improved?

• Technology use
• Computers and computer technology can
• empower lower-level workers with more and better
  information
• enable managers to achieve improved control and
  accountability
• undermine the personal side of group decision
  making.

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How can communicationbe improved?

• Valuing culture and diversity
• Ethnocentrism is the tendency to consider ones
  culture superior to any and all others.
• Ethnocentrism can cause people to
• not listen to others
• address or speak to others in ways that alienate
  them
• use inappropriate stereotypes in dealing with
  someone from another culture.

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How does perception influence communication?

• Perception
• The process through which people receive and
  interpret information from the environment
• People can perceive the same things or situations
  differently.
• People behave on the basis of their perceptions.

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How does perception influence communication?

• Perception and attribution
• Attribution
• The process of developing explanations for events
• Fundamental attribution error
• Occurs when observers blame anothers performance
  failures or problems on internal factors rather
  than external factors
• Self-serving bias
• Occurs because individuals blame their personal
  performance failures or problems on external
  factors and attribute their successes to internal
  factors.

21
How does perception influence communication?

• Perceptual tendencies and distortions
• Stereotypes
• Occur when someone is identified with a group or
  category, and then oversimplified attributes
  associated with the group or category are linked
  back to the individual
• Halo effects
• Occur when one attribute is used to develop an
  overall impression of a person or situation.

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How does perception influence communication?

• Perceptual tendencies and distortions
• Selectivity
• The tendency to single out for attention those
  aspects of a situation or attributes of a person
  that reinforce or appear consistent with ones
  existing beliefs, values or needs
• Projection
• The assignment of personal attributes to other
  individuals.

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How can we deal positively with conflict?

• Conflict
• A disagreement between people on
• substantive issues regarding goals, allocation of
  resources, distribution of rewards, policies and
  procedures, and job assignments
• emotional issues arising from feelings of anger,
  distrust, dislike, fear and resentment, as well
  as personality clashes.
• Conflict that is well managed can help promote
  high performance, creativity and innovation.

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How can we deal positively with conflict?

• Functional conflict
• Moderately intense conflict
• Constructive stimulates people towards greater
  work efforts, cooperation and creativity.
• Dysfunctional conflict
• Low-intensity and very high-intensity conflict
• Destructive hurts task performance.

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How can we deal positively with conflict?

• Causes of conflict
• Role ambiguities
• Resource scarcities
• Task interdependencies
• Competing objectives
• Structural differentiation
• Unresolved prior conflicts.

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How can we deal positively with conflict?

• Structural approaches for resolving conflict
• Appealing to superordinate goals
• Making more resources available to everyone
• Replacing or transferring one or more of the
  conflicting parties
• Altering the physical environment.

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How can we deal positively with conflict?

• Integrative devices for resolving conflicts
• Using liaison personnel, special task forces,
  cross-functional teams or a matrix organisation
  to change interaction patterns
• Changing reward systems
• Using policies and procedures to direct behaviour
• Training people in interpersonal skills.

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How can we deal positively with conflict?

• Conflict management styles
• Peoples conflict management styles reflect
  different combinations of assertive and
  cooperative behaviour.
• Assertiveness is the desire to satisfy your own
  needs and concerns.
• Cooperativeness is the desire to satisfy the
  other partys needs and concerns.

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How can we deal positively with conflict?

• Conflict management styles
• Avoidance
• Uncooperative and unassertive
• Accommodation (smoothing)
• Cooperative and assertive
• Competition (authoritative command)
• Uncooperative and assertive
• Compromise
• Moderately cooperative and assertive
• Collaboration (problem solving)
• Cooperative and assertive.

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How can we deal positively with conflict?

• Conflict management outcomes
• Loselose conflict
• Management by avoidance or accommodation
• Winlose conflict
• Management by competition and compromise
• Winwin conflict
• Management by collaboration.

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How can we negotiate successful agreements?

• Negotiation is the process of making joint
  decisions when the parties involved have
  different preferences.
• All negotiation situations are susceptible to
  conflict and require exceptional communication
  skills.

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How can we negotiate successful agreements?

• Negotiation goals and approaches
• Substance goals
• Concerned with outcomes
• Tied to the content issues of negotiation
• Relationship goals
• Concerned with processes
• Tied to the way people work together
• Effective negotiations occur when
• issues of substance are resolved
• working relationships are maintained or improved.

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How can we negotiate successful agreements?

• Criteria for effective negotiation
• Quality
• Negotiating a wise agreement that is truly
  satisfactory to all sides
• Cost
• Negotiating efficiently, using minimum resources
  and time
• Harmony
• Negotiating in a way that fosters interpersonal
  relationships.

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How can we negotiate successful agreements?

• Types of negotiation
• Distributive negotiation
• Focuses on claims made by each party
• Leads to winlose outcomes.
• Principled (or integrative) negotiation
• Goal is to base the outcome on the merits of
  individual claims
• Leads to winwin outcomes.

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How can we negotiate successful agreements?

• Gaining integrative agreements
• Separate the people from the problem.
• Focus on interests, not on positions.
• Generate many alternatives before deciding what
  to do.
• Insist that results are based on some objective
  standard.

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How can we negotiate successful agreements?

• Common negotiation pitfalls
• Falling prey to the myth of the fixed pie.
• Non-relational escalation of conflict.
• Overconfidence and ignoring others needs.
• Too much telling and too little hearing.

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How can we negotiate successful agreements?

• Approaches to avoiding negotiation pitfalls
• Mediation
• Involves a neutral third party who tries to
  improve communication among negotiating parties
  and keep them focused on relevant issues
• Arbitration
• Involves a neutral third party who acts as a
  judge and issues a binding decision.

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How can we negotiate successful agreements?

• Approaches to avoiding negotiation pitfalls
• Alternative dispute resolution
• Uses mediation and/or arbitration but only after
  direct attempts to negotiate agreements among
  conflicting parties have failed
• Often uses an ombudsperson as a neutral third
  party.

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How can we negotiate successful agreements?

• Ethical issues in negotiation
• High ethical standards should be maintained.
• Profit motive and the competitive desire to win
  sometimes lead to unethical behaviour.
• Unethical negotiating behaviour can lead to
  short-term gains but long-term losses.