13 Chapter 13 – Managerial Communication

Exhibit 13.1 (Credit: UC Davis College of Engineering/ flickr/ Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0))

Introduction

 

 

We will distinguish between communication between two individuals and communication amongst several individuals (groups) and communication outside the organization. We will show that managers spend a majority of their time in communication with others. We will examine the reasons for communication and discuss the basic model of interpersonal communication, the types of interpersonal communication, and major influences on the communication process. We will also discuss how organizational reputation is defined by communication with stakeholders.

13.1 The Process of Managerial Communication

• Understand and describe the communication process.

Interpersonal communication is an important part of being an effective manager:

• It influences the opinions, attitude, motivation, and behaviors of others.
• It expresses our feelings, emotions, and intentions to others.
• It is the vehicle for providing, receiving, and exchanging information regarding events or issues that concern us.
• It reinforces the formal structure of the organization by such means as making use of formal channels of communication.

Interpersonal communication allows employees at all levels of an organization to interact with others, to secure desired results, to request or extend assistance, and to make use of and reinforce the formal design of the organization. These purposes serve not only the individuals involved, but the larger goal of improving the quality of organizational effectiveness.

The model that we present here is an oversimplification of what really happens in communication, but this model will be useful in creating a diagram to be used to discuss the topic. Exhibit 13.2 illustrates a simple communication episode where a communicator encodes a message and a receiver decodes the message.¹

Exhibit 13.2 The Basic Communication Model (Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)

Encoding and Decoding

Two important aspects of this model are encoding and decoding. Encoding is the process by which individuals initiating the communication translate their ideas into a systematic set of symbols (language), either written or spoken. Encoding is influenced by the sender’s previous experiences with the topic or issue, her emotional state at the time of the message, the importance of the message, and the people involved. Decoding is the process by which the recipient of the message interprets it. The receiver attaches meaning to the message and tries to uncover its underlying intent. Decoding is also influenced by the receiver’s previous experiences and frame of reference at the time of receiving the message.

Feedback

Several types of feedback can occur after a message is sent from the communicator to the receiver. Feedback can be viewed as the last step in completing a communication episode and may take several forms, such as a verbal response, a nod of the head, a response asking for more information, or no response at all. As with the initial message, the response also involves encoding, medium, and decoding.

There are three basic types of feedback that occur in communication.² These are informational, corrective, and reinforcing. In informational feedback, the receiver provides nonevaluative information to the communicator. An example is the level of inventory at the end of the month. In corrective feedback, the receiver responds by challenging the original message. The receiver might respond that it is not their responsibility to monitor inventory. In reinforcing feedback, the receiver communicated that they have clearly received the message and its intentions. For instance, the grade that you receive on a term paper (either positive or negative) is reinforcing feedback on your term paper (your original communication).

Noise

There is, however, a variety of ways that the intended message can get distorted. Factors that distort message clarity are noise. Noise can occur at any point along the model shown in Exhibit 13.2, including the decoding process. For example, a manager might be under pressure and issue a directive, “I want this job completed today, and I don’t care what it costs,” when the manager does care what it costs.

Concept Check

• Describe the communication process.
• Why is feedback a critical part of the communication process?
• What are some things that managers can do to reduce noise in communication?

13.2 Types of Communications in Organizations

• Know the types of communications that occur in organizations.

In the communication model described above, three types of communication can be used by either the communicator in the initial transmission phase or the receiver in the feedback phase. These three types are discussed next.

Oral Communication

This consists of all messages or exchanges of information that are spoken, and it’s the most prevalent type of communication.

Written Communication

This includes e-mail, texts, letters, reports, manuals, and annotations on sticky notes. Although managers prefer oral communication for its efficiency and immediacy, the increase in electronic communication is undeniable. As well, some managers prefer written communication for important messages, such as a change in a company policy, where precision of language and documentation of the message are important.

Nonverbal Communication

There is also the transformation of information without speaking or writing. Some examples of this are things such as traffic lights and sirens as well as things such as office size and placement, which connote something or someone of importance. As well, things such as body language and facial expression can convey either conscious or unconscious messages to others.

Exhibit 13.3 Body Language at a Meeting Your body language can send messages during a meeting. (Credit: Amtec Photos/ Flickr/ Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0))

Major Influences on Interpersonal Communication

Regardless of the type of communication involved, the nature, direction, and quality of interpersonal communication processes can be influenced by several factors.³

Social Influences

Communication is a social process, as it takes at least two people to have a communication episode. There is a variety of social influences that can affect the accuracy of the intended message. For examples, status barriers between employees at different levels of the organization can influence things such as addressing a colleague as at a director level as “Ms. Jones” or a coworker at the same level as “Mike.” Prevailing norms and roles can dictate who speaks to whom and how someone responds. Exhibit 13.4 illustrates a variety of communications that illustrate social influences in the workplace.

Exhibit 13.4 Patterns of Managerial Communication (Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)

Perception

In addition, the communication process is heavily influenced by perceptual processes. The extent to which an employee accurately receives job instructions from a manager may be influenced by her perception of the manager, especially if the job instructions conflict with her interest in the job or if they are controversial. If an employee has stereotyped the manager as incompetent, chances are that little that the manager says will be taken seriously. If the boss is well regarded or seen as influential in the company, everything that they say may be interpreted as important.

Interaction Involvement

Communication effectiveness can be influenced by the extent to which one or both parties are involved in conversation. This attentiveness is called interaction attentiveness or interaction involvement.⁴ If the intended receiver of the message is preoccupied with other issues, the effectiveness of the message may be diminished. Interaction involvement consists of three interrelated dimensions: responsiveness, perceptiveness, and attentiveness.

Organizational Design

The communication process can also be influenced by the design of the organization. It has often been argued to decentralize an organization because that will lead to a more participative structure and lead to improved communication in the organization. When messages must travel through multiple levels of an organization, the possibility of distortion can also occur, which would be diminished with more face-to-face communication.

Exhibit 13.5 Informal Communication in Organizations Smart managers understand that not all of a company’s influential relationships appear as part of the organization chart. A web of informal, personal connections exists between workers, and vital information and knowledge pass through this web constantly. Using social media analysis software and other tracking tools, managers can map and quantify the normally invisible relationships that form between employees at all levels of an organization. How might identifying a company’s informal organization help managers foster teamwork, motivate employees, and boost productivity? (Credit: Exeter/ flickr/ Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0))

Concept Check

• What are the three major types of communication?
• How can you manage the inflow of electronic communication?
• What are the major influences on organizational communication, and how can organizational design affect communication?

13.3 Barriers to Effective Communication – Noise

• Identify the sources of Noise.

We’ve already learned that Noise can interfere in the communication process at any point, but what can that noise be? Every time we talk or listen, there are things that get in the way of clear communication, things that interfere with the receiver getting the message from the sender. There are a number of common sources of noise that impact the effectiveness of our messages. Think about how these have impacted your own conversations with friends, classmates, or coworkers.

Physical Conditions

Sometimes “noise” is just exactly that—loud or distracting sounds that make it impossible to hear or concentrate. Or the general level of background noise can be so intense that it is hard to focus for long on one particular voice. A room may be so hot or so cold that people can’t get comfortable and cannot pay attention. Outside activities may be a distraction to those with a view out windows. Finally, it may be lunchtime or too close to quitting time to keep people focused. Fortunately, with some awareness and advance planning, physical barriers to effective communication are some of the easiest to overcome.

Filtering

Personal and particular experiences color how people view the world and how they communicate. A message sender sees the world through one set of filters (experiences and values) and the receiver sees it through a different set of filters. Each message has to pass, therefore, through at least two sets of filters. The more similar people are in lifestyle, experience, culture, and language, the more similar their mental filters are likely to be and the less distortion should occur. This is why people who come from very different social and economic situations than their audience must work extra hard to say exactly what they mean to avoid confusion. Also, the fewer people involved in the transmission of a message, the greater the chance that it will be received as the sender intended. In business, however, messages may be summarized by a manager and relayed through an administrative assistant who has clarified or edited the message. Messages exposed to many filters should be repeated in various ways to make sure they were understood as the sender intended.

Selective Perception

Selective perception is the tendency to either “under notice” or “over focus on” stimuli that cause emotional discomfort or contradict prior beliefs. For instance, some people live purposefully healthy lifestyles by frequently exercising and eating only nutritious food but still smoke cigarettes. Psychologists believe that they are selectively ignoring the evidence that smoking is dangerous to their health. They have chosen to disregard the information that would make them feel guilty or fearful about this habit. This is called perceptual defense. Selective perception can also be vigilant, meaning people are extra sensitive to things that are significant to them. If a manager doesn’t like a particular employee, for example, she may be super critical of that person’s behavior and notice every time he is a minute late to a meeting. On the other hand, a favorite employee coming late to work one morning might elicit concern that she had car trouble. Selective perception introduces bias into the communication process.

Information Overload

We have all been in situations when we felt that too much information was coming at us. When this happens, we feel overwhelmed and fear that we will not be able to retain any information at all. Sometimes it is not just the quantity of communication but the level that causes overload. If the message contains information that is new to the receiver, including processes or concepts that are not familiar, then the chances of overload increase greatly. The sender should break up the message into more palatable or digestible bits and reduce the amount of information that has to be absorbed at any one time. One technique is to make a high-level announcement and then follow it up later with more details. The sender has the primary responsibility to check that the receiver has understood the message. This means that a manager may have to adjust a message to reflect the various experiences of the employees. A new employee may need repeated explanations before beginning an operation, whereas an experienced employee may start rolling his eyes at the same old instructions.

Semantics/Jargon

Semantics is the study of the meaning of words and phrases. You might hear one person say to another “Let’s not argue semantics,” meaning he doesn’t want to get caught up in trivial and unimportant details or playing with words. But semantics is extremely important in effective communication. There are some semantic rules in English that may trip up non-native English speakers, such as the concept of subject-verb agreement and gender pronouns. When your audience involves people whose native language is not English or individuals of different educational backgrounds, messages need to be direct and clearly stated to help ensure they are understood.

Jargon can also lead to miscommunication. By definition, jargon is specialized language or terminology used within a particular profession, hobby or community. It’s not collectively known and used, but within our areas of specialty, these words may have high meaning and efficiency. That meaning and efficiency are lost to those who are not in the know! Be mindful of your audience. Tailor your language to the people you are talking to.

Denotation and Connotation

Confusion can also arise from the use of language by people from different educational levels, culture, and dialect. For instance, the terms lift and braces denote two entirely different meanings in the United States and in England. A Londoner might reasonably ask her partner if he was planning on wearing braces with his pants.

Some words have a connotation for one group of people that is not shared by another. “That’s sick!” could be a compliment or an insult, depending upon the listener. (You probably already know that slang does not belong in written business communications.) Fortunately for all of us, paying attention to the context of the message often reduces confusion. The meaning of homophones (buy, by, bye; meet, meat, mete; pair, pare, pear) and homographs (read, read; lead, lead) are often easily understood by their context or pronunciation.

Emotional Disconnects

Almost the first thing parents learn is never to try to have a rational discussion with a screaming toddler or an angry teenager. If they wait until the young person is more receptive to what they have to say, the odds of a successful conversation improve dramatically. Adults also experience emotional disconnects that affect the chance of successful communication. For example, when a person is feeling stressed or anxious, an expressed concern is more likely to be interpreted as criticism. Constructive criticism made while an employee is emotionally fragile may be perceived as a personal attack. If possible, it is better to postpone a communication if there is a strong likelihood that the intended receiver will misinterpret it because of his emotional state.

13.5 The Major Channels of Management Communication Are Talking, Listening, Reading, and Writing

• Know why talking, listening, reading, and writing are vital to managing effectively.

The major channels of managerial communication displayed in Exhibit 13.6 are talking, listening, reading, and writing. Among these, talking is the predominant method of communicating, but as e-mail and texting increase, reading and writing are increasing. Managers across industries, according to Deirdre Borden, spend about 75% of their time in verbal interaction. Those daily interactions include the following.

Exhibit 13.6 Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening: How They Help in Creating Meaning (Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)

One-on-One Conversations

Increasingly, managers find that information is passed orally, often face-to-face in offices, hallways, conference rooms, cafeterias, restrooms, athletic facilities, parking lots, and literally dozens of other venues. An enormous amount of information is exchanged, validated, confirmed, and passed back and forth under highly informal circumstances.

Telephone Conversations

Managers spend an astounding amount of time on the telephone these days. Curiously, the amount of time per telephone call is decreasing, but the number of calls per day is increasing. With the nearly universal availability of cellular and satellite telephone service, very few people are out of reach of the office for very long. The decision to switch off a cellular telephone, in fact, is now considered a decision in favor of work-life balance.

Video Teleconferencing

Bridging time zones as well as cultures, videoconferencing facilities make direct conversations with employees, colleagues, customers, and business partners across the nation or around the world a simple matter. Carrier Corporation, the air-conditioning manufacturer, is now typical of firms using desktop videoconferencing to conduct everything from staff meetings to technical training. Engineers at Carrier’s Farmington, Connecticut, headquarters can hook up with service managers in branch offices thousands of miles away to explain new product developments, demonstrate repair techniques, and update field staff on matters that would, just recently, have required extensive travel or expensive, broadcast-quality television programming. Their exchanges are informal, conversational, and not much different than they would be if the people were in the same room.¹⁸

Presentations to Small Groups

Managers frequently find themselves making presentations, formal and informal, to groups of three to eight people for many different reasons: they pass along information given to them by executives, they review the status of projects in process, and they explain changes in everything from working schedules to organizational goals. Such presentations are sometimes supported by overhead transparencies or printed outlines, but they are oral in nature and retain much of the conversational character of one-to-one conversations.

Public Speaking to Larger Audiences

Most managers are unable to escape the periodic requirement to speak to larger audiences of several dozen or, perhaps, several hundred people. Such presentations are usually more formal in structure and are often supported by PowerPoint or Prezi software that can deliver data from text files, graphics, photos, and even motion clips from streaming video. Despite the more formal atmosphere and sophisticated audio-visual support systems, such presentations still involve one manager talking to others, framing, shaping, and passing information to an audience.

According to Werner and others who study the communication habits of postmodern business organizations, managers are involved in more than just speeches and presentations from the dais or teleconference podium. They spend their days in meetings, on the telephone, conducting interviews, giving tours, supervising informal visits to their facilities, and at a wide variety of social events.²⁰

Exhibit 13.7 Public speaking Public speaking is often a terrifying but crucial skill for managers. (Credit: Mike Mozart/ flickr/ Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0))

The Role of Writing

Writing plays an important role in the life of any organization. In some organizations, it becomes more important than in others. At Procter & Gamble, for example, brand managers cannot raise a work-related issue in a team meeting unless the ideas are first circulated in writing. For P&G managers, this approach means explaining their ideas in explicit detail in a standard one-to-three-page memo, complete with background, financial discussion, implementation details, and justification for the ideas proposed.

Other organizations are more oral in their traditions—3M Canada is a “spoken” organization—but the fact remains: the most important projects, decisions, and ideas end up in writing. Writing also provides analysis, justification, documentation, and analytic discipline, particularly as managers approach important decisions that will affect the profitability and strategic direction of the company.

Writing is a career sifter. If managers demonstrate their inability to put ideas on paper in a clear, unambiguous fashion, they’re not likely to last. Stories of bad writers who’ve been shown the door early in their careers are legion. Managers’ principal objective, at least during the first few years of their career, is to keep their name out of such stories. Remember: those who are most likely to notice the quality and skill in managers’ written documents are the very people most likely to matter to managers’ future.

Managers do most of their own writing and editing. The days when managers could lean back and thoughtfully dictate a letter or memo to a skilled secretarial assistant are mostly gone. Some senior executives know how efficient dictation can be, especially with a top-notch administrative assistant taking shorthand, but how many managers have that advantage today? Very few, mostly because buying a computer and printer is substantially cheaper than hiring another employee. Managers at all levels of most organizations draft, review, edit, and dispatch their own correspondence, reports, and proposals.

Documents take on lives of their own. Once it’s gone from the manager’s desk, it isn’t theirs anymore. When they sign a letter and put it in the mail, it’s no longer their letter—it’s the property of the person or organization it was sent to. As a result, the recipient is free to do as she sees fit with the writing, including using it against the sender. If the ideas are ill-considered or not well expressed, others in the organization who are not especially sympathetic to the manager’s views may head for the copy machine with the manager’s work in hand. The advice for managers is simple: do not mail the first draft, and do not ever sign your name to a document you are not proud of.

Information Is Socially Constructed

If we are to understand just how important human discourse is in the life of a business, several points seem especially important.

Information is created, shared, and interpreted by people. Meaning is a truly human phenomenon. An issue is only important if people think it is. Facts are facts only if we can agree upon their definition. Perceptions and assumptions are as important as truth itself in a discussion about what a manager should do next.²² Information never speaks for itself. It is not uncommon for a manager to rise to address a group of her colleagues and say, “The numbers speak for themselves.” Frankly, the numbers never speak for themselves. They almost always require some sort of interpretation, some sort of explanation or context. Do not assume that others see the facts in the same way managers do, and never assume that what is seen is the truth. Others may see the same set of facts or evidence but may not reach the same conclusions. Few things in life are self-explanatory.

Context always drives meaning. The backdrop to a message is always of paramount importance to the listener, viewer, or reader in reaching a reasonable, rational conclusion about what they see and hear. What’s in the news these days as we take up this subject? What moment in history do we occupy? What related or relevant information is under consideration as this new message arrives? We cannot possibly derive meaning from one message without considering everything else that surrounds it.

A messenger always accompanies a message. It is difficult to separate a message from its messenger. We often want to react more to the source of the information than we do to the information itself. That’s natural and entirely normal. People speak for a reason, and we often judge their reasons for speaking before analyzing what they have to say. Keep in mind that, in every organization, message recipients will judge the value, power, purpose, intent, and outcomes of the messages they receive by the source of those messages as much as by the content and intent of the messages themselves. If the messages managers send are to have the impact hoped for, they must come from a source the receiver knows, respects, and understands.

Managers’ Task as Professionals

As a professional manager, the first task is to recognize and understand one’s strengths and weaknesses as a communicator. Until these communication tasks at which one is most and least skilled are identified, there will be little opportunity for improvement and advancement.

Foremost among managers’ goals should be to improve existing skills. Improve one’s ability to do what is done best. Be alert to opportunities, however, to develop new skills. Managers should add to their inventory of abilities to keep themselves employable and promotable.

Two other suggestions come to mind for improving managers’ professional standing. First, acquire a knowledge base that will work for the years ahead. That means speaking with and listening to other professionals in their company, industry, and community. They should be alert to trends that could affect their company’s products and services, as well as their own future.

It also means reading. Managers should read at least one national newspaper each day, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or the Financial Times, as well as a local newspaper. Their reading should include weekly news magazines, such as U.S. News & World Report, Bloomberg’s Business Week, and the Economist. Subscribe to monthly magazines such as Fast Company and Fortune. And they should read at least one new hardcover title a month. A dozen books each year is the bare minimum on which one should depend for new ideas, insights, and managerial guidance.

Managers’ final challenge is to develop the confidence needed to succeed as a manager, particularly under conditions of uncertainty, change, and challenge.

Concept Check

• What are the four components of communication discussed in this section?
• Why is it important to understand your limitations in communicating to others and in larger groups?

Key Terms

communicator

The individual, group, or organization that needs or wants to share information with another individual, group, or organization.

decoding

Interpreting and understanding and making sense of a message.

encoding

Translating a message into symbols or language that a receiver can understand.

figurehead role

A necessary role for a manager who wants to inspire people within the organization to feel connected to each other and to the institution, to support the policies and decisions made on behalf of the organization, and to work harder for the good of the institution.

interaction attentiveness/ interaction involvement

A measure of how the receiver of a message is paying close attention and is alert or observant.

noise

Anything that interferes with the communication process.

receiver

The individual, group, or organization for which information is intended.

 

Chapter Review Questions

1. Describe the communication process.
2. Why is feedback a critical part of the communication process?
3. What are some things that managers can do to reduce noise in communication?
4. Describe the various individual communication roles in organizations.
5. Which communication roles are most important in facilitating managerial effectiveness?
6. Identify barriers to effective communication.
7. How can barriers to effective communication be overcome by managers?

Management Skills Application Exercises

The e-mail below is not written as clearly or concisely as it could be. In addition, it may have problems in organization or tone or mechanical errors. Rewrite it so it is appropriate for the audience and purpose. Correct grammatical and mechanical errors. Finally, add a subject line to each.

E-Mail 1

To: Employees of The Enormously Successful Corporation

From: CEO of The Enormously Successful Corporation

Subject:

Stop bringing bottled soft drinks, juices and plastic straws to work. Its an environment problem that increases our waste and the quality of our water is great. People don’t realize how much wasted energy goes into shipping all that stuff around, and plastic bottles, aluminum cans and straws are ruining our oceans and filling land fills. Have you seen the floating island of waste in the Pacific Ocean? Some of this stuff comes from other countries like Canada Dry I think is from canada and we are taking there water and Canadians will be thirsty. Fancy drinks isn’t as good as the water we have and tastes better anyway.

Write a self-evaluation that focuses specifically on your class participation in this course. Making comments during class allows you to improve your ability to speak extemporaneously, which is exactly what you will have to do in all kinds of business situations (e.g., meetings, asking questions at presentations, one-on-one conversations). Thus, write a short memo (two or three paragraphs) in which you describe the frequency with which you make comments in class, the nature of those comments, and what is easy and difficult for you when it comes to speaking up in class.

If you have made few (or no) comments during class, this is a time for us to come up with a plan to help you overcome your shyness. Our experience is that as soon as a person talks in front of a group once or twice, it becomes much easier—so we need to come up with a way to help you break the ice.

Finally, please comment on what you see as the strengths and weaknesses of your discussions and presentations in this class.

Managerial Decision Exercises

Ginni Rometty is the CEO of IBM. Shortly after taking on the role of CEO and being frustrated by the progress and sales performance, Rometty released a five-minute video to all 400,000 plus IBM employees criticizing the lack of securing deals to competitors and lashed out at the sales organization for poor sales in the preceding quarter. Six months later, Rometty sent another critical message, this time via e-mail. How effective will the video and e-mail be in communicating with employees? How should she follow up to these messages?

Social media, such as Facebook, is now widespread. Place yourself as a manager that has just received a “friend” request from one of your direct reports. Do you accept, reject, or ignore the request? Why, and what additional communication would you have regarding this with the employee?

 

 

Chapter Attributions:

Principles of Management by Bright, D. S., Cortes, A. H., Hartmann, E., Parboteeah, K. P., Pierce, J. L., Reece, M., Shah, A., Terjesen, S., Weiss, J., White, M. A., Gardner, D. G., Lambert, J., Leduc, L. M., Leopold, J., Muldoon, J., & O’Rourke, J. S. Available at OpenStax and licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Waymaker Principles of Management by Lumen Learning. Available at Lumen Learning and licensed under CC BY 4.0.