I. The Importance of Communication in Organizations
A. Communication is the sharing of information between two or more people to reach a common understanding. It is necessary to compete effectively.
1. To increase efficiency need to learn about new technologies and implement them.
2. To improve quality must communicate its importance, share quality problems and ideas for improvements.
3. To increase responsiveness to customers customer contact employees must relay feedback, and must disseminate information appropriately, especially during crises.
4. To innovate, teams must communicate with each other and with managers to secure needed resources.
B. The Communication Process
1. Information is shared between two or more people in the transmission phase, and a common understanding is reached in the feedback phase.
2. The senderencodes a message and sends information over a medium to a receiver who decodes the message and sends feedback back to the sender.
3. Anything that interferes with the communication is termed noise.
4. Verbal communication consists of words (either written or spoken).
5. Nonverbal communication includes facial expressions, body language, and style of dress
C. The Role of Perception in Communication
1. Perception (processing sensory input to give meaning to the world) plays a central role in communication.
2. Perceptual biases, such as stereotypes, can hamper effective communication.
II.1 Information Richness and Communication Media
Information richness refers to the amount of information that a communication medium can carry to a receiver. Need to consider:
1. level of information needed
2. time needed for communication
3. need for a paper or electronic trail.
A. Face-to-face communication – is highest in information richness includes management by wandering around and videoconferences.
B. Spoken communication electronically transmitted (e.g. phone, voice mail) is second highest.
C. Personally addressed written communication (e.g. memos, e-mail, texts) require attention, but are only one-way.
1. Email, Twitter, Facebook and Blogs require clear policies.
D. Impersonal written communication (e.g. company newsletters, instructions) can be ignored and contribute to information overload.
E. Advances in Information Technology
1. Wireless communications facilitates linking people and computers
2. Computer networks may involve personal computers (clients) linked to a server on a local area network (LAN), a mainframe and/or the internet.
3. Software developments in operating systems, applications, and artificial intelligence and speech recognition software are increasingly powerful and user-friendly.
F. Limitations of Information Systems. Electronic communication should be used to support face-to-face communication, not replace it.
II.2. Developing Communication Skills
A. Communication Skills for Senders
1. Improving the Communication Process
a. Send clear and complete messages.
b. Send messages in symbols the receiver understands, not specialized jargon.
c. Select an appropriate medium that the receiver monitors.
d. Avoid filtering (withholding part of the message) and information distortion (the meaning of the message changes as it is passed along by receivers) and use the informal grapevine to advantage.
e. Include a feedback mechanism in messages.
f. Provide accurate information and avoid rumours.
2. Giving Feedback
a. Focus on specific behaviours.
b. Keep feedback impersonal.
c. Keep feedback goal oriented.
d. Make feedback well timed.
e. Direct negative feedback toward behaviour that the receiver can control.
B. Communication Skills for Receivers
1. Pay attention.
2. Be a good listener - actively paying attention and ensuring understanding.
3. Be empathetic.
III. Organizational Conflict
A. Organizational conflict is discord that arises when the goals, interests, or values of individuals are incompatible and they attempt to block one another from achieving their objectives. Conflict should be kept at a moderate and functional level.
B. Sources of Organizational Conflict include overlapping authority, task interdependencies, incompatible evaluation or reward systems, scarce resources, status inconsistencies, and incompatible goals or time horizons.
C. Conflict handling behaviours vary in cooperativeness (satisfying other's concerns) and assertiveness (satisfying one's own concerns).
1. Compromise and collaboration are behaviours to resolve conflict that are more likely to achieve organizational goals.
2. Other conflict handling behaviours are avoiding, competing and accommodating.
IV. Conflict Management Strategies
A. Strategies Focused on Individuals
1. Increasing awareness of individual differences through diversity training, job rotation or temporary assignments
2. Using permanent transfers or dismissals when necessary
B. Strategies Focused on the Organization
1. Changing an organization's structure or culture
2. Altering the sources of conflict
V. Negotiation Strategies
A. Distributive negotiation - the parties think that they need to divide a fixed amount of resources between each other so they compete to win as much as possible. This is a win-lose orientation.
B. Integrative bargaining – the parties cooperate to find creative solutions that is good for all. This is a win-win orientation.
1. Emphasize the big picture goals – goals that both parties can agree on.
2. Focus on the problem instead of the people.
3. Focus on interests (why someone wants something) and not demands (what the person wants).
4. Create new options for joint gain.
5. Focus on what is fair.
C. Collective bargaining – negotiations between labour unions and managers to resolve conflicts and disputes on work-related issues
1. Sometimes use a mediator or arbitrator to reach agreement.
2. A grievance procedure is outlined in the contract.
