Chapter 11 Communicating in Teams and Organizations

Chapter 11 Communicating in Teams and Organizations

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Communicating in TEAMS AND Organizations

Learning Objectives

Explain the importance of communication and diagram the communication process.

Describe problems with communicating through electronic mail.

Identify two ways in which nonverbal communication differs from verbal communication.

Identify two conditions requiring a channel with high media richness.

Identify four common communication barriers.

Discuss the degree to which men and women communicate differently.

Outline the key elements of active listening.

Summarize four communication strategies in organizational hierarchies.

Chapter Glossary

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Chapter 11 Communicating in Teams and Organizations

communication competence A person’s ability to identify appropriate communication patterns in a given situation and to achieve goals by applying that knowledge.

communication The process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people.

emotional contagion The automatic and unconscious tendency to mimic and synchronize one’s own nonverbal behaviours with those of other people.

flaming The act of sending an emotionally charged electronic mail message to others.

grapevine An unstructured and informal communication network founded on social relationships rather than organizational charts or job descriptions.

information overload A condition in which the volume of information received exceeds the person’s capacity to process it.

jargon The technical language and acronyms as well as recognized words with specialized meanings in specific organizations or groups.

management by walking around (MBWA) A communication practice in which executives get out of their offices and learn from others in the organization through face-to-face dialogue.

media richness The data-carrying capacity of a communication medium, including the volume and variety of information it can transmit.

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Chapter 11 Communicating in Teams and Organizations

Chapter Synopsis

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Chapter 11 Communicating in Teams and Organizations

Communication refers to the process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people. Communication supports knowledge management, decision making, work coordination, and the need for affiliation. The communication process involves forming, encoding, and transmitting the intended message to a receiver, who then decodes the message and provides feedback to the sender. Effective communication occurs when the sender’s thoughts are transmitted to and understood by the intended receiver.

Electronic mail (e-mail) is a powerful way to communicate, and it has changed communication patterns in organizational settings. However, e-mail also contributes to information overload, is an ineffective channel for communicating emotions, tends to reduce politeness and respect in the communication process, and lacks the warmth of human interaction. Some forms of computer-mediated communication gives employees the freedom to communicate effectively from any location.

Nonverbal communication includes facial gestures, voice intonation, physical distance, and even silence. Employees make extensive use of nonverbal cues when engaging in emotional labour because these cues help to transmit prescribed feelings to customers, co-workers, and others. Emotional contagion refers to the automatic and unconscious tendency to mimic and synchronize our nonverbal behaviours with other people. The most appropriate communication medium depends on its data-carrying capacity (media richness) and its symbolic meaning to the receiver. Nonroutine and ambiguous situations require rich media.

Several barriers create noise in the communication process. People misinterpret messages because of perceptual biases. Some information is filtered out as it gets passed up the hierarchy. Jargon and ambiguous language are barriers when the sender and receiver have different interpretations of the words and symbols used. People also screen out or misinterpret messages due to information overload.

Globalization and workforce diversity have brought new communication challenges. Words are easily misunderstood in verbal communication and employees are reluctant to communicate across cultures. Voice intonation, silence, and other nonverbal cues have different meaning and importance in other cultures. There are also some communication differences between men and women, such as the tendency for men to exert status and engage in report talk in conversations, whereas women use more rapport talk and are more sensitive than are men to nonverbal cues.

To get a message across, the sender must learn to empathize with the receiver, repeat the message, choose an appropriate time for the conversation, and be descriptive rather than evaluative. Listening includes sensing, evaluating, and responding. Active listeners support these processes by postponing evaluation, avoiding interruptions, maintaining interest, empathizing, organizing information, showing interest, and clarifying the message.

Some companies try to encourage informal communication through workspace design, although open offices run the risk of increasing stress and reducing the ability to concentrate on work. Many organizations also rely on a combination of print newsletters and intranet-based e-zines to communicate corporate news. Employee surveys are widely used to measure employee attitudes or involve employees in corporate decisions. Some executives also engage in management by walking around to facilitate communication across the organization.

In any organization, employees rely on the grapevine, particularly during times of uncertainty. The grapevine is an unstructured and informal network founded on social relationships rather than organizational charts or job descriptions. Although early research identified several unique features of the grapevine, some of these features may be changing as the Internet plays an increasing role in grapevine communication.

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Chapter 11 Communicating in Teams and Organizations

PowerPoint® Slides

Canadian Organizational Behaviour includes a complete set of Microsoft PowerPoint® files for each chapter. (Please contact your McGraw-Hill Ryerson representative to find out how instructors can receive these files.) In the lecture outline that follows, a thumbnail illustration of each PowerPoint slide for this chapter is placed beside the corresponding lecture material. The slide number helps you to see your location in the slide show sequence and to skip slides that you don’t want to show to the class. (To jump ahead or back to a particular slide, just type the slide number and hit the Enter or Return key.) The transparency masters for this chapter are very similar to the PowerPoint files.

Lecture Outline (with PowerPoint® slides)

Communicating in Teams and Organizations
Slide 1
Communicating at Hiram Walker Inc.
Slide 2 /

Communicating in TEAMS AND Organizations

HIRAM WALKER & SONS LtD.

Ian Gourlay, CEO of Hiram Walker, encourages communication by wandering around the workplace in order to engage in face-to-face communication with employees.

Communication -- process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people

Effective communication -- transmitting intended meaning

Communication competence

• Person’s ability to identify appropriate communication patterns in a given situation and to achieve goals by applying that knowledge

Four Functions of Communication
Slide 3 /

Four functions of communication:

1. Knowledge management

-- minimizes silos of knowledge

-- improves knowledge sharing

2. Decision making

-- make more informed decisions about corporate actions

3. Coordinating work activities

-- synchronizes work and forms a common mental model

4. Fulfilling drive to bond

-- provides social support and eases work-related stress

Communication Process Model
Slide 4 /

Communication process model

1. Sender forms and encodes meaning into words/symbols, etc.

2. Encoded message transmitted to the intended receiver through one or more media

3. Receiver receives and decodes stimuli as intended

4. Sender receives feedback about whether message was received and understood

Noise throughout process -- psychological, social, and structural barriers that distort and obscure the sender's intended message

Communication Channels

Verbal (oral/written) communications

• Face-to-face better for conveying emotions, persuading the receiver

-- nonverbal cues aid emotional communication

-- provides immediate feedback to sender

• Written is best for technical details -- higher comprehension than when received verbally

Internet Communication in Nunavut
Slide 5
Communicating through E-mail
Slide 6 (build)
Guessing E-mail Emoticons
Slide 7 (build) /

Internet Communication in Nunavut

• Through e-mail Internet chat rooms, and other information technology, Adamee Itorcheak brings together the widely dispersed people of Nunavut Territory in Northern Canada.

Electronic mail

• Efficient communication medium

-- faster than memos

-- asynchronous -- doesn’t require coordination with receiver (as in telephone calls)

• Reduces many selective attention biases because it hides our age, race, weight etc. that would be observed

• Reduces status differences -- more communication with executives

• Preferred channel for coordination and sending information for decisions

Problems with E-mail

1. Information overload -- due to efficiency

2. Interpreting emotions -- emotional tone of message is easily misunderstood

3. Flaming -- posting email in anger

4. Lacks empathy and social support

E-mail emoticons now used to help receiver decode emotional meaning of message

Other Computer-Mediated Communication

• Intranet networks are becoming preferred source of employee information

• Instant messaging –

-- “pushes” message at the receiver

-- companies finding instant messaging is time efficient

Emerging technologies may be reducing information overload because receivers control when to receive it

Nonverbal Communication
Slide 8 /

Nonverbal Communication

• Actions, facial gestures, voice intonation, physical distance and even silence

• Transmits most info in face-to-face meetings

• Influences meaning of verbal and written symbols

• Less rule bound than verbal communication

• Important part of emotional labour (Chapter 4)

• Nonverbal differs from verbal communication

-- more automatic and unconscious than verbal

-- less rule-bound than verbal

-- less training than we receive for verbal

-- more ambiguous and more susceptible to misinterpretation

Emotional Contagion

• The automatic and subconscious tendency to mimic and synchronize nonverbal behaviours with others.

• Serves three purposes

1. Continuous feedback that we understand sender

2.  Helps share the emotion

3. Associated with the drive to bond -- creates social solidarity

Hierarchy of Media Richness
Slide 9 /

Choosing the Best Communication Channels

Media Richness

• Medium’s data carrying capacity -- potential volume and information variety transmitted

• Highest for face-to-face -- transmits verbal and nonverbal, gives immediate feedback, customizable event

• Lowest for lean media (e.g. reports, flyers)

• When to use rich media:

1. nonroutine situations -- parties have little common experience (e.g. emergencies)

2. ambiguous situations -- need to resolve multiple and conflicting interpretations

Communication Barriers
Slide 10 /

• People can “push” the amount of media richness normally possible through an information channel due to their previous experience with that medium or receiver

Symbolic Meaning of the Medium

• Choice of medium transmits meaning beyond the content

• Choose medium that supports meaning of content

• Problem -- people interpret symbolic meaning differently e.g. e-mail

Communication Barriers (Noise)

1. Perceptual Errors

• Sender/receiver have unique perceptual frames of reference

• Cause receiver to screen out or emphasize different parts of the message

2. Filtering -- communication filtered or stopped altogether

• May involve deleting or delaying negative information

• Filter information to create a good impression to superiors

l  Most common when organization rewards employees who communicate positive information and among employees with strong aspirations for career mobility

3. Language – sender’s words/symbol have no meaning or different meaning to the receiver

• Jargon

-- words with specialized meaning to specific people (e.g. Microspeak)

-- Benefits -- increases communication efficiency, improves team dynamics, shapes org. culture

-- Problem -- receiver might not understand jargon

• Ambiguity -- symbol has multiple meanings

-- receiver takes wrong interpretation

-- used deliberately by sender to obscure bad news

-- ambiguous language used when communicating with people who have different values and beliefs

Information Overload
Slide 11
Managing Information Overload
Slide 12 /

4. Information overload -- information load exceeds one’s information processing capacity

• Information processing capacity -- amount of info that person is capable of processing in a fixed time

• Information load -- amount of info that must be processed per unit of time

• Consequences of overload -- stress, lost information, poorer decisions

Solution 1: Increase information processing capacity

- learn to digest information more quickly -- speed-reading, time management, remove distractions

- temporarily work longer hours

Solution 2: Reduce information load

-- buffering -- others screen person’s messages

-- omitting -- discarding junk mail unopened

-- summarizing -- reading executive summaries

Cross-Cultural Communication
Slide 13 /

Cross-Cultural Communication

Language and verbal problems

• Language differences -- people reluctant to communicate across cultures

• Interpreting voice intonation -- deep versus high-pitched male; soft versus loud voice

Nonverbal problems

• Different meaning --e.g., eye contact, handshake

• Importance of nonverbal versus verbal -- Japanese place more meaning on nonverbal than verbal

Silence and conversational overlaps

• Different meaning --e.g., eye contact, handshake

-  Japanese are silent to show respect; Canadians view silence as a sign of disagreement

-  talking while someone is speaking is viewed as rude in Japan but shows interest and involvement in Brazil

Gender Communication Differences
Slide 14 /

Gender Communication Differences

Male communication

• Men tend to assert status and power

-- give advice using direct statements

-- reluctant to receive advice

• Report talk -- impersonal and efficient info exchange

Female communication

• More “rapport talk” -- communicate for relationship

• Less likely to assert status -- use indirect statements, apologize more often

• More sensitive to nonverbal cues

Getting Your Message
Across
Slide 15 /

Improving Interpersonal Communication

Getting your message across

1. Empathize

- think about how receiver will decode message

2. Repeat the message

- state message in a different way

3. Use timing effectively

- find a time when receiver not distracted

4. Be descriptive

-- focus on the problem, not on the person

-- avoid attacking receiver’s self-esteem

Active Listening Process and Strategies
Slide 16 /

Active listening – three components

• Sensing

-- Postpone evaluation -- avoids screening out information

-- Avoid interruptions -- give speaker opportunity to complete the message

-- Maintain interest -- assume something of value in conversation

• Evaluating

-- Empathize -- see message from speaker’s perspective

-- Organize information when getting ahead of speaker

• Responding

-- Show interest -- use eye contact and back channel signals (e.g. “I see”)