Organizational Communication Final Review

Team Learning

- alignment or the functioning of the whole - transforms the skills of reflection and inquiry into vehicles for building shared understanding

Surveillance

- constant supervision

Negotiation

- key to managing intercultural team differences

Panopticon

Such supervision is a structural feature of modern power systems, epitomized by the panopticon, a type of institutional building designed by Jeremy Bentham Bentham's design assumed that power should be visible and unverifiable As a result, employees often behave as if they are being monitored, even when they are not--they correct, modify, and discipline themselves in the name of the organization The primary effect of the panopticon is that the members are "caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers" - critics warn that the ideology that glorifies technology in general, and knowledge-management systems in particular, frames technology as "universally desirable" - employees face the challenge of maintaining boundaries between employees' need for privacy and the organization's desire for surveillance and monitoring

Harassment and Sexual Harassment

- a form of communicative behavior that degrades or humiliates people - sexual harassment refers to any verbal or nonverbal communication of a sexual nature that interferes with someone's work

Communicating with Employees

- leaders' effective communication with employees has at least four essential characteristics: it is open, supportive, motivating, and empowering

Three Guidelines for Team Communication

1. Balance inquiry and advocacy 2. Bring tacit assumptions to the surface of team dialogue; as the team brings tacit assumptions to the surface of its dialogue, it discovers the role of those assumptions in the development of beliefs and conclusions 3. Become aware of the assumptions that inform conclusions: conclusions are filtered through members' assumptions and beliefs, which are unobservable and highly personalized--by counteracting these abstract influences on the thought process, teams can promote creative thinking

Allen's Three Strategies that enable individuals and groups to better communicate multiple identities:

1. Be mindful 2. Be proactive 3. Fill your communication toolbox

Deetz outlines four steps for increasing workplace democracy and shared decision-making among a broad range of stakeholders:

1. Create a workplace in which every member thinks and acts like an owner 2. Reintegrate the management of work with the doing of work 3. Widely distribute quality information 4. Allow social structure to grow from the bottom rather than be reinforced from the top

Mirivel's model highlights six interrelated strategies that can be applied to positive team collaboration

1. Create: greet each other to create human contact 2. Discover: ask questions to discover the unknown 3. Affect: complement each other to affect our sense of self 4. Deepen: disclose to build deeper relationships 5. Give: encourage each other to show support 6. Transcend: listen to transcend differences

Ideology functions in four different ways to support the power of organizational elites:

1. Ideology represents sectional interests to be universal 2. Ideology denies system contradictions 3. Ideology naturalizes the present through reification; reification refers to the process whereby socially constructed meanings come to be perceived and experienced as real, objective, and fixed, such that members "forget" their participation in the construction of those meanings 4. Ideology functions as a form of control

Three Types of Linkages

1. Institutional: occurs without human communication, as in the automatic transfer of data between companies 2. Representative: exists when people from various organizations meet to negotiate a contract, plan a joint venture, and the like 3. Personal: occurs when members of two organizations communicate privately

Aubrey Fisher's Model of Group Decision-Making

1. Orientation: teams get to know and trust one another 2. Conflict: members express and debate different ideas 3. Emergence: teams develop consensus and move toward action 4. Reinforcement: teams experience a spirit of cooperation and accomplishment

Five Types of Social Power

1. Reward Power: person A has reward power over person B when A can give some formal or informal reward, such as a bonus or an award, in exchange for B's compliance 2. Coercive Power: when B perceives that certain behaviors on his or her part will lead to punishments from A, such as poor work assignments, relocation, or demotion 3. Referent Power: when B is willing to do what A asks in order to be like A. Mentors and charismatic leaders for example often have referent power 4. Expert Power: when B is willing to do what A says because B respects A's expert knowledge 5. Legitimate Power: when B compiles with A's wishes because A holds a high-level position, such as division head, in the hierarchy

Communicative Dimensions of Teamwork

1. Roles 2. Norms 3. Decision-Making Processes 4. Management of Conflict and Consensus 5. Cultural Diversity

Four Factors of Successful Team Formation

1. Teams are only as good as their members; the careful selection of members is thus essential 2. Teams must be trained in group decision making and communication 3. Only decisions involving a significant challenge and an outcome that affects many people should be assigned to teams. Simple tasks with limited impact are best assigned to individuals 4. Some members of a team have more expertise and experience than do other members; therefore, all members do not contribute equally

Identity and Difference could be understood in four ways:

1. as organizational practices and performances 2. as essential or fixed aspects of the self 3. as features of the organization that influence members 4. as products of social and popular narratives

Charles Bantz highlights four common tactics that cross-cultural teams use to manage their differences

1. gather information 2. adapt a differing situations, issues, and needs 3. build social as well as task cohesion 4. identify clear, mutual long-term goals - awareness of cultural differences is necessary, but not sufficient for the accomplishment of cross-cultural team research

In communication technology fueled economy in the late 20th century, the nature of organizing underwent five key changes

1. the development of flatter organizational structures 2. the birth of the "customer-supplier" revolution (demand for organizations of all kinds to work together to provide ever-improving quality in products and services to a demanding global marketplace) 3. the new global demand for increased participation in decision-making 4. new models of collaboration between and among managers and workers 5. a changes from traditional top-down bureaucratic models of communication and management to team-, group-, and network-based models

Foucault

Borrowing heavily from his philosophy, many critical scholars now view power as a widespread, intangible network of invisible forces that weaves itself into subtle, everyday behavior Power does not reside in things or in people but "in a network of relationships which are systematically connected"-- in this view, power operates primarily in and through discourse

Myths

Contribute to the strength of a culture's ideology and its sources of power These specialized narratives often reveal the beliefs and values of a culture as they tell the stories of legendary heroes, of good and evil, and origins and exits In myths we find evidence of basic metaphors metaphors that structure "our" views of things

Six Rules of Empowering Employees

a. Distribute power and opportunity widely b. Maintain an open and decentralized communication system c. Use integrative problem solving to involve diverse groups and individuals d. Practice meeting challenges in an environment of trust e. Reward and recognize employees to encourage a high-performance ethic and self-responsibility f. learn from organizational ambiguity, inconsistency, contradiction, and paradox

Concentrated Creativity

the key to this balance is to harness a team's creativity in ways that allow the team to act effectively and meaningfully for each other and the larger organization; some companies and community groups have begun experimenting with new forms of organizing that treat creativity in a more concentrated fashion

Identity Work

the process by which members actively respond to their organizational positioning by forming, maintaining, strengthening, revising, or resisting the identities that have been (largely) defined for them by organizational discourse

Creativity and Constraint

the role of technology in organizations receives a great deal of attention for its potential to facilitate new forms of organizing and working in teams and networks

Task Role

the team member summarizes and evaluates the team's ideas and progress or initiates the idea-generating process by offering new ideas or suggestions

Maintenance Role

the team member's communication seeks to relieve group tension or pressure or to create harmony in the group

Organizational Stories

Legitimate and naturalize organizational power; they are regularly employed to justify managerial decisions regarding hiring, firing, promotions, and raises In some organizations where employee's interests are less likely to be supported, employees generally accept these controls as part of the "story" that distinguishes the organization and its culture

Identity Regulation

a significant goal of many organizations is to regulate and control their members' identities

Quinn's Four Guidelines for Leaders

a. Move from being comfort-centered to being results-centered b. Move from being externally directed to being more internally directed c. Become less focused on yourself and more focused on others d. Become more open to outside signals or stimuli, including those that require you to do things you are not comfortable doing * Quinn's main point is that leadership is less a prescribed set of behaviors than it is a uniquely expansive mind-set, one that is focused on the creation of possibility

Discourse

- (the interactions which occur between people) is itself always a site of struggle over competing meanings, varying ideas of what is try or real - they constitute the "nature" of the body, unconscious and conscious mind and emotional life of subjects which they seek to govern - power works in a subtle fashion, not to actively "repress" individuals or deny their "real" interests, but to literally "produce" them in a way that aligns with a preferred ideology

Cybervetting

- Recent variation of the technological panopticon - The process whereby employers seek information about job candidates online; typically this information is informal, non-institutional, other-sourced, and/or aggregated - helps to mitigate the "risks" associated with hiring decision by identifying "red flags" that might have gone unnoticed in a more traditional screening process - believes that online behavior mimics the behavior expected by one's offline disposition - there is little support to indicate that cybervetting actually helps employers make better hiring decisions; opaque processes are potentially unethical and reinforce the technological panopticon

Ideology

- The term ideology refers to the basic, often unexamined, assumptions about how things are or ought to be. Ideology structures our thoughts and interpretations of reality. - It is the medium through which social reality is constructed; it shapes what seems "natural," and it makes what we think and do seem "right" - Ideology informs us what exists, what is good, and what is possible in organizational life; it limits our imaginations regarding how our work and life could be different - helps us to understand that power is not confined to government or politics; nor is it always overt or easy to spot; because ideology structures our thoughts and interpretations of reality, it typically operates beneath our conscious awareness

The Role of the Critical Theorist

- a critical theorist gathers interpretive cultural data about race, class, gender, age, language, motives, and actions and make judgements about the power relationships that exist in all aspects of organizing - classified as elitists because, in practice, they must be willing to argue that certain individuals or groups are oppressed but are unaware of their oppression - maintain that people do not know their own mind; often rely on passionate, highly personal experiences and arguments to make their cases - described in terms of critiquing dominant discourses; educating organizational members, leaders, and the larger culture on the inequities of contemporary organizations; and emancipating organizational members from oppression through the articulation of positive a transformative alternatives to present structures and processes

Self-Centered Role

- a team member who seeks to dominate the group's discussions and work or to divert the group's attention from serious issues by making them seem unimportant - the self-centered role is always considered inappropriate and unproductive

Decision-Making Processes

- as a general rule, teams make better decisions than individuals - the simple act of participating in decision making makes team members more aware of important issues, more likely to reach a consensus, and better able to communicate about issues - groupthink: occurs when team members go along with, rather than critically evaluate the group's proposals or ideas

The Rise of Critical Theorizing in the United States

- at the turn of the 20th century, US industrialists broke from traditional capitalism, which funneled the lion's share of wealth and responsibility to the elite owners - this strategy known as progressive capitalism dominated US industry from the Industrial Revolution until the early 1970s, when the average, inflation-corrected weekly wage of Americans reached its peak - with the globalization of labor and markets (a phenomenon that has remade the economy of virtually every nation, reshaped every industry, and touched billions of lives) employers had the option of hiring low-wage workers overseas (outsourcing) - critical scholars have called for organizational leaders, policymakers, and consumers to pay closer attention to the ways unchecked globalization can lead to the exploitation of vulnerable groups, including children and those who occupy positions with little or no job security, particularly during economic downturns - as the divide between rich and poor has widened, new information technologies exacerbate the problem by offering companies unprecedented opportunities to send jobs overseas - by outsourcing to poorer nations and increasing their reliance on temporary workers, these firms maximize profits for shareholders while at the same time contribute to the widening income gap worldwide - critical approach to organizational communication seeks to advocate for the interests of working people rather than the interests of corporate leaders and shareholders, who are typically favored by management theory and practice - critical approached are often criticized for not taking a pro-profit stance and for underestimating the need for companies to remain profitable in an increasingly competitive global market - profitability is essential to the success of nearly all organizations, but it should not be maximized at the expense of other equally important social needs (e.g. living wages, sustainable development, quality of work life, and self-determination) - focus on the control of employers over employees where power resembles a loose coalition of interests more than a unified front

Quid-pro-quo Harassment

- based on the threat of retaliation or the promise of workplace favoritism or promotion in exchange for dating or sexual favors - this principle has been interpreted to include suggestions and innuendos as well as explicit quid-pro-quo comments

Hierarchy of Learning Experiences that prepare great leaders for Modesty

- begin with the identification of a highly capable individual who then advances to contributing team member, from success at the level of teamwork (which includes some level of leadership), the highly capable person evolves into a position where she or he can demonstrate skills as a competent manager - effective leaders emerge from successful managerial experiences, in which success is also combined with lessons learned from failure - Collins labels Level 5 leaders as executives, and this is the only level where he found that rarest of human combinations: personal humility alongside professional will - professional will (drive) is widely understood as a key characteristic of success in the business world; generally made up of a strong drive to succeed based on a clear and compelling vision for the company that includes a close connection between one's self-image and one's professional identity - modesty (personal humility about one's accomplishments and a profound commitment to the good of the company) is vital to leadership because it both inspires others and leaves oneself open to learning and to personal improvement

Liaisons Cont'd

- can be the dominant interpreters of the organizational culture - as the key communicators with tremendous influence on the direction of the company, they are able to transform any message into an interpretation that is consistent with their beliefs and to pass interpretation quickly throughout the company (and at times to customers and the community) - when organizational improvement efforts fail, it is very often a result of the improper mobilization of liaisons

Critical Theory

- challenges the unfair exercise of power - first emerged in response to the growing power that a small but elite segment of society held over the rest of the public during the Victorian period - this era was marked by a brutality abusive system of low wages, squalid working conditions, and wealthy, isolated business owners - particularism (the ability to hire and promote people due to their relation with the leader of the social realm) was the rule, and employees had very little protection from the cruel whims of their employees - the roots of critical theory can be traced to Karl Marx - Marx viewed the division between business owners and paid laborers as inherently unfair, and he predicted that it would lead inevitably to a violent overthrow of the owners as workers seized the means of production - committed to unveiling the political states that anchor cultural practices - seeks to expose the dark side of organizational life by actively questioning the status-quo, how it came to exist, whose interest it serves, and how it marginalizes and devalues some people while privileging others - maintain that our system of education and our outmoded assumption of lifetime employment with a single company are long overdue for reformation, or perhaps transformation

Struggler

- characterized by a basic conflict, a dilemma, or contradictory forces - central task: produce an identity that is both coherent and distinct - works actively to produce and sustain a self-image, neither independent or, nor totally victimized by organizational discourses - the image of the struggler suggests that there is hope for crafting identities that, although influenced by organizational and other discourses, are not entirely determined by them

Pamela Shockley-Zalaback's "Protean"

- constantly changing structure and form - boundary as guide, sense of place, commitment, relationship, and shared meaning (amidst continuous change)

Challenging Organizational Power and Control

- corporate ideology and managerial discourse have seeped into and shaped our daily lives, not just work, but at school, at home, and through the media - Deetz calls this form of control the "corporate colonization of the life world" and believes it leads to the eventual breakdown of families, schools, and other social institutions that once fostered a sense of belonging to a family community and turn instead to their work - schools and the media play a role in normalizing corporate colonization - despite the best efforts of organizations to control their members fully, those members often engage in resistance (distancing and defending themselves from organizational power) - global transformation: how local social movements attempt to effect large-scale, collective changes in the domain of state policy, corporate practice, social structure, cultural norms, and daily lived experience - many members now turn to more subtle, covert, and hidden tactics to create momentary, but potentially transformative "resistant spaces" - resistance is always performed in direct response to power; resistance emerges in the ever-changing and contestable space between accepting and revolting - employee dissent refers to the verbal expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions from that of management or the organization - workers are more likely to express dissent in response to issues that affect their co-workers, such as decision-making or change efforts, than they are in response to unethical organizational practices

Self-Doubter

- defining features of the self-doubter's experience are uncertainty and insecurity - symbolic insecurity arises from status and social anxieties, a lack of self-respect, esteem, autonomy, and well-being - material insecurity is born of concerns about one's job and the economy more generally - employees can respond in a variety of ways: the most common strategy is to conform to expectations, however unrealistic, and to try to become exactly what the organization wants

Consensus

- does not mean that all team members agree with the decision, but instead that they feel the team has adequately considered their views - naturally, people agree to group consensus with the understanding that their point of view will be accepted at least some of the time; otherwise they would most likely leave the group

Discursive Leadership

- draw on theories of the social construction of reality and resonate with our view of organizational communication as the moment-to-moment balancing of creativity and constraint - highlights the image of leaders as storytellers and speakers; reaffirms the value in leadership sharpening their ability to use communication strategically to guide employees sense making and interpretation of organizational realities - equally interested in ways in which objects (e.g. corner offices, articles of incorporation, computer systems, and office cubicles) have built-in properties that reflect past organizing - meaning-laden objects, like founding organizational texts (e.g. vision, mission, constitution, credo), play a significant part in shaping organizational talk and action - seen this way, people are both "passers" and "actors"; passers because multiple aspects of their social context find expression in their communication; actors because they are selective in picking and choosing what comes out of context - effective leaders somehow manage to transcend simple and misleading dualities (i.e. stability vs. change, centralized-decentralized, the individual vs. the institution) to embrace these tensions simultaneously - using the "polarity lens," effective leaders must focus both on what needs transformations and what must be preserved from the past

Ken Robinson suggests that education should enable students to become:

- economically responsible and independent - understanding and appreciative of their own cultures and to respect the diversity of others - active and compassionate citizens - able to engage with the world within them as well as the world around them

Habits of Authentic Communicative Performance

- effective leaders are skill at authentic communication, or relation to others in a way that reflects their own deeply held values and beliefs - they are excellent communicators who have the ability to use language to influence and motivate others

Situational Leadership

- effective leadership emerges from behavior that is responsive to varied situations - four distinct styles of Situational Leadership based on group's maturity: telling, selling, participating, and delegating - related to an individual's or group's readiness to performa a specific task; readiness, in this context, is a function of ability and willingness - a group's knowledge, experience, and skill determine its ability to perform a task; things like confidence, commitment, and motivation affect a group's willingness to perform a task - the higher level of "Performance Readiness" is less direct authority (telling) or persuasion (selling) is required to successfully and effectively complete the task; less direct supervision is also necessary - effective leaders match their leadership style to the group's needs - an effective leader can delegate decision-making responsibilities to group members and empower them to create alternative ways and means to carry out tasks and evaluate performance

Supportiveness

- emphasizes active listening and taking a real interest in employees; is even more useful to organizational leaders than openness - two types of relationships: (1) in-group, which are characterized by high trust, mutual influence, support and formal/informal rewards, and (2) out-group, which are characterized by formal authority and low trust, support, and rewards - in group relationships develop over time, tend to be more trusting, and are characterized by a greater willingness on the part of supervisors to delegate important tasks; associated with a greater employee satisfaction, performance, agreement, and decision-making involvement as well as lower turnover rates than out-group relationships - having a positive in-group relationship with one's supervisor leads to better integration into important social networks as well as enhanced feelings of perceived organizational support, which in turn strengthen commitment and performance - supervisory communication is an ongoing attempt to achieve balance among multiple and competing relational, identity, and task goals - strive to communicate in ways that simultaneously show concern for the relationship, demonstrate respect for the individual, and promote task accomplishment - teams function best when employees feel both a sense of psychological safety and a sense of emotional support for them as whole human beings

Collaboration

- emphasizes high assertiveness combined with high levels of cooperation - considered less effective in resolving conflicts because neither party's preferred solution is adopted - effective conflict management through consensus means accepting the inevitability of differences and remaining committed to alternative perspectives, creative decision making, and the on-going dialogue that can lead to these results--and the creation of a consensus

Transformational Leadership

- emphasizes organizational change as the essential task of effective leaders - this "new type of leader" is a positive change agent, one who seeks to lead an organization through an increasingly turbulent global business environment through the strategic use of communication - look beyond traits, styles, and situations to fully acknowledge and embrace their enduring connection to their employees, their society, and the world - one leadership competency that all can agree on is the importance of a leader's vision; it is important for leaders to craft a credible and compelling view of the future, or vision, as well as cultivate an ability to communicate that future clearly and creatively to disparate others - requires leaders to have a singular ability to communicate vision in a way that inspires others ("teachable point of view") - communication as the essential component of inspiration and change; communication is the essence of all leadership

Virtual Teams

- engage in a developmental process that builds a negotiated order--a shared set of practices or "micro-cultures" that emerge among members - the development of virtual teams has increased exponentially with the development of more realistic telepresence technology and the entrance of younger, digital-native workers into the workforce

Empowerment

- enhances feelings of self-efficacy by identifying and removing conditions that foster employee powerlessness - an employee must also feel capable of performing the job and must possess the authority to decide how to do the job well - requires a manager to act more like a coach than a boss by listening to employees' concerns, avoiding close supervision, trusting employees to work within a framework of clear direction, and being responsive to employee feedback - an organization committed to empowerment encourages employees to take on ever-increasing responsibilities that utilize their knowledge and skills - degree of empowerment is a direct result of how decision-making authority is defined - a distinction exists between an employees' control of job content (how the job gets done) vs. job context (the conditions under which the job gets done, including goals, strategies, and standards) - what is of greatest importance is for managers and employees to maintain clear agreements about the expected degree of empowerment to avoid misunderstandings that can foster resentment and mistrust

Surfer

- entirely dependent on existing, though shifting and unstable, discourses located in the media, organizations, and cultures "out there," rather than on any essential, fixed, authentic, or internal core - adopts multiple identities to fit multiple situations - identity is put in motion without much friction; it flows with the various forces and contingencies acting on it - change their identities to match the needs of the moment

Trait Leadership

- focused entirely on the individual's physical and social attributes - one insight we gain from the trait approach is that physical attractiveness is a key component, and an enduring one, of effective leadership - despite the democratically dubious and clearly flawed logic that underscores it, our is a world that more often than not gives a competitive edge to those who most closely resemble whatever physical and behavioral model of cultural attractiveness happens to be current

Stencil

- foregrounds the power of organizational communication to generate a template or standard identity position - members are understood as copies, outlines, or stencils of an organizationally preferred or dominant discourse - individuals are seen as having very little agency to create their own identity; instead, they are an effect or product of discourse

Quality Improvement Team

- goals are to improve customer satisfaction, evaluate an improve team performance, and reduce costs - such teams are typically cross-functional, drawing their members from a variety of areas to bring different perspectives to the problem or issue under study - uses its diverse talents to generate innovative ideas

Project Teams

- help coordinate the successful completion of a particular project; have long been used by organizations in the design and development of new products and services - management must expend great effort to foster real collaboration, which can result in an increased commitment to team decisions and a deeper level of caring about team outcomes and accomplishments

Community-Engaged Teams

- involves both a bonafide working relationship between employees in an organization and the community members who care about and are impacted by that organization - typically emerge as project teams, assembled for a specific goal - composed to carry out specific work function that bridges community, corporate, and governmental interests - requires a delicate balance of reflexivity, social support, and reciprocity to ensure that both communities and organizations are acting in the best interests of the entire team

Leadership Style

- leadership style should be conceived of as a continuum from autocratic (boss-centered power and authority) to democratic (managers and subordinates sharing power and authority) to laissez-faire (subordinate-centered power and authority with little to no guidance from managers) - one problem associated with the "styles" approach to leadership was rigidity - effective leaders often displayed a dominant style but were usually capable of behaving in other ways when the situation warranted - the effectiveness of any given style depended on the consent of followers, who varied in their tolerance for different leadership styles

Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid

- management is portrayed as a simple matter of balancing competing goals through rational decisions about people and tasks - the five categories that inform the grid says as much about prevailing preferences for a class-based system for organizing as they do any enduring organizational reality - the top of the pecking order is divided into "Country Club Management" (with language seemingly drawn from a critical and simplistic view of the welfare state) pitted against "Authority Obedience" leader (with little or no concern for the value of human life) - between these extremes there is "Organization Man Management," a concept of leadership that balances a concern for the completion of tasks

Positive Collaboration

- meaningful collaboration is rooted in what many organizational and health communication scholars have begun to call positive organizational scholarship - positive communication draws from both interpersonal theory and leadership techniques to inspire influence

Identity and Difference as Fixed Aspects of the Self

- men's and women's communication styles are outgrowths of gendered socialization and are made manifest in organizational contexts - the assumption that men's and women's communication styles are fundamentally different has implications for the ways that men and women negotiate their work and personal lives - assumptions about difference and identity prevent many working women and men from creating the flexibility that is desired by much of the current workforce

Concertive Control

- occurs when employees police themselves, developing the means for their own control - Workers achieve concertive control by reaching a negotiated consensus on how to shape their behavior according to a core set of values - Rules are created collaboratively among all members - their self-generated system of rational rules constrains them even further as the power of their value consensus compels their staunch obedience - Makes it difficult to hold on to an idea that organizational elites, namely managers, shape organizational meanings, rules, and structures to support their own interests at the expense of labor

Team-Based Organization

- one that has restructured itself around interdependent decision-making groups as a means to improve work processes and provide better products and services to customers - every employee is seen as possessing valuable knowledge that must be widely shared for the benefit of the whole - representation from a variety of functional areas within the organization to maximize the cross-functional exchange of information - encourage informal communication and view all employees as capable of making decisions about how to manage work tasks - in the most progressive team-based organizations, supervisory work is conducted by self-managed work teams; employees are "knowledge workers" dedicated to self-improvement, positive results, and productive collaboration

Stan Deetz's Multiple-Stakeholder Model

- organizations ought to be concerned with the interests of many individuals and groups, not just shareholders or stockholders - seeks to balance the demands of global economic competition with a respect for the health and well-being of people and the environment - promotes a greater voice and broader involvement in decision-making in the service of a more democratic work environment - implementing Deetz's suggestions can help us move toward a more democratic dialogue, or what he calls "constitutive code termination"

Bullying in the Workplace

- repeated, unreasonable actions of individuals (or a group) directed towards an employee (or group of employees), which are intended to intimidate, degrade, humiliate, or undermine; or which create risk to the health or safety of the employee(s) - verbal abuse, offensive conduct (including nonverbal behaviors) or even sabotage (as in preventing someone from getting work done) - can be overt or subtle - those who are not held accountable for their behavior learn to repeat it - people who are bullied often don't know how to tell their story of abuse to someone who can help them and often fear organizational inaction or, worse, retribution from the bully - bullies are both cultivated and rewarded in many organizational cultures; those that perceive results as more important than the means used to achieve them; competitive

Work Teams

- responsible for the entire work process that delivers a product or service to customer - the team resides together, outlines its own work flow, and is engaged in making ongoing improvements in the work process - supported by a commitment to employee engagement and empowerment - effective managers of work teams create a climate for honest and supportive dialogue and possess the necessary communication skills to do so

Knowledge-Management Systems (KM systems)

- searchable databases, interactive expert systems, discussion forums, and computer-supported cooperative work forums are designed to enhance and increase the value of the generation, sharing, and application of knowledge - from a critical perspective, the role that KM systems can play in increasing the invasiveness and constancy of organizational oversight is a concern - advances in technology, including KM systems, has created conditions for heightened, continuous, and more insidious forms of control - systems that are inclusive or designed with input from a variety of stakeholders toward a collective good are more ethical than those that are exclusive ; exclusive systems are designed for and by a certain segment of the organization - in transparent systems, employees know when and how information is being collected and/or generated about them and their work, how those data are being used, and the consequences of such monitoring - the least ethical systems are those that most closely the panopticon and are both opaque and exclusive - the most ethical are those systems that are inclusive and transparent

Storyteller

- seeks to build an integrated and meaningful identity by crafting a story of the self that is coherent across time and space - the self assembles the narrative, using resources drawn from "cultural ram material," including language, symbols, meanings, interactions with others, and experiences - Goodall: championed storytelling as a legitimate form of scholarship because he believes in the power of narrative to shape our experience, our lives, our selves on cultural, organizational, and individual levels

Hostile Work Environment

- sexually explicit verbal or nonverbal communication that interferes with someone's work or is perceived as intimidating or offensive - the behavior doesn't have to be intentional or create or contribute to hostile work environment; offhand remarks and casual displays of sexually explicit materials count as harassment; so do remarks that the sender may think of as compliments - sexual harassment is an organizational problem; it is management's responsibility to create a work climate that reinforces appropriate boundaries between employees

Identity and Difference as Popular Culture Narratives

- shifts attention from communication in organizations to communication about organization, or how a larger society portrays and debates its institutions and the very notion of work and workers - social texts which exists outside the organizations, such as those found in popular culture, both reveal and reproduce cultural understandings about the nature of work, life and identity - the meanings we assign to ourselves, our work, and our organizations are significantly influenced by the texts (i.e. films, books, televisions shows, news reports, magazines, fashions, and even scholarship) we consume in our everyday lives - this approach to identity explores how popular texts shape identities in the larger culture and how those culturally conditioned identities affect work life; many scholars suggest that a growing force in popular culture is consumption (cultural practice through which individuals craft a self) - the entrepreneurial self, so pervasive in popular culture, relies upon the image of an independent, resourceful, creative, and aggressive professional; this person is expected to be agile in a fluctuating job market, responsive to any opportunities, self-motivating, and self-promoting - individuals have the power to adopt, reject, and even transform the social narratives that guide them

Habermas

- social legitimation plays a major role in holding contemporary organizations together - Capitalist societies are characterized by manufactured consent, in which employees at all levels willingly adopt and enforce the legitimate power of the organization, society, or system of capitalism; it is only when this perceived legitimate power is challenged that the basic order might face a crisis - the magic of hegemonic consent is that the people themselves buy into this vocabulary, and despite how it casts them as disposable objects, have difficulty imagining an alternative reality - domination involves leading people to organize their behavior around a rule system; the system can then be blamed for actions taken in its name

Communicating in Networks

- specific communication networks--groups of individuals who communicate regularly--are a primary mode of organizing in the new economy - networks are emergent, informal, and somewhat less interdependent than teams

Leadership today is increasingly dependent of the following:

- the ability to create a clear and compelling vision for the future - the development of a credible life story that emphasizes the naturalness of the path you've taken to leadership, despite having to overcome hardships and endure emotional pain while maintaining a core set of commonly held values - the ability to use language per formatively to inspire others to choose those desirable future actions and to work hard to help you obtain them - good leaders must also show others how much they enjoy being in charge of the ongoing action, and they must demonstrate that they are worthy of trust and confidence - good leaders today are, therefore, communicatively adept; they inspire others to work with them and for them through their humility and the power of personal example

"Management of Self" or "Personal Mastery"

- the capacity for acquiring a critical appreciation of one's accomplishments in the context of a lifelong journey toward self-hood and the challenge of working with others to achieve a vision or create an imagined community - humility about one's accomplishments is the inevitable results of habits of mind and habits of character that are then realized fully authentic communicative performance

Small-Group Communication Networks

- the circle and the all-channel networks are highly decentralized, whereas the chain and wheel are centralized - it was found that centralized networks are more efficient than decentralized networks, as reflected in the speed with which they can complete a task - "bonafide groups": groups that really function "in the wild"; have real histories and come together to solve real organizational and social problems

Motivation

- the degree to which an individual is personally committed to expending effort in the accomplishment of a specified activity or goal - Leaders can (1) provide information and feedback about employees' tasks, goals, performance, and future directions and (2) communicate encouragement, empathy, and concern; in both cases, the motivating effect comes from the manager's ability to endorse particular interpretations of organizational issues through communication - the four best-known practices associated with employee motivation involve setting reasonable but challenging goals; meeting employees' expectations; treating everyone fairly and with a sense of equity assignments, duties, and performance evaluations; and successfully gaining compliance with directives and goals - successful employee motivation is always the result of multiple factors: communication, incentives, rewards, and skill

Interorganizational Communication Networks

- the enduring transactions, flows, and linkages that occur among or between organizations; such networks vary in terms of their openness, density, and interdependence - sensitive to environmental jolts that affect whole industries - when one organization builds parts or provides services that another needs for its delivery of a product or service, the two organizations are said to be vertically integrated - when two companies' customers are passed from one to the other in the service cycle, they are said to be horizontally integrated

Habits of Character

- the essential component is only one part state of mind; it is also composed of ways of being in the world, or what we call habits of character - the essence of a leader's character is not shameless self-promotion or iconic bombast or personal flamboyance, but simple modesty

Norms

- the informal rules that designate boundaries of acceptable behavior in the group - team norms, which are shaped by the national and organizational culture as well as by personal agendas, strongly affect member roles

Conflict

- the interaction of interdependent people who perceive opposition of goals, aim, values, and who see parties as potentially interfering with the realization of these goals - conflict changes or evolves over time and is unpredictable--it also takes place in the interdependent relationships among people who rely on one another to some extent for resources - some degree of team conflict is essential to achieving high levels productivity and effective communication; an absence of conflict over an extended period of time is more likely a sign of group stagnation or fear than of effectiveness broadly distinguish "concern for self" or a "concern for others"

Emergent Communication Networks

- the most powerful groups within organizations are those that emerge from formal and informal communication among people who work together - organizational grapevine: the persistent informal network in an organization, sometimes referred to disparagingly by management as the "rumor mill"--in reality, the rumors are usually true, and important information travels quickest through informal channels

Identity and Difference as Organizational Features that Influence Members

- the organization's identity works to guide interaction, predisposing and rewarding members to practice in particular ways - organizations are themselves gendered structures that reflect and reproduce patriarchy or the systemic privileging of masculinity - a gendered organization is one in which advantage and disadvantage, exploitation and control, action and emption, meaning and identity, are patterned through and in terms of distinction between male and female, masculine and feminine - organizations are also raced and classed in ways that reflect and reproduce inequitable divisions in everyday organizational life; whiteness as the unspoken but pervasive norm - the gendered, raced, sexualized, and classed character of organizations sometimes enables and often constrains the identities that employees and employers perform in their daily organizational activities

Team-Based Approach

- the organization's responsibility extend beyond helping employees cope with the structural change - the organization must also help them learn new way of communicating--this is a formidable challenge that requires a constant commitment to training and team learning

Openness

- the parties in an open communication relationship perceive the other interactant as a willing and receptive listener and refrain from responses that might be perceived as providing negative relational and disconfirming feedback - openness has both verbal and nonverbal dimensions; nonverbally, facial expression, eye gaze, tone, and the like contribute to open communication

H.L. Goodall's The Prince and The Facilitator

- the prince role: exhibited by group members who fancy themselves to be brilliant political strategists and see the world as a political entity - the facilitator role: a team member focuses exclusively on group process (e.g. following an agenda and maintaing consensus in decision making) for the benefit of the team, while refraining from substantive comments on issues

Strategist

- utilitarian and goal-directed in his or her self-making efforts - the strategist often moves between self that feels try and authentic and one that is more closely aligned with a preferred organizational or occupational self, revising and refining an identity as an active and ongoing process

Soldier

- willingly embraces the organization's preferred identity - emphasizes the process of identifying with a social unit and the drive to belong to something larger than one's self - the individual is depersonalized and instead is seen as an embodiment of the in-group prototype

The Second Shift

- women have often assumed greater responsibility for domestic labor, even when they work as many hours outside the home as their partners - captures the significant labor that women perform in the private sphere for which they receive little compensation or gratitude

Four Types of Communication Roles in Networks

1. Isolates: have little contacts with others in the organization; they work alone either by choice or because their jobs require them to be structurally or geographically isolated from other employees 2. Group members: communicate mainly within an informal clique, which may at times involve communication with a departmental, professional, or demographic grouping 3. Bridges: (who are also group members) have significant communication contact with at least one member of another informal group 4. Liaisons have connection with two or more cliques but are not exclusive members of any group

Six Qualities of "Servant Leadership" or a "Servant Leader"

a. Valuing individuals (having genuine concern for other's well-being and development) b. Networking and achieving (being an inspirational communicator) c. Enabling (empowering, delegating, developing potential) d. Acting with integrity (being consistent, honest, open) e. Being accessible (being approachable, in touch with others) f. Being decisive (being a risk taker)

Five Key Components of an Open Communication Relationship

a. the most effective supervisors tend to emphasize the importance of communication in their relationships with employees b. effective supervisors are emphatic listeners; they respond positively to employees' questions, listen to suggestions and complaints, and express a willingness to take fair and appropriate action when necessary c. effective supervisors ask or persuade, rather than tell or demand d. effective supervisors are sensitive to others' feelings e. effective supervisors share information with employees, including advance notice of impending changes and explanation about why the changes will be made - leadership can also be seen as a collective act by leaders to communicate in ways that promote and reinforce ethical and humane cultural practices; however, the "tone" or context of what constitutes appropriate behavior is set from the top of the organization

Border Guards

bridge boundaries between work, family, home, and street

Analyses of Communication Networks

concerned mainly with overall patterns of interaction, communication network roles, and the content of communication networks

Habits of Mind

habits of mind are patterned ways of thinking that define how a person approaches issues and conceives of alternative ways of resolving or dealing with them

Alvesson's Seven Sense-Making Devices or Images

help articulate how members respond to their organization's efforts to influence or regulate their identities

Hegemony

ideological control "works most effectively when the world-view articulated by the ruling elite is actively taken up and pursued by subordinate groups