HRES1101 - Module 6
Effective communication is vital to organizations in that it supports all aspects of organizational activities including:
(1) coordinating activities, (2) creating and disseminating knowledge, (3) decision making, (4) human resource development and training, and (5) facilitating change. Therefore, developing effective communication skills is essential for individuals to be successful in the workplace.
How do active listeners accomplish responding?
- Active listeners accomplish this by maintaining sufficient eye contact and sending back channel signals (e.g., "I see"), both of which show interest. - They also respond by clarifying the message—rephrasing the speaker's ideas at appropriate breaks ("So you're saying that . . . ?").
What has become a significant communication channel in organizations as a means of communicating.
Define Information Overload
a condition in which the volume of information received exceeds the person's capacity to process it
Define Emotional Contagion
one of the most fascinating aspects of nonverbal communication; the automatic process of "catching" or sharing another person's emotions by mimicking that person's facial expressions and other nonverbal behaviour
What is communication proficiency?
partially determined by the sender's competency and motivation with the communication channel. People with higher proficiency can "push" more information through the channel, thereby increasing the channel's information flow.
Define Information Processing Capacity
the amount of information that they are able to process in a fixed unit of time
Why does e-mail remain the medium of choice in most workplaces?
- E-mail messages can be written, edited, and transmitted quickly. Information can be effortlessly appended and conveyed to many people. - E-mail is also asynchronous (messages are sent and received at different times), so there is no need to coordinate a communication session. - With advances in computer search technology, e-mail software has also become an efficient filing cabinet
According to media richness theory, rich media are better than lean media when the communication situation is nonroutine and ambiguous.
- Lean media work well in routine situations because the sender and receiver have common expectations through shared mental models. - Ambiguous situations also require rich media because the parties must share large amounts of information with immediate feedback to resolve multiple and conflicting interpretations of their observations and experiences. - On the other hand, if a unique and ambiguous issue is handled through e-mail or another lean medium, then issues take longer to resolve and misunderstandings are more likely to occur.
Social media may eventually overtake email domination in the workplace as communication:
- Social media is more conversational and reciprocally interactive between sender and receiver, resulting in a sense of community, rather than traditional websites merely pushing information. - Social media is social because they encourage formation of communities.
According to the Model of Communication, communication flows through channels between the sender and receiver.
- The sender forms a message and encodes it into words, gestures, voice intonations, and other symbols or signs. - Next, the encoded message is transmitted to the intended receiver through one or more communication channels (media). - The receiver senses the incoming message and decodes it into something meaningful. Ideally, the decoded meaning is what the sender had intended.
Some people are better at communicating message through experience:
- They have learned which words and gestures transmit the message the best to that audience. - Through experience, you fine-tune so the audience receives your message more efficiently and effectively.
In most situations, the sender looks for evidence that the other person received and understood the transmitted message.
- This feedback may be a formal acknowledgment, or indirect evident from the receiver's subsequent actions. - Notice that feedback repeats the communication process.
How can evaluation be improved?
- To improve their evaluation of the conversation, active listeners empathize with the speaker—they try to understand and be sensitive to the speaker's feelings, thoughts, and situation. - Evaluation also improves by organizing the speaker's ideas during the communication episode.
Increasing globalization and cultural diversity have brought more cross-cultural communication issues.
- Voice intonation is one form of cross-cultural communication barrier. - language is an obvious cross-cultural communications challenge. - Communication includes silence, but its use and meaning varies from one culture to another. - Conversational overlaps also send different messages in different cultures
Although spoken communication tends to be more persuasive, written communication can also persuade others to some extent.
- Written messages have the advantage of presenting more technical detail than can occur through conversation. - This factual information is valuable when the issue is important to the receiver. - Also, people experience a moderate degree of social presence in written communication when they are exchanging messages with close associates, so messages from friends and coworkers can be persuasive.
Direct Communication strategies potentially minimize:
- filtering because executives listen directly to employees. - They also help executives acquire a deeper meaning and quicker understanding of internal organizational problems. - A third benefit of direct communication is that employees might have more empathy for decisions made further up the corporate hierarchy.
In spite of the best intentions of sender and receiver to communicate, several barriers (called "noise") inhibit the effective exchange of information. What kind of barriers could this be?
- imperfect perceptual process of both sender and receiver. - language barriers/codebook - filtering the message.
Nonverbal communication differs from verbal (i.e., written and spoken) communication in a couple of ways.
- it is less rule-bound than verbal communication; Nonverbal cues are generally more ambiguous and susceptible to misinterpretation. - nonverbal communication is automatic and nonconscious; We rarely plan every blink, smile, or other gesture during a conversation.
One recent model suggests that social media serve several functions:
- presenting the individual's identity, enabling conversations, sharing information, sensing the presence of others in the virtual space, maintaining relationships, revealing reputation or status, and supporting communities
Why is Communication important to all organizations?
- rely on a variety of coordinating mechanisms, frequent, timely, and accurate communication remains the primary means through which employees and work units effectively synchronize their work. - plays a central role in organizational learning - it is the means through which knowledge enters the organization and is distributed to employees.
Gender differences are also emerging in the use of social media to communicate
- women are more likely to visit social networking sites. - Women are also more active participants in photo sharing websites.
Three factors seem to explain why electronic channels may have more media richness than the theory proposes:
1. Ability to multi-communicate. 2. Communication proficiency. 3. Social presence effects.
What are the 5 functions of important communication?
1. Effective communication is vital to all organizations, so much so that no company could exist without it. 2. communication plays a central role in organizational learning. 3. Decision Making. 4. Change Behaviour. 5. communication supports employee well-being.
The grapevine has both benefits and limitations. What are some benefits?
1. One benefit is that employees rely on the grapevine when information is not available through formal channels. 2. It is also the main conduit through which organizational stories and other symbols of the organization's culture are communicated. 3. A third benefit of the grapevine is that this social interaction relieves anxiety. This explains why rumour mills are most active during times of uncertainty. 4. Finally, the grapevine is associated with the drive to bond. Being a recipient of gossip is a sign of inclusion, according to evolutionary psychologists.
In spite of the wonders of e-mail, anyone who has used this communication medium knows that it has its limitations. Here are the top four complaints:
1. Poor Medium for Communicating Emotions. 2. Reduces Politeness and Respect. 3. Poor Medium for Ambiguous, Complex, and Novel Situations. 4. Contributes to Information Overload.
Active Listening Process and Strategies
1. Sensing. 2. Evaluating. 3. Responding.
Men and women have similar communication practices, but there are subtle distinctions that can occasionally lead to misunderstanding and conflict.
1. men are more likely than women to view conversations as negotiations of relative status and power. 2. men dominate the talk time in conversations with women, as well as interrupt more and adjust their speaking style less than do women. 3. Men engage in more "report talk" 4. research fairly consistently indicates that women are more sensitive than men to nonverbal cues in face-to-face meetings.
There are three main reasons for this persuasive effect. What are they?
1. spoken communication is typically accompanied by nonverbal communication. 2. spoken communication offers the sender high-quality immediate feedback whether the receiver understands and accepts the message (i.e., is being persuaded). 3. people are persuaded more under conditions of high social presence than low social presence.
To get your message cross to the other person:
1. you need to empathize with the receiver, such as being sensitive to words that may be ambiguous or trigger the wrong emotional response. 2. be sure that you repeat the message, such as by rephrasing the key points a couple of times. 3. your message competes with other messages and noise, so find a time when the receiver is less likely to be distracted by these other matters. 4. if you are communicating bad news or criticism, focus on the problem, not the person.
What is ARPANET?
Advanced Research Projects Agency Network - rough vision of connected computers became a reality in 1969; mostly restricted to U.S. Defense.
"Explain why men and women are sometimes frustrated with each other's communication behaviors."
Although women also engage in report talk, they tend to communicate to build or maintain social bonds (Rapport talk). For this reason, they are less likely to give advice, will use indirect questions. Women are more willing than men to apologize. Finally, women are more sensitive than men to nonverbal cues in face-to-face meetings. The result is that women get frustrated with men because they receive impersonal and status-based advice from men when they are trying to form rapport. Men get frustrated because they can't understand why women don't appreciate their advice
One barrier of communication is the imperfect perceptual process of both sender and receiver.
As receivers, we don't listen as well as senders assume, and our needs and expectations influence what signals get noticed and ignored.
Information load can be reduced by buffering, omitting, and summarizing.
Buffering involves having incoming communication filtered, usually by an assistant. Omitting occurs when we decide to overlook messages, such as using software rules to redirect e-mails from distribution lists to folders that we never look at.
What is social presence effects?
Channels with high media richness tend to have more social presence, that is, the participants experience a stronger physical presence of each other. However, high social presence also sensitizes both parties to their relative status and self-presentation, which can distort or divert attention away from the message. Face-to-face communication has very high media richness, yet its high social presence can disrupt the efficient flow of information through that medium.
The ambiguity of language isn't always dysfunctional noise
Corporate leaders sometimes purposively use obscure language to reflect the ambiguity of the topic or to avoid unwanted emotional responses produced from more specific words
Define Intended Feedback
Encoded, transmitted, received, and decoded from the receiver to the sender of the original message
Another source of noise in the communication process is the tendency to filter messages
Filtering may involve deleting or delaying negative information or using less harsh words so the message sounds more favourable. Filtering is less likely to occur when corporate leaders create a "culture of candour."
Emotional contagion influences communication and social relationships in three ways.
First, mimicry provides continuous feedback, communicating that we understand and empathize with the sender. A second function is that mimicking the nonverbal behaviours of other people seems to be a way of receiving emotional meaning from those people. The third function of emotional contagion is to fulfill the drive to bond - Bonding develops through each person's awareness of a collective sentiment. - Through nonverbal expressions of emotional contagion, people see others share the same emotions that they feel.
Active listeners improve sensing in three ways.
First, they postpone evaluation by not forming an opinion until the speaker has finished. Second, they avoid interrupting the speaker's conversation. Third, they remain motivated to listen to the speaker.
While the grapevine offers these benefits, it is not a preferred communication medium.
Grapevine information is sometimes so distorted that it escalates rather than reduces employee anxiety. Furthermore, employees develop more negative attitudes towards the organization when management is slower than the grapevine in communicating information.
Jargon is usually designed to improve communication efficiency
However, it is a source of communication noise when transmitted to people who do not possess the jargon codebook. Furthermore, people who use jargon excessively put themselves in an unflattering light.
Communication skills are some of the most important skills that you need to succeed in the workplace.
If you want to be an expert communicator, you need to be effective at all points in the communication process - from "sender" through to "receiver" - and you must be comfortable with the different channels of communication - face to face, voice to voice, written, and so on. Poor communicators usually struggle to develop their careers beyond a certain point.
What is Usenet?
In 1979, two graduate students at Duke University developed a public network system; it allows people to post information that could be retrieved by anyone else on the network, making it the first public computer mediated social network.
Why is email tended to be the preferred medium for sending well-defined information for decision-making?
It is also central for coordinating work, although text messaging and Twitter tweets might overtake e-mail for this objective
What is the ability to multi-communicate?
It is usually difficult (as well as rude) to communicate face-to-face with someone while simultaneously transmitting messages to someone else using another medium. Most information technologies, on the other hand, require less social etiquette and attention, so employees can easily engage in two or more communication events at the same time.
Nonverbal communication represents another potential area for misunderstanding across cultures.
Many nonconscious or involuntary nonverbal cues (such as smiling) have the same meaning around the world, but deliberate gestures often have different interpretations. Most Americans are taught to maintain eye contact with the speaker to show interest and respect, whereas some First Nations peoples learn at an early age to show respect by looking down when an older or more senior person is talking to them.
The grapevine works through informal social networks, so it is more active where employees have similar backgrounds and are able to communicate easily.
Many rumours seem to have at least a kernel of truth, possibly because they are transmitted through media-rich communication channels and employees are motivated to communicate effectively. Nevertheless, the grapevine distorts information by deleting fine details and exaggerating key points of the story.
What are three social acceptance factor?
One factor in social acceptance is organizational, team, and cultural norms regarding the use of specific communication channels. A second social acceptance factor is individual preferences for specific communication channels. A third social acceptance factor is the symbolic meaning of a channel. Some communication channels are viewed as impersonal whereas others are more personal.
Although these open space arrangements increase the amount of face-to-face communication, they also potentially produce more noise, distractions, and loss of privacy.
Others claim that open work spaces have minimal noise problems because employees tend to speak more softly and white noise technology blocks out most voices
Organizing Information
People with high scores on this dimension have a strong tendency to actively organize the speaker's ideas into meaningful categories
Postponing Evaluation
People with high scores on this dimension have a strong tendency to keep an open mind and avoid evaluating what the speaker is saying until the speaker has finished
Avoiding Interruption
People with high scores on this dimension have a strong tendency to let the speaker finish his or her statements before responding.
Maintaining Interest
People with high scores on this dimension have a strong tendency to remain focused and concentrate on what the speaker is saying even when the conversation is boring or the information is well known.
Showing Interest
People with high scores on this dimension have a strong tendency to use nonverbal gestures or brief verbal acknowledgements to demonstrate that they are paying attention to the speaker
Active Listening (total)
People with high scores on this total score have a strong tendency to actively sense the sender's signals, evaluate them accurately, and respond appropriately.
Model of Communication recognizes that communication is not a free-flowing conduit.
Rather, the transmission of meaning from one person to another hampered by noise.
What are some exceptions to Media Richness Theory?
Research generally supports media richness theory for traditional channels (face-to-face, written memos, etc.). However, the model doesn't fit reality nearly as well when electronic communication channels are studied.
The best advice of what corporate leaders should do about grapevines seem to be to listen to the grapevine as a signal of employee anxiety, then correct the cause of this anxiety.
Some companies also listen to the grapevine and step in to correct blatant errors and fabrications. Most important, corporate leaders need to view the grapevine as a competitor, and meet this challenge by directly informing employees of news before it spreads throughout the grapevine.
Why aren't we any better as senders?
Some studies suggest that we have difficulty stepping out of our own perspectives and stepping into the perspectives of others, so we overestimate how well other people understand the message we are communicating.
What does Effective Communication depend on?
The ability of sender and receiver to efficiently and accurately encode and decode information; how well this process works depends on whether the sender and receiver have similar codebooks, the sender's proficiency at encoding the message to the audience, the sender and receiver's motivation and ability to transmit messages through that particular communication channel, and their common mental models of the communication context
What are two concerns with Wikis?
The accuracy of wikis depends on the quality of participants, but IBM experts say that errors are quickly identified by IBM's online community. Another concern is that wikis have failed to gain employee support, likely because wiki involvement takes time and the company does not reward or recognize those who provide this time to wiki development.
Active listening can be described as "the process of listening attentively while someone else speaks, paraphrasing and reflecting back what is said, and withholding judgment and advice"
The authors describe several dimensions of active listening including avoiding interruptions, postponing evaluaton, maintaining interest, empathizing, organizing information, showing interest, and clarifying the message.
Define Sensing
The process of receiving signals from the sender and paying attention to them.
Grapevine transmits information very rapidly in all directions throughout the organization.
The typical pattern is a cluster chain, whereby a few people actively transmit rumours to many others.
To improve information sharing and create a more sociable work environment, some work places have taken down the cubicle walls:
They are now having more shared space where employees set up temporary work areas. There are also more meeting rooms being put into place where employees can collaborate in private.
men are more likely than women to view conversations as negotiations of relative status and power
They assert their power by directly giving advice to others (e.g., "You should do the following") and using combative language
Language issues can be huge sources of communication noise because sender and receiver might not have the same "codebook."
They might not speak the same language, or might have different meanings for particular words and phrases
Why is nonverbal communication necessary?
This communication channel is necessary where noise or physical distance prevents effective verbal exchanges and the need for immediate feedback precludes written communication
Define Evaluating
This component of listening includes understanding the message meaning, evaluating the message, and remembering the message.
Model of Communication
This model provides a useful "conduit" metaphor for thinking about the communication process.
Which communication channel is most appropriate in a particular situation?
Two important sets of factors to consider are (a) social acceptance and (b) media richness
A great deal has been written about the communication process and ways to enhance effective communication.
We know that communication skills such as speaking, listening, writing, and reading are very important skills to have in order to be successful in the workplace
Men engage in more "report talk," in which the primary function of the conversation is impersonal and efficient information exchange.
Women also do report talk, particularly when conversing with men, but conversations among women have a higher incidence of relationship building through "rapport talk." Women make more use of indirect requests ("Do you think you should. . . "), apologize more often, and seek advice from others more quickly than do men.
Together, men and women have similar communication practices, but subtle distinctions these conditions can create communication conflicts.
Women who describe problems get frustrated that men offer advice rather than rapport, whereas men become frustrated because they can't understand why women don't appreciate their advice
Define Active Listening
a process of actively sensing the sender's signals, evaluating them accurately, and responding appropriately
Define Internal Communication
a significant concern, particularly for large and complex organizations where everyone needs to be confident that they have access to the same timely, accurate information.
evidence that men dominate the talk time in conversations with women:
as well as interrupt more and adjust their speaking style less than do women
written communication has traditionally been much slower than spoken communication at transmitting messages
although electronic mail, Twitter "tweets," and other Internet-based communication channels have significantly improved written communication efficiency
Define Grapevine
an unstructured and informal network founded on social relationships rather than organizational charts or job descriptions. - employees turn to the grapevine when they have few other options
Define Huddles
brief stand-up meetings in which staff and their manager discuss goals and hear good news stories
Some firms still use these communication devices:
but most have supplemented or replaced them completely with Web-based sources of information
Spoken and written communication are both verbal (i.e., they both use words)
but they are quite different from each other and have different strengths and weaknesses in communication effectiveness
Define Wikis
collaborative Web spaces where anyone in a group can write, edit, or remove material from the website
The process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people. a) media richness. b) communication. c) persuasion. d) grapevine. e) wikis.
communication
What are the advantages of e-zines?
company news can be prepared and distributed quickly.
Define Rapport Talk
conversations that have a higher incidence of relationship building
What are Codebooks?
dictionaries of symbols, language, gestures, idioms, and other tools used to convey information
When did the internet first come about?
early 1960s - with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, university researchers began discussing how to collaborate better by connecting their computers through a network.
The nonconscious process of 'catching' or sharing another person's emotions by mimicking that person's facial expressions and other nonverbal behaviour. a) media richness. b) communication. c) grapevine. d) information overload. e) emotional contagion.
emotional contagion
What does nonverbal communication include?
facial gestures, voice intonation, physical distance, and even silence
Effective interpersonal communication depends on the sender's ability to get the message across and the receiver's performance as an active listener. What are the two essential features of effective interpersonal communication?
getting your message across and active listening
An unstructured and informal network founded on social relationships rather than organizational charts or job descriptions. a) grapevine. b) wikis. c) media richness. d) persuasion. e) information overload.
grapevine
What does a communication channel have?
high richness when it is able to convey multiple cues (such as both verbal and nonverbal information), allows timely feedback from receiver to sender, allows the sender to customize the message to the receiver, and makes use of complex symbols (such as words and phrases with multiple meanings).
Social Acceptance refers to:
how well the communication medium is approved and supported by the organization, teams, and individuals involved in the exchange
Information overload problems can be minimized by:
increasing our information processing capacity, reducing the job's information load, or through a combination of both
A condition in which the volume of information received exceeds the person's capacity to process it. a) media richness. b) communication. c) grapevine. d) information overload. e) management by walking around (MBWA)
information overload
Define Mental Models
internal representations of the external world that allow us to visualize elements of a setting and relationships among those elements
Define Filtering
involve deleting or delaying negative information or using less harsh words so the message sounds more favourable
Define Responding
involves providing feedback to the sender, which motivates and directs the speaker's communication
Face-to-face communication is at the top of media richness because:
it allows us to communicate both verbally and nonverbally at the same time, to receive feedback almost immediately from the receiver, to quickly adjust our message and style, and to use complex language such as metaphors and idioms (e.g., "spilling the beans").
Why was email introduced in the workplace?
it tended to increase the volume of communication and significantly altered the flow of that information within groups and throughout the organization.
There are a number of barriers to effective communication including:
language, jargon, filtering information, and information overload. In addition, cross-cultural communication can be difficult because of differences in language and non-verbal gestures.
Define Top-Down Communication
literally is a method of issuing communication, instructions and information within a business using a hierarchical structure
A communication practice in which executives get out of their offices and learn from others in the organization through face-to-face dialogue. a) media richness. b) management by walking around (MBWA). c) communication. d) wikis. e) grapevine.
management by walking around (MBWA)
A less formal approach to direct communication is management by walking around (MBWA). What is this?
management by walking around - A communication practice in which executives get out of their offices and learn from others in the organization through face-to-face dialogue.
A medium's data-carrying capacity, that is, the volume and variety of information that can be transmitted during a specific time. a) media richness. b) emotional contagion. c) information overload. d) wikis. e) communication.
media richness
Define Media Richness
medium's data-carrying capacity—the volume and variety of information that can be transmitted during a specific time
While some of our nonverbal communication is planned, emotional contagion represents:
nonconscious behaviour—we automatically mimic and synchronize our nonverbal behaviours with other people
The use of facts, logical arguments, and emotional appeals to change another person's beliefs and attitudes, usually for the purpose of changing the person's behaviour. a) media richness. b) communication. c) persuasion. d) wikis. e) grapevine.
persuasion
Define Communication
refers to the process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people.
These three components of listening reflect the listener's side of the communication model:
sensing, evaluating, and responding
Define Jargon
specialized words and phrases for specific occupations or groups
jobs have a varying information load
the amount of information to be processed per unit of time; creates noise in the communication system because information gets overlooked or misinterpreted when people can't process it fast enough. The result is poorer quality decisions as well as higher stress
Along with social acceptance, people need to determine:
the best level of media richness for their message.
What is the central feature of the communication model?
the channel or medium through which information is transmitted
What happens when the sender and receiver have similar codebooks?
the communication participants are able to encode and decode more accurately because they assign the same or similar meaning to the transmitted symbols and signs.
Define Report Talk
the primary function of the conversation is impersonal and efficient information exchange
Define Noise
the psychological, social, and structural barriers that distort and obscure the sender's intended message
Encoding-decoding process depends on:
the sender's and receiver's motivation and ability to use the selected communication channel; Some people prefer face-to-face conversations, whereas others would rather prepare or receive written documentation
Communication efficiency also improves because:
there is less need for redundancy (repeating the message in different ways) and less need for confirmation feedback ("So, are you saying that. . . ?").
Define Persuasion
using facts, logical arguments, and emotional appeals to change another person's beliefs and attitudes, usually for the purpose of changing the person's behaviour
There are two main types of channels:
verbal and nonverbal
When does effective communication occur?
when the other person receives and understands the message. - This is more difficult to accomplish than most people believe.
Collaborative Web spaces where anyone in a group can write, edit, or remove material from the website. a) media richness. b) communication. c) persuasion. d) wikis. e) grapevine.
wikis
What are three organization-wide communication strategies:
workspace design, Web-based communication, and direct communication with top management
A sender and receiver with shared mental models of the communication context have similar images and expectations regarding the location, time, layout, and other contextual features of the information
• These shared mental models potentially increase the accuracy of the message content and reduce the need for communication about that context. • Notice that shared mental models of the communication context differs from a shared codebook. - Codebooks are symbols used to convey message content, whereas mental models are knowledge structures of the communication setting.