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Chapter 15: Managing Communication
Pedagogy Map
This chapter begins with the learning outcome summaries and terms covered in the chapter, followed by a
set of lesson plans for you to use to deliver the content in Chapter 15.
• Lesson Plan for Lecture (for large sections)
• Lesson Plan for Group Work (for smaller classes)
• Assignments with Teaching Tips and Solutions
What Would You Do Case Assignment – Google
Self-Assessment – How Do You Listen?
Management Decision – A Communication Policy for the Internet Generation
Highlighted Assignments
Key Points
What Would You Do?
New CEO Eric Schmidt faces the challenge of eliminating
the bureaucracy that has paralyzed Google.
While social media may provide efficient communications,
there are several challenges to be met when it is implemented
Management Team Decision
Students are asked to craft a communications policy that will
help a global company communicate effectively with its
facilities all over the world.
A detailed listening exercise helps students practice listening
Reel to Real Video Assignment – Biz
Flix
In this clip from Friday Night Lights, the coach gathers the
team around during half-time to talk about what success
really means and how he wants them to achieve it.
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Supplemental Resources
Where to Find Them
Course Pre-Assessment
IRCD
Course Post-Assessment
IRCD
Learning Outcomes
1 Explain the role that perception plays in communication and communication problems.
Perception is the process by which people attend to, organize, interpret, and retain information from their
environments. Perception is not a straightforward process, however. Because of perceptual filters, such as
selective perception and closure, people exposed to the same information stimuli often end up with very
2 Describe the communication process and the various kinds of communication in
organizations.
Organizational communication depends on the communication process, formal and informal
communication channels, one-on-one communication, and nonverbal communication. The major
3 Explain how managers can manage effective one-on-one communication.
One-on-one communication can be managed by choosing the right communication medium, being a good
listener, and giving effective feedback. Managers generally prefer oral communication because it provides
the opportunity to ask questions and assess nonverbal communication. Oral communication is best suited
to complex, ambiguous, or emotionally laden topics. Written communication is best suited for delivering
straightforward messages and information. Listening is important for managerial success, but most people
Who Wants to Be a Manager game
IRCD and online
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4 Describe how managers can manage effective organization-wide communication.
Managers need methods for managing organization-wide communication and for making themselves
accessible so that they can hear what employees throughout their organizations are feeling and thinking.
mail, online discussion forums, televised/videotaped speeches and conferences, and broadcast voice mail
make it much easier for managers to improve message transmission and “get the message out.” By
contrast, anonymous company hotlines, survey feedback, frequent informal meetings, and surprise visits
help managers avoid organizational silence and improve reception by hearing what others in the
organization feel and think. Monitoring internal and external blogs is another way to find out what people
are saying and thinking about your organization.
Terms
acquaintance time
active listening
address terms
affective culture
decoding
defensive bias
destructive feedback discussion
time
kinesics
listening
monochromic cultures
neutral cultures noise
Lesson Plan for Lecture
Pre-Class Prep for You:
Pre-Class Prep for Students:
• Review the chapter and determine what
points to cover.
• Bring PPT slides.
• Bring book.
Begin Chapter 15 by asking students to propose a metaphor for communication in
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Lecture slides: Make note of where you stop so you can pick up at the next class
meeting. Slides have teaching notes on them to help you as you lecture.
Topics
PowerPoint Slides
Activities
What is
Communication?
1 Perception &
Communication
Process
1.1 Basic Perception
1: Managing
Communication
2: What Would You Do?
3: What Is
Communication?
4: Perception and
2 Kinds of
Communication
2.1 The
Communication
Process
2.2 Formal Channels
12: Kinds of
Communication
13: The Interpersonal
Communication Process
14: The Communication
Process
19: Informal
Communication Channels
20: Informal
Communication Channels
Consider playing the
telephone game quickly
with a business-oriented
message. For example, tell
a student in the first row
something like, “There will
in back of the class?
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How to Improve
Communication
3 Managing One-on-
One Communication
3.1 Choosing the
Right Medium
27: How to Improve
Communication
28: How to Improve
Communication
29: Communication
Medium
36: Improving Cross-
Cultural Communication
37: A Comparison of
French and American
Views of Work
38: Affective Cultures
39: Neutral Cultures
40: Monochronic
Cultures
4.2 Improving
Reception
45: Establishing Online
Discussion Forums
46: Improving Reception
47: Biz Flix – Friday
Night Lights
48: Management
Workplace – Plant
Fantasies
Possible assignments:
blogging than for other types of communication? Why?”
2. Assign students to review Chapter 13 and read the next chapter on your syllabus.
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Remind students about any upcoming events.
Lesson Plan for Group Work
Pre-Class Prep for You:
Pre-Class Prep for
Students:
• Review material to cover and modify lesson plan to meet your
needs.
• Create a sculpture out of at least 10 Legos, Duplos, Mecano, or
other Lego-type blocks and try to use several of the parts in
different situations (e.g. build a simple car).
• Bring book.
Warm Up
Begin Chapter 15 by asking students to propose a metaphor for communication in
organizations. For example, “communication is the grease on the cogs of productivity.”
Doing so will help you see what students think the role(s) of communication is (are) in the
business environment.
during the exercise. When time is up, compare the original to the replicas and discuss
“Commander”
Divide the class into groups of 3 students and tell them that each group will need a
commander, a runner, and a builder. Separate the builders from the group and put
them in a separate room (or just out of sight). Give the commanders the sculpture
The 3rd person is the Runner. The Runner must go to the Commander, where he
or she will be given ONE piece out of the parts box and some instructions about
where that piece must go to make the replica of the Thingy. The Runner will deliver
Present the content on coaching, counseling, and nonverbal communication (Sections 2.4 and
2.5).
If you have time, try the following group activity.
“Age Old Problem”
Have students sit down in no defined order and tell them that until the exercise is over,
they are no longer allowed to talk. (This is important because the exercise is about
creating nonverbal communications from scratch.) Tell students that from the moment you
say ‘Go’ they will have 5 minutes to stand up and organize themselves into a straight line,
with the oldest student on the right and the youngest on the left!
If you don’t have time to do the “Age Old Problem” activity, consider using the Biz Flix
video as an example of nonverbal (kinesics and paralanguage) communication.
Lecture on Managing One-on-One Communication (Section 3).
After covering Sections 3.1-3.3, break for the follow up to the “Commander” activity on the
previous page:
“Commander Take Two”
Divide your class into groups of 3 students each and repeat the “Commander” exercise
with the following variation:
Allow the Builder and Commander to communicate verbally (without showing the
actual Thingy to the Builder). The Commander cannot show or gesture to the Builder,
but can describe how to build the Thingy. The Builder can also ask questions.
Compare the success rate for the intermediated communication (first Commander
exercise) with the direct communication involving feedback and listening.
Conclude with Managing Organization-Wide Communication (Section 4).
Conclusion
and
Assignments:
1. If you have more than one class meeting to cover communication, assign students to
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about what an organization communicates with its stakeholders and the role
technology should play in that communication.
3. If you have finished covering Chapter 15, assign students to review Chapter 15 and
read the next chapter on your syllabus.
Remind students about any upcoming events.
Assignment with Teaching Tips and Solutions
Case Assignment – What Would You Do?
What Really Happened? – Solution
GOOGLE
In the opening case, you learned that while Google’s revenues jumped 25% and it share of the search
market rose from 77% to 83%, co-founder Larry Page, who had been Google’s CEO for 3 years at
Today, Google is a much larger, more complicated company. But, the biggest problem is that paralyzing
bureaucracy has slowed the company. As technology companies grow, this happens. IBM, Apple,
Microsoft, and H–P weren’t immune, and neither is Google. In fact, the key reason you became CEO
again was to streamline decision-making and communication, and create clearer lines of responsibility
and accountability. But how do you do that in a company of 30,000 people?
As you learned in Chapter 1, managers fulfill three major roles while performing their jobs,
interpersonal roles, informational roles, and decisional roles. Managers talk to people, gather and give
One of the ways in which Page hopes to jumpstart decision making at Google is through a
commitment to using data in the decision making process. Here’s how it would work. When Sean Knapp
was a software engineer at Google, he said, “Why don’t we put five ads on the top of the search-results
page?” At the time, Google used just two and Knapp figured that Google could get more advertising
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revenue per page by displaying more ads. The risk, however, was that it would anger advertisers whose
While answering questions and making decisions by data is a key part of Google’s culture, it’s likely
to become even more important with Page as CEO because of his track record of reversing his opinions
If page consistently does this as CEO, several good things will happen to Google’s communication
and decision making. First, Page will demonstrate that he’s willing to listen, which as Doug Merrill
A related problem is that top management is increasingly isolated from middle and lower level managers
and employees who are responsible for the research and project management that is key to Google’s
success. So, what might you do to improve upward communication within the company?
Upward communication flows from lower levels to higher levels in an organization. Upward
When Google was a startup, upward communication wasn’t a problem. Access to founders and top
Today, with 24,000 employees and 6,000 more to be hired, Google’s top management suffers from
the same communication problems found at similar sized companies, namely, that it infrequently interacts
with lower level managers. As the number of managers and levels increase in a fast-growing company, it
becomes increasingly difficult to communicate directly with those in the lower and middle ranks.
To overcome this problem, and to unfreeze Google’s paralyzed decision making, CEO Larry Page
A second, but not often used, method of increasing upward communication is giving more authority,
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bought Android 2005 (it had 8 people at the time), because it wanted to develop a stable, flexible,
smartphone to compete with Apple’s iPhone, and to encourage more people to buy and use smartphones
Page is doing this so Google’s key managers can move quickly to improve performance and remove
barriers to action and innovation. In short, he wants more parts of Google to act like startups, that is, the
Finally, what can Google do to communicate effectively on a organization-wide basis in an organization
that has dozens of product lines, hundreds of research projects, and will soon have 30,000 employees?
Although managing one-on-one communication is important, managers must also know how to
communicate effectively with a larger number of people throughout an organization. But organization-
Another step that Page has taken to increase organization-wide communication is establishing a “bullpen”
session every afternoon during which he and Google’s other top executives sit in a public area outside the
board room in Building 43. The idea is that employees know they’ll be there at the same time every day
and that they can approach them directly to discuss any issue. Page also expects the bullpen sessions to
improve communication among Google’s top executives.
Finally, Page has begun an internal “tour” at Google in which he visits with people and departments
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Self-Assessment
HOW DO YOU LISTEN?
This chapter assessment helps students identify how they listen.
In-Class Use
Have students open their books to page 609 of the text and give them 5 to 7 minutes to complete the
Scoring
Students’ scores will fall between 10 and 50. Once students calculate their raw scores, have them plot
them on the following continuum.
50 45 38 28 0
Active
The active listener gives full attention to listening when others are talking and focuses on what is being
said. This person expends a lot of energy participating in the speaking-listening exchange, which is
usually evidenced by an alert posture or stance and much direct eye contact.
Involved
The involved listener gives most of his or her attention to the speaker’s words and intentions. This person
Passive
The passive listener receives information as though being talked to rather than as being an equal partner
Detached
The detached listener withdraws from the speaking-listening exchange and becomes the object of the
by slumped or very relaxed posture and avoidance of direct eye contact.
Things to Consider
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The listening inventory gives you a general idea of your preferred listening style, in other words, the way
in which you typically listen to others. The scores indicating styles are approximations and should be
regarded as such. Also know that you may change your listening style when responding to a certain
situation or to your interests, intentions, or objectives. In other words, listening styles are not necessarily
constant and absolute. Still, you may train yourself to be a better listener in a variety of situations by
following these simple guidelines:
• Defer judgment and listen for feelings and facts.
• Pay attention to content.
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Management Decision
A COMMUNICATION POLICY FOR THE INTERNET GENERATION
Purpose
This exercise gives students an opportunity to think about how social media can be used to improve
communication within a company and the challenges that it might represent.
Setting It Up
This exercise can be used as an individual assignment or an in-class group activity. Ask students how
Questions
1. In your opinion, what is the most ideal way to train people who are unfamiliar with social media on
how to use it for organization-wide communication?
Students’ responses will vary, but there are a number of important things to keep in consideration
when managers implement new policies in the workplace. First, they should be aware, and make
2. Do you think it is appropriate to use tweets or text messages for organization-wide communication?
Why or why not?
Management Team Decision
TALKING ACROSS TIME ZONES
Purpose
One of the biggest challenges in doing global business is communicating with people from all over the
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Setting It Up
You can introduce this case by presenting students with a short scenario:
“Imagine for a moment that your best friend or significant other has moved to China. The time difference
is 13 hours, but you need to find a good way to communicate regularly. How would you do it?”
Questions
1. In your opinion, what communication method would be ideal for an organization that has offices
in many different countries?
While students’ responses will vary, they should reflect awareness of the advantages and
disadvantages of the two kinds of communication media that are discussed in the chapter. Oral
communication includes face-to–face and group meetings through telephone calls,
2. Is it necessary to sacrifice speed in communication for the sake of a global presence? That is, can
a company have both a global presence and an efficient, timely means of communication?
Students’ responses will vary. While some may argue that a global presence makes
3. What cross-cultural issues should you keep in mind as you create a new communication system?
As discussed in the text, there are a number of things that a savvy manager should do to find
success in cross-cultural communication. The manager should be familiar with a culture’s general