Chapter 15 – Communicating
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15
chapter
Communicating
Learning Objectives 2
Key Student Questions 3
Class Roadmap 4
Bottom Line 11
Social Enterprise 12
Lecturettes 13
Discussion Questions 17
CHAPTER CONTENTS
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1 Discuss important advantages of two-way communication.
2 Identify communication problems to avoid.
3 Describe when and how to use the various communication chan-
nels.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
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Students want to know how they can communicate more effectively, and why communications often
break down (especially communications between employees and their managers.) Frequently asked ques-
tions include:
1. “How can I reduce the potential of sending messages that get
misinterpreted?”
2. “Why do some people misread nonverbal communication?”
3. “What is the best way for me to communicate with my manager?”
4. “With more people doing business with foreign countries, what is the best
way to overcome barriers in communication, when their customs, lan-
guage, and ways of doing business are different than yours?”
Answers to Student Questions
1. To reduce the potential of sending messages that will be misinterpreted, the sender has to be aware of
the receiver before, during, and after the transmission of the message. As the textbook points out,
2. People misread nonverbal communication because it is often part of a mixed message – the non-verbal
communication may be saying one thing, but the verbal communication is saying something else en-
3. The best way to communicate with your boss is the way he or she prefers. Some bosses like to get
information verbally – others would prefer written communications. Find out what your boss likes,
and communicate that way. In addition, most bosses prefer regular updates to spur of the moment
conversations. So take the time to prepare a brief update every week or two, to keep the boss current
on your activities and projects.
4. While it is important to understand cultural differences, it is equally important to understand that la-
beling a problem as ‘cultural’ can mask the real issue. Consider, for example, the American market-
ing executive who was having trouble with an Indian engineer. She lived in New York, and he lived
KEY STUDENT QUESTIONS
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Management in Action
How Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer Tried to Get Employees Talking
Yahoo, although it has held onto 700 million users, has slipped far from its glory days as an In-
ternet search engine in the 1990s. Yahoo’s board of directors turned to today’s most popular In-
ternet search firm, Google, to find its latest CEO, Marissa Mayer, a vice president with a reputa-
1. Communication is the transmission of information and meaning from one party to another
through the use of shared symbols. (Exhibit 15.1)
a. The Sender initiates the process by conveying information to the receiver.
b. The Receiver is the person for whom the message is intended.
E.G.
Use Example 15.1 Sending and receiving here
LO 1: Discuss important advantages of two-way communication.
A. One-way versus two-way communication
1. One-way communication is a process in which information flows in only one direction—
LO 2: Identify communication problems to avoid.
B. Communication Pitfalls
CLASS ROADMAP
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1. Errors can occur in all stages of the communication process.
a. Encoding stage – words can be misused, decimal points typed in wrong, facts left out, or
2. Problems caused by perceptual and filtering processes.
a. Perception is the process of receiving and interpreting information.
b. Filtering is the process of withholding, ignoring, or distorting information
C. Mixed Signals and Misperception
1. People don’t pay attention to everything going on around them.
E.G.
Use Example 15.2 – Misinterpreting messages here
Teaching Tip:
Have your students enter the word “misspoke” into Google or another search engine. What kinds of stories and ex-
LO 3: Describe when and how to use the various communication channels.
D. Oral and Written Channels
1. Oral communication includes:
2. Written communication includes:
a. Memos
E. Electronic Media
1. Teleconferencing is used to interact with people in different locations over the telephone and
video conferencing occurs using television monitors.
2. Advantages:
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3. Disadvantages:
a. Difficulty of solving complex problems
4. Managing the electronic load is important, as employees might become overwhelmed with
communication. The following suggestions can help:
5. The virtual office is a mobile office in which people can work anywhere, as long as they
have the tools to communicate with customers and colleagues.
a. Long term impact on productivity may be mixed:
i. Positives
E.G.
Use Example 15.3 – Electronic communication here
Multiple Generations at Work
Bring Your Own Device to Work (But Keep It Safe!)
Many employees view their mobile devices as indispensable tools for both fun and work activities. Ac-
cording to Cheryl Tang, a senior manager for Symantec: “Today, work is no longer a place I go to, it’s
F. Media Richness
1. Media richness is the amount of information a medium conveys.
2. The richest media is face-to-face because it is:
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d. Sends different types of cues
Management in Action –
Progress Report
Marissa Mayer’s requirement that employees work at the office was an endorsement of the value of face–
to-face communication—and seems to devalue the electronic communication channels that Yahoo itself
provides. The requirement is based on the expectation that employees who encounter one another in phys-
ical space will tend to share ideas more than if they only communicate remotely. Some research supports
Mayer’s idea, though employees working from remote locations can be at least as productive as employ-
ees in the office. Whether or not the new policy was wise, some critics questioned the way the company
broke the news: with a memo from the head of human resources.
• What impacts on communication would most likely result from Yahoo’s directive to end work-at-home
arrangements?
With more employees working in the same location, there would likely be more oral communication.
• Was an e-mailed memo the most appropriate communication channel to use for sending this message?
Why or why not?
The controversy that erupted in the media following the release of this information and, more significant-
LO 4: Summarize ways to become a better “sender” and “receiver” of information.
A. Improving Sender Skills
1. Presentation and persuasion skills (Exhibit 15.3)
B. Nonverbal Skills
1. Use time appropriately
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4. Nonverbal signals in different countries
C. Improving Receiver Skills
1. Listening (Exhibit 15.4)
a. Reflection is a process by which a person states what he or she believes the other person
LO 5: Explain how to improve downward, upward, and horizontal communication.
B. Downward Communication refers to the flow of information from higher to lower levels in an
organization’s hierarchy
1. Information overload
a. Information loss (Exhibit 15.5)
2. Lack of openness
E.G.
Use Example 15.4 – Open book management here
C. Upward communication travels from lower to higher ranks in the hierarchy.
1. Managing upward communication.
D. Horizontal communication is information shared among people on the same hierarchical level.
1. It allows sharing of information, coordination, and problem solving among units.
LO 6: Summarize how to work with the company grapevine.
III. Organizational Communication
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D. Informal Communication
1. Formal communications
a. Official, organization-sanctioned episodes of information transmission.
2. Informal communication is
3. Managing informal communication
a. Managers should talk to the key people involved to get the facts and their perspectives.
b. Suggestions for preventing rumors from starting include:
E.G.
Use Example 15.5 – Preventing rumors here
LO 7: Describe the boundaryless organization and its advantages.
E. Boundarylessness
1. Boundaryless organizations have no barriers to information flow.
a. As a result, information gets where it’s needed quickly
2. Four kinds of boundaries
a. Floors and ceilings – separate organizational levels
3. Techniques for breaking boundaries at GE
a. Workout program – meetings across multiple hierarchical levels
E.G.
Use Example 15.6 – Boundaryless organization here
Management in Action –
Onward
While the decision to require work at the office garnered most media attention, Yahoo made other deci-
sions related to communication. To improve morale at Yahoo, CEO Marissa Mayer sent email to employ-
ees upon her arrival expressing her excitement and beginning Friday town hall meetings. Informal com-
munication also played a role in Mayer’s transition to CEO of Yahoo. She sought constructive informal
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communication by encouraging employees to work at the same site, but also triggered negative messages
among employees who had valued work-at-home arrangements.
• How could Mayer make her downward communication more effective?
Mayer could employ any of the ideas recommended in the text: prioritizing messages to avoid infor-
• How could Yahoo make informal communication among employees more effective?
Yahoo’s managers should work with the grapevine by investigating rumors in order to know the facts.
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p. 499: How can two-way communication with your supervisor help you deliver results as an employee?
Employees need to hear and understand what the supervisor expects them to accomplish. They need to
p. 502: What forms of electronic communication do you use (on the job or for personal use)?
Answers will vary. Most likely, today’s students use at least one or two forms of electronic communica-
p. 514: For employees to be motivated by open-book management, what kinds of information would they
need besides sales and profit numbers?
Employees need information about what those numbers mean and how their own activities shape the re-
BOTTOM LINE
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Confusion Still Surrounds the “Social Enterprise” Concept
1. Can you identify some organizations that fit both of the criteria above?
2. Assume that Khan Academy wanted to move from being a nonprofit to a social
enterprise. What products or services could it sell?
Khan Academy could sell its education services at a very low fee in order to generate
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
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LECTURETTE 15.1: Barriers to Communication
THE NATURE OF COMMUNICATION
1. Communication is the critical key for all facets of human endeavor. Man’s ability to think and to
transmit those thoughts through a process of communication is the binding element for all social in-
teraction.
2. The relative success or failure of all human endeavors depends, to a large degree, upon the effective-
ness of man’s communication processes.
THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
1. Communication is a process initiated when the source or sender has an idea or an emotion to share
with a receiver.
2. Through a set of encoding skills, the sender translates the idea or emotion into a transmittable mes-
THE MAJOR BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
1. Communication effectiveness is determined by the ability of the communicators to deal with a num-
ber of barriers to the communication process. The major barriers to communication are outlined brief-
ly below:
➢ Physical Noise – communication often fails simply because of physical noise, such as that found
in some factory environments. Similar communication problems arise when one party has im-
LECTURETTES
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➢ Organizational Distance – miscommunication is common between people who hold positions at
different levels in an organization. For instance, a conversation between the CEO of an aerospace
firm and a forklift operator may fail to achieve mutual understanding of a work situation.
➢ Physical Distance and Time – the most accurate communication results from face-to-face com-
munication. The further apart the communicators, the more miscommunication occurs. For field
to work too close together.
➢ Lack of Common knowledge – when two people do not share common knowledge, miscommuni-
cation is almost certain to result, especially in this age of high-tech working environments. This
problem is worsened by the use of technical jargon or “gobbledygook,” that is too often used in
an attempt to impress others, not communicate with them.
➢ Perception – this is the way a person experiences and understands the universe. People do not re-
spond to the reality of their environment but to their unique perception of it. Each of us has our
own unique perceptual values and processes that make it difficult for us to agree on situations that
surround our lives. Perceptual readiness is the tendency to perceive what we expect to receive,
➢ Semantics – the meaning of the word, is the source of many communication problems. If we
agree that people are unique and have unique perceptual processes, it is not suprising that words
mean different things to different people. Some words (drugs, gangs, gays, capitalists, terrorists,
and so on) are “loaded” with different and conflicting meanings.
➢ Communication Style – each person has a personalized and unique style of communication – a
LECTURETTE 15.2: Readability and Corporate Communication
ILLITERACY IN THE UNITED STATES
A 1986 study by the U.S. Census Bureau found that 27 million adult Americans couldn’t read. Still an-
other 35 million are functionally illiterate, meaning that they read so poorly that they find it difficult to
cope with daily activities. Each year, another 2.3 million Americans join the population of functional illit-
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erates. Of the functionally illiterates, more than 1 million attend high school, and many graduated from
high school. By the year 2000, 70 percent of the U.S. adult population will be functionally illiterate.
READABILITY DEFINED
Readability is concerned with the degree to which the reader can share meaning with the writer. The clas-
sic definition of readability treats three principal aspects of the reading process: (1) comprehension; (2)
fluency; and (3) interest. Comprehension is concerned with the reader’s understanding of words and
U.S. READABILITY LEVELS
Even though the mean level of education for American adults is 12.3 years, the average readability level
is far below that. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 30 million adult Americans read
PLAIN LANGUAGE LAWS
➢ In 1566 A.D., a plaintiff stretched a normal 16-page court pleading to 120 pages, and the angry judge
ordered that, in addition to a ten-pound fine and imprisonment, the “warden shall: (1) cut a hole
through the pleading; (2) put the plaintiff’s head through the hole; and (3) lead him around about
Westminster Hall while the courts are sitting.” (Milward v. Weldon, 1566). Then, for four centuries,
READABILITY PROBLEMS IN THE UNITED STATES
1. The following are examples of readability problems with consumer-oriented documentation:
➢ A mother with an eighth grade reading level cannot read the antidote information on a can of
Draino.
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➢ J.C. Penney Company provides consumer guides on such subjects as drapery fabrics, microwave
ovens, and home insulation. These are written at the eighth grade level.
➢ Forty-three percent of life insurance buyers cannot read their policies. Most life insurance appli-
2. As the number of functionally illiterate Americans is increasing at the rate of 2.3 million a year, it is
imperative that corporate America do a better job of lowering the readability levels of its documents
in order to overcome the above examples of readability barriers that alienate their consumers.4
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1. Think of an occasion when you faced a miscommunication problem. What do you think caused
the problem? How do you think it should have been handled better?
Communication is the transmission of information and meaning from one party to another, and miscom-
munications can occur in all stages of the process ranging from sender and receiver error to noise and in-
adequate feedback.
Most miscommunications can be avoided by the sender ensuring that the message is correctly encoded
and transmitted in an appropriate and relatively noise free manner to the receiver…and that the sender
receives feedback that demonstrates that the receiver fully understands the communication. The sender
can request a response from the receiver, or the receiver might summarize what they are “hearing.”
2. Have you ever not given someone information or opinions that perhaps you should have? Why?
Was it the right thing to do? Why or why not? What would cause you to be glad that you pro-
vided (or withheld) negative or difficult information? What would cause you to regret provid-
ing/with-holding it?
Student responses will vary. However, there are times one should not communicate openly because his or
her opinion may be from a different culture that could offend someone else. Sometimes the least said is
truly the better form of communication. Students must be aware and they must consider the non-verbal
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS