Lecture 10: Communication in Orgs

How is communication defined in organizations?

The exchange of symbolic cues through which people try to create shared meaning.

What four purposes does communication serve in organizations?

1. Coordinate (link interdependent work)

2. adapt (update shared assumptions)

3. learn (move knowledge across roles, teams, and time)

4. and relate (shape trust, signal attention, respect, credibility, and intent).

What are the six stages of the communication cycle?

1. Intent

2. encode

3. channel

4. decode

5. interpret

6. feedback (with noise able to enter throughout).

What does noise do in the communication cycle?

• distorts the message

• change the signal, attention paid to it, or meaning assigned to it.

What are the five types of noise?

1. Physical (sound, distance, interruptions)

2. semantic (jargon, vague words, translation, abstraction)

3. psychological (emotion, expectations, stereotypes, fatigue)

4. organizational (status, overload, incentives, fragmented roles)

5. and technological (failures, notifications, missing context, weak tools).

How should you repair a communication problem caused by noise?

Target the type of noise rather than simply repeating the message louder.

What does the transactional model say about experience and common ground?

• communicaation is a simultaneuous, back and forth exchange

• both senders and receivers are shaped by their backgrounds, changing interpretation of message

• common ground supports coordination, but unexamined common ground can exclude.

What are the three directions of organizational communication flow?

1. Downward - to subordinates

2. upward - to supervisor

3. horizontal to coworkers

diagonal - across departments

outside - with other organizations

How do formal and informal networks differ?

Formal = reporting lines, assigned meetings, policies and records, defined access, accountability (shows authority).

Informal = trusted contacts, expertise and reputation, proximity and friendship, fast interpretation, unequal visibility (shows how work actually moves).

How do power and status alter what gets said and heard?

1. Filtering (bad news gets softer moving upward)

2. silence (withholding when speaking feels dangerous or futile)

3. source discounting (status changes whose evidence receives credible)

4. impression management (messages protect an image)

5. information control (gatekeeping creates power).

What are the three communication roles that shape access and influence?

1. Gatekeeper (selects what enters, when, and how it is framed)

2. liaison (carries information and context across separated groups)

3. opinion leader (shapes credibility and meaning through trusted judgment).

How does communication relate to identity and reputation? When does credibility grow?

• identity is expressed through communication and shapes reputation

• Credibility grows when claims, decisions, and stakeholder experience align.

What are the four practical capabilities that differ across channels?

1. Response (how quickly you can determine if other person understood what you meant, and fix if they didnt)

2. context (how many cues travel)

3. record (can participants revisit the exact message

4. control (can the sender edit before sending).

How should channel richness match message ambiguity?

• High ambiguity needs a rich channel (sensitive feedback, negotiation, novel problems)

• low ambiguity suits a lean, reviewable channel (routine updates, reference material, confirmed action).

What are the two ways a channel choice can fail?

1. oversimplification (a lean channel strips away needed cues)

2. overcomplication (a rich channel adds no meaning).

What did Kruger et al. (2005) find about email tone?

People think their email tone is much clearer than it actually is. When tone matters, explicitly state your meaning, ask if they understood correctly, or hop on a call instead.

What are the four listening moves that turn feedback into information?

1. Reflect (restate in your own words)

2. clarify (ask a focused question)

3. encourage (signal attention and invite continuation)

4. empathize (acknowledge experience or emotion without promising agreement).

What is the test of good listening?

Improved understanding, not silent waiting.

Why must purpose language balance abstraction and concreteness?

Purpose needs enough abstraction to guide judgment and enough specificity to guide action .

What are the types of nonverbal cues?

1. Body (kinesics: expression, gaze, posture, gesture)

2. voice (vocalics: pace, volume, pitch, pauses)

3. space (proxemics and touch)

4. time (chronemics: waiting, interruption, response time)

5. setting (artifacts and environment)

6. interaction (congruence between verbal and nonverbal).

How should nonverbal behavior be treated?

As a cue to investigate, not a certainty. Cultural knowledge improves questions but does not make mind reading reliable.

How does culture change nonverbal cues?

Eye contact, silence, directness, and time (punctuality, waiting, response speed) can carry different meanings in different cultures and contexts.

What are the tradeoffs between synchronous and asynchronous channels?

Synchronous: rapid feedback, shared attention, multiple cues, but scheduling, interruption, and unequal airtime.

Asynchronous: preparation, reviewable records, time-zone flexibility, but delayed repair, overload, and missing context.

What do communication systems need regardless of channel?

Norms for response time, records, and escalation.

What are the three role boundaries digital work changes?

1. Temporal (when work begins, ends, and expects a response)

2. spatial (where work, concentration, privacy, and recovery occur)

3. social (which relationships and audiences belong to each role).

What is the difference between segmentation and integration of work and non-work roles?

Segmentation = clear separation between work and non-work roles.

Integration = more permeability and switching between roles.

Why is interpersonal communication important for effective managers?

1. It influences others' opinions, attitudes, motivation, and behaviors

2. expresses feelings, emotions, and intentions

3. the vehicle for providing, receiving, exchanging information about events or issues

4. reinforces the formal structure of the organization through formal channels.

What are the elements of the managerial communication model?

1. Communicator (encoding)

2. medium and message (context and affect)

3. receiver (decoding)

4. feedback back to the communicator,effect, and noise affecting every stage.

What is encoding, and what influences it?

The process by which the initiator translates ideas into a systematic set of symbols (language), written or spoken. It is influenced by past experiences, emotional state at the time, importance of the message, and the people involved.

What is decoding, and what influences it?

The process by which the recipient interprets the message, attaches meaning, and tries to uncover the underlying intent. It is influenced by past experiences and the frame of reference at the time of receiving the message.

What are the three types of feedback?

1. Informational (receiver gives non-evaluative information to the communicator)

2. corrective (receiver responds by challenging the original message

3. reinforcing (receiver communicates that they clearly received the message and intentions).

What are the three types of communication?

Oral, written, and non-verbal.

What are the major influences on interpersonal communication?

Social influences, perception, interaction involvement (interaction attentiveness and interaction involvement), and organizational design.

What are the three groups of managerial roles in Section 11.3?

1. Interpersonal roles (formal authority and relationships)

2. informational roles (processing and sharing data)

3. decisional roles (making choices under uncertainty).

What are the three interpersonal roles of a manager?

Figurehead, leader, and liaison.

What is the figurehead role?

Performing ceremonial duties as head of an organizational unit

(e.g., CEOs spending contact time and mail on status-related requests).

What is the leader role?

Managing and influencing the work of unit employees using formal authority and personal charisma

What is the liaison role? What do studies show about who they spend time with?

• Establishing and maintaining contacts outside the vertical chain of command.

• Studies show managers spend as much time with peers and outsiders as with subordinates, and very little time with superiors.

What are the three informational roles of a manager?

Monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson.

What is the monitor role?

Constantly scanning the environment for information via personal networks, subordinates, gossip, and hearsay.

What is the disseminator role?

Passing privileged information directly to subordinates who lack access, deciding who gets what, how often, and in what format.

What is the spokesperson role?

Sending information to people outside the organization (e.g., lobbying, product suggestions to suppliers, or dealing with the news media).

What are the four decisional roles of a manager?

1. Entrepreneur

2. disturbance (crisis) handler

3. resource allocator

4. negotiator.

What is the entrepreneur role?

1. Initiating change

2. seeking business improvements

3. adapting to markets

4. reinventing product lines.

What is the disturbance (crisis handler) role?

Reacting involuntarily to unexpected crises, disruptions, or deteriorated conditions.

What is the resource allocator role?

Deciding who gets limited resources (funding, equipment, labor, space, and time) and how much.

What is the negotiator role?

Spending time resolving disputes and making agreements over budgets, labor contracts, or with customers and suppliers.

Why is language the core tool in management?

Mastery of language dictates whether a company succeeds, fails, or is penalized for its reputation.

What is Peter Drucker's view of language in management?

Managers must respect language as our most precious heritage and understand rhetoric as an art that draws people to true knowledge.

What is Eccles & Nohria's perspective on management?

The true essence of management is the effective use of language to get things done.

What are the three pillars of management communication?

1. Using rhetoric (persuasive language to achieve goals)

2. shaping identity (constructing how others perceive you in your managerial role)

3. taking action (executing strategies; communication and action are inseparable).

How does communication shape corporate reputation?

Without the right words used correctly, the right corporate reputations cannot develop. Words are required to express strategic concepts, structural designs, and performance measurements.

What is the dual role of managers as speakers/writers and as listeners?

As speakers/writers, it determines how well they manage the firm's reputation, hire talent, and launch products. As listeners, it determines how well they understand feedback and adapt the organization.

How much of their time do managers spend in verbal interaction?

About 75%; talking is the predominant method of communicating.

What are the major verbal channels of management communication?

One-on-one conversations, telephone conversations, video teleconferencing, small group presentations (groups of about three to eight), and public speaking (larger audiences, more formal, supported by visual software).

What is notable about one-on-one conversations and telephone calls?

One-on-one conversations exchange, validate, and confirm an enormous amount of information informally; with calls, duration is decreasing while volume is increasing as mobile connectivity keeps managers constantly reachable.

Why is writing critical for professional survival?

• The most important projects, decisions, and ideas end up in writing (analysis, justification, documentation).

• Poor writing can derail a management career early

• document quality is noticed by the people who matter most to a manager's future.

Why should managers self-edit and take ownership of what they send?

• Most managers draft, review, and edit their own reports because secretarial dictation is largely gone.

• Once a document is sent, it belongs to the recipient, so managers should never sign off on work they are not proud of.

How does communication create meaning and reality?

Managers create meaning and outcomes through communication rather than just transmitting pre-existing facts (e.g., accountants deciding a company is in default through extended discussion).

Why don't numbers and facts "speak for themselves"?

Information is socially constructed: it is created, interpreted, and shared by people, so it always requires context and interpretation.

Why does the messenger matter as much as the message?

Context drives meaning, and recipients judge the value and intent of information by the source delivering it just as much as by its content.

What is a manager's greatest communication challenge?

Overcoming the universal belief that they are already great communicators, so they can work on their flaws.

What are the core professional goals of managers regarding communication skills?

Identify strengths and weaknesses, expand abilities, and continuously build a knowledge base.