Download Organizational Behavior: An Introduction to Your Life in Organizations

Organizational Behavior:
An Introduction to
Your Life in Organizations
Chapter 7
Communication and Interpersonal
Relationships
©2007 Prentice Hall
Preview
• How can you make the communication process work for
you?
• How can you use non-verbal behaviors to communicate
more effectively?
• How can understanding gender styles improve your
ability to communicate on the job?
• How do you build trust in relationships?
• How do you persuade others?
• What communication strengths do you already have?
Which skills do you need to develop?
• What are some tested tactics for doing well on job
interviews?
©2007 Prentice Hall
How can you make the
communication process work for
you?
• Communication: the exchange of
thoughts, opinions or information by
speaking, writing or other means
• Conduit metaphor: language transfers
thoughts and feelings from person to
person like a pipe transfers water from
place to place
• Noise: any disturbance that disrupts the
communication process
©2007 Prentice Hall
Receiving the message
• Did you hear and understand the message
the way the sender intended?
• Selective attention: at any given moment
humans can focus on only some of the
stimuli that come our way, while other
stimuli are disregarded
• Overload may cause filtering of messages
©2007 Prentice Hall
Decoding the message and forming
a response
• Attribution: answering why the sender is
behaving in a particular way; can involve
fundamental attribution error or selfserving bias
• Categorizing: putting people into
categories or groups that have similar
characteristics; could involve prejudice
• Supporting psychological identity
©2007 Prentice Hall
Encoding the response
• Translate your idea into a form that others
can recognize, typically into written or
spoken language
• Most important goal is to be as clear as
possible
• Monitor your use of jargon
©2007 Prentice Hall
Transmitting the response
• Media are considered rich or lean
depending on the amount and type of
information they can portray and the
amount of feedback they allow
• Channels are formal or informal based on
whether they are sanctioned by the
organization
©2007 Prentice Hall
How can you use non-verbal
behaviors to communicate more
effectively?
• The non-verbal aspect of communication,
behaviors like our actions, body
movements, facial expressions, gestures,
dress, or where we choose to deliver a
message is enormously important
©2007 Prentice Hall
How can understanding gender
styles improve your ability to
communicate on the job?
• There are differences between how men &
women communicate
• If women are in the minority, their ideas
are not listened to as much
• Women may run into the double-bind
problem
©2007 Prentice Hall
What is trust?
• Calculus-based trust is based on our belief that
another person may be deterred from acting
against our interests
• Identification-based trust is based on our belief
that another person identifies with our interests
and values, and is likely to look out for them
• Trust is defined as one party’s optimistic
expectation of the behavior of the another
• Distrust is defined as the expectation that others
will not act in one’s best interests and may
deliberately seek to cause harm
©2007 Prentice Hall
How do you create trusting
relationships?
• Trust is created by using promises,
commitments, offers, demands, expectations,
and explicit and tacit understandings
• Trust is established through dialogue and
conversation, by making and keeping promises,
and by setting and meeting expectations
• Trust is also an emotion that is essential to our
well-being
©2007 Prentice Hall
Trust and lying
• Lying is important not so much because it
“interferes with trust,” (although it can do
that, too) but because people want to
maintain relationships, avoid conflicts and
prevent the loss of face
©2007 Prentice Hall
How do you persuade others?
• Persuasive communication is aimed at
changing attitudes
• To persuade effectively, you must control
the characteristics of the communicator,
the message, and the audience
• The central route focuses on the
argument you are making
• The peripheral route focuses on the
communicator
©2007 Prentice Hall
The communicator
• Is the communicator credible?
 Competent
 Trustworthy
• Is the communicator likable?
©2007 Prentice Hall
The message
• Match the message to the audience:
 Avoid extreme positions
 Content rich or content poor?
 Frame your message effectively
•
•
•
•
Frame the consequences negatively
Fear tactics must include instructions for coping
Frame the risks in terms of losses
Frame the attributes positively
©2007 Prentice Hall
The audience
• Understand your audience’s needs
• Why people change their attitudes
 Cognitive dissonance theory
 Self-perception theory
• Put the audience in a good mood
©2007 Prentice Hall
Communication competencies
• Use Table 7.3 to rate the extent to which
you are competent on each of the listed
skills
©2007 Prentice Hall
Self-monitoring
• An individual’s tendency to actively
construct their public image to achieve
social goals
• Use Table 7.4 to rate yourself
• The higher your score, the more likely you
are to monitor your self-expression
©2007 Prentice Hall
Personal orientation to others
• How much are you really interested in others?
• If you are more proself you are likely to be:
 individualistic
 competitive
• If you are more prosocial you are likely to be:




cooperative,
altruistic
egalitarian
maximin
©2007 Prentice Hall
Active listening
• A strategy of paying attention in order to
assess the emotional and informational
content of a message and establish
rapport with the speaker
• Occurs when you receive a message,
process it, and respond so as to
encourage further communication
• Ask open instead of closed questions
©2007 Prentice Hall
What are some tested tactics for
doing well on job interviews?
• Make a good first impression: pay
attention to grooming, adopt good posture,
and smile
• Present yourself favorably: use Impression
management techniques like selfpromotion
• Find companies that are looking for people
like you
©2007 Prentice Hall
Be aware of company
responsibilities and tactics for
interviews
• Structured interviews: panels, clear job
descriptions, rate based on desired
behaviors
• The effects of social exchange: realistic
job preview gives both positives and
negatives about the job
• Etiquette to expect from companies
• The “interview inquisition” including logic
puzzles
©2007 Prentice Hall
Apply what you have learned
• World Class Company: The Mayo Clinic
• Advice from the Pro’s
• Gain Experience
©2007 Prentice Hall
•
•
•
Summary – How can you make the
communication process work for
you?
A one-to-one communication is often, and
inadequately, conceptualized as a series of
steps
Pitfalls in communicating include selective
attention, overload, categorizing, erroneous
attributions, and the desire to support one’s
own psychological identity
When responding to a communication, it is
important to choose the appropriate medium,
based on whether it is rich or lean, formal or
informal
©2007 Prentice Hall
Summary – How can you use nonverbal behaviors to communicate
more effectively?
•
•
Keep in mind that non-verbal
communication is powerful
Pay attention to such behaviors as facial
expressions, gestures, and entering an
individual’s personal space
©2007 Prentice Hall
Summary – How can understanding
gender styles improve your ability to
communicate on the job?
• Men are more likely to use report talk and
agonism, while women are more likely to
use rapport talk and to misunderstand
agonism
• Women and other minorities may find
themselves in a double-bind when it
comes to meeting both their traditional
roles and their business roles
©2007 Prentice Hall
Summary – How do you build trust
in relationships?
• Trust is either calculus-based or
identification-based
• Trust is both an emotional skill and a
relational skill
• It may be also a personality trait
• Lying affects relationships because people
want to maintain relationships, avoid
conflict, and avoid loss of face
©2007 Prentice Hall
Summary – How do you persuade
others?
• Key issues relate to the communicator, the
message, and the audience
• Is the communicator credible and likable?
• Is the message extreme? Content-rich?
Effectively framed?
• What are the needs and mood of the
audience? Can you change people’s
minds by applying the theory of cognitive
dissonance?
©2007 Prentice Hall
Summary – What communication
strengths do you already have? Which
skills do you need to develop?
• Assess your strengths and weaknesses
• Learn what your personal orientation to
others is, and also whether you are a selfmonitor
• Practice active listening
©2007 Prentice Hall
Summary – What are some tested
tactics for doing well on job
interviews?
• Understand the importance of making a
good first impression and adopt an
impression management strategy for the
interview
• Know what the company is looking for in
terms of personality
• Understand that a company also has a
role in designing a good interview
©2007 Prentice Hall