Download What Is Communication?

ninth edition
STEPHEN P. ROBBINS
Chapter
11
© 2007 Prentice Hall, Inc.
All rights reserved.
MARY COULTER
Communication
and Information
Technology
PowerPoint Presentation by Charlie Cook
The University of West Alabama
Understanding Communication
Q: Have you ever heard the old adage, “you
can’t not communicate”?
Q: What does this mean?
© 2007 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
11–2
Communicating Supportively
Q: Isn’t supportive communication just a “niceperson” technique?
A: No. The goal is not to be merely liked by other
people, or to produce social acceptance.
Positive interpersonal relationships have
practical, instrumental value in organizations.
Consider the following…
© 2007 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
11–3
Communicating Supportively
* Companies fostering communicative relationships
enjoy higher productivity, faster problem solving,
higher-quality outputs, and fewer conflicts and
subversive activities than do groups and
organizations where relationships are less positive.
* A 1986 study concluded that the presence of good
supportive communication between managers and
subordinates was three times more powerful in
predicting profitability in 40 major corporations over
a five-year period than the next most powerful
variables – market share, firm size, and sales
growth rate – combined!
© 2007 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
11–4
Breaking Through the Four Barriers to Quality
Building Business Infrastructures for the 25th Century
by Bruce Snell
All the problems encountered by an organization in
building business infrastructure fall into the following
four barriers to quality:
1. Fear of expression and/or actions.
2. Lack of communication (verbal and/or
written).
3. Lack of written procedure.
4. Lack of training.
© 2007 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
11–5
What Is Communication?
Communication
 The transfer and understanding of meaning.


Transfer means the message was received in a form that
can be interpreted by the receiver.
Understanding the message is not the same as the receiver
agreeing with the message.
2 types we discuss in the business world…
1. Interpersonal Communication

Communication between two or more people
2. Organizational Communication

All the patterns, network, and systems of communications
within an organization
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11–6
Organizational Communication Flows
U
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Lateral
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D
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11–7
Evaluating Communication Methods (p. 296)
• Feedback
• Time-space constraint
• Complexity capacity
• Cost
• Breadth potential
• Interpersonal warmth
• Confidentiality
• Formality
• Encoding ease
• Scanability
• Decoding ease
• Time consumption
© 2007 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
11–8
Exhibit 11–2 Comparison of Communication Methods
Note: Ratings are on a 1–5 scale where 1 = high and 5 = low. Consumption time refers to who
controls the reception of communication. S/R means the sender and receiver share control.
Source: P. G. Clampitt, Communicating for Managerial Effectiveness (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1991), p. 136.
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11–9
Interpersonal Communication Barriers
National
Culture
Language
Filtering
Emotions
Interpersonal
Communication
Information
Overload
Defensiveness
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11–10
Barriers to Effective Interpersonal
Communication
• Filtering
 The deliberate manipulation of information to make it
appear more favorable to the receiver.
• Emotions
 Disregarding rational and objective thinking
processes and substituting emotional judgments
when interpreting messages.
• Information Overload
 Being confronted with a quantity of information that
exceeds an individual’s capacity to process it.
© 2007 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
11–11
Barriers to Effective Interpersonal
Communication (cont’d)
• Defensiveness
 When threatened, reacting in a way that reduces the
ability to achieve mutual understanding.
• Language
 The different meanings of and specialized ways
(jargon) in which senders use words can cause
receivers to misinterpret their messages.
• National Culture
 Culture influences the form, formality, openness,
patterns and use of information in communications.
© 2007 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
11–12
Overcoming the Barriers to Effective
Interpersonal Communications
• Use Feedback
• Simplify Language
• Listen Actively
• Constrain Emotions
• Watch Nonverbal Cues
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11–13
Exhibit 11–3 Active Listening Behaviors
Source: Based on P.L. Hunsaker, Training in Management
Skills (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001).
© 2007 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
11–14
The Emotional Bank Account
Stephen R. Covey
We all know what a financial bank account is. We make
deposits into it and build up a reserve from which we
can make withdrawals when we need to. An Emotional
Bank Account is a metaphor that describes the amount
of trust that’s been built up in a relationship. It’s the
feeling of safeness you have with another human
being.
If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with
you through courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping
my commitments to you, I build up a reserve. Your
trust towards me becomes higher, and I can call upon
that trust many times if I need to. I can even make
mistakes and that trust level that emotional reserve,
will compensate for it.
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11–15
The Emotional Bank Account
Stephen R. Covey
My communication may not be clear, but you’ll get my meaning
anyway. You won’t make me an “offender for a word.” When
the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and
effective.
But if I have a habit of showing discourtesy, disrespect, cutting
you off, overreacting . . . . or threatening you, eventually my
Emotional Bank Account is overdrawn. The trust level gets
very low. Then what flexibility do I have?
None. I’m walking on mine fields. I have to be very careful of
everything I say. I measure every word. It’s tension city, memo
haven. It’s protecting my backside, politicking. And
organizations are filled with it. Many families are filled with it.
Many marriages are filled with it.
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11–16
The Emotional Bank Account
Stephen R. Covey
Six Major Deposits
1. Understanding the Individual
2. Attending to the Little Things
3. Keeping Commitments
4. Clarifying Expectations
5. Showing Personal Integrity
6. Apologizing Sincerely When You Make a
Withdrawal
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11–17
6. Apologizing sincerely when you make a
withdrawal
When we make withdrawals from the Emotional Bank
Account, we need to apologize and we need to do it
sincerely. Great deposits come in the sincere words:
“I was wrong.”
“That was unkind of me.”
“I showed you no respect.”
“I embarrassed you in front of your friends and I had no call
to do that. Even though I wanted to make a point, I
should never have done it. I apologize.”
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11–18
6. Apologizing sincerely when you make a
withdrawal
It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize
quickly out of one’s heart. A person must possess himself
and have a deep sense of security in fundamental
principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.
People with little internal security can’t do it. It makes them
appear too vulnerable. They feel it makes them appear
soft and weak, and they fear that others will take
advantage of their weakness. Their security is based on
the opinions of other people, and they worry about what
others might think. In addition, they usually rationalize
their wrong in the name of the other person’s wrong, and
if they apologize at all, it’s superficial.
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11–19
Communication Flows
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Lateral
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D
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11–20
Direction of Communication Flow
• Downward
 Communications that flow from managers to
employees to inform, direct, coordinate, and evaluate
employees.
• Upward
 Communications that flow from employees up to
managers to keep them aware of employee needs
and how things can be improved to create a climate
of trust and respect.
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11–21
Direction of Communication Flow
(cont’d)
• Lateral (Horizontal) Communication
 Communication that takes place among employees
on the same level in the organization to save time and
facilitate coordination.
• Diagonal Communication
 Communication that cuts across both work areas and
organizational levels in the interest of efficiency and
speed.
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11–22
The Grapevine
• An informal organizational communication
network that is active in almost every
organization.
 Provides a channel for issues not suitable for formal
communication channels.
 The impact of information passed along the grapevine
can be countered by open and honest communication
with employees.
 Read p. 306
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11–23
How Some Companies Open Up
Communication
• Union Pacific
 Town hall meetings
• Mattel Toys
 Management by walking around
 Eating in the cafeteria
• CDM
 No titles on business cards
 Open, low-partition offices
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11–24
How Some Companies Open Up
Communication
• Brooks Furniture
“People will put every effort into advancing the
business in which they can communicate their
ideas freely”
Greets workers by name

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and
most important sound in any language.” Dale Carnegie
Chats on personal matters
• GE
Work-Out
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11–25
Harvard Business Review Article
Reaching and Changing
Frontline Employees
by TJ and Sandar Larkin
© 2007 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
11–26