Communicating

in
Teams and Organizations

9-1
 SUB TOPICS- Communication
Communicating in Teams
 The Importance of Communication
A Model of Communication
 Communication Channels
 Verbal Communication
 E-mail & other computer Mediated Communication
 Non Verbal Communication
Choosing the Best Channels
 Media Richness

9-2
Communication Barriers
 Perceptions
 Filtering
 Language
 Information Overload
Cross Cultural & Gender Communication
 Non Verbal Differences
 Gender Differences
Improving Interpersonal Communication
 Getting Your Message Across
 Active Listening
 Communication Thru’ Grapevine

9-3
Social Networking Communication
at IBM

Standing in front of Beijing’s

Forbidden City, IBM chief
executive Sam Palmisano
communicates through his
Second Life avatar to several
thousand employees
worldwide.

9-4
Communication Defined

The process by which

information is transmitted
and understood between
two or more people

Effective communication
Transmitting intended
meaning (not just symbols)

9-5
Importance of Communication

1. Coordinating work
activities

2. Organizational learning
and decision making

3. Employee well-being

9-6
Communication Process Model
Sender Receiver
Transmit
Message
Receive
Form Encode Decode
encoded
message message message
message

Noise

Decode Receive Encode Form

feedback feedback feedback feedback

Transmit
Feedback

9-7
Improving Communication
Coding/Decoding

1. Both parties have motivation and ability to

communicate through the channel

2. Both parties carry the same “codebook”

3. Both parties share similar mental models of the

communication context

4. Sender is experienced at communicating the message

topic

9-8
 About Face on Workplace E-Mail

HiWired executives introduced “Home Week” each

month, in which they must not travel. This initiative
has helped them rediscover the benefits of face-to-
face rather than e-mail communication.

9-9
 How E-Mail has Altered
Communication

 Now preferred medium for coordinating work

 Tends to increase communication volume
 Significantly alters communication flow
 Reduces some selective attention biases
9-10
 Problems with E-Mail

 Communicates emotions poorly

 Reduces politeness and respect
 Inefficient for ambiguous, complex, novel
situations
 Increases information overload
9-11
Social Networking
Communication

Social network communication clusters people around

interests/expertise

Several types of social network communication

 Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn
 Online discussion forums
 Avatar sites (e.g. Second Life)
 Instant messaging
 Wikis

9-12
Nonverbal Communication

 Actions, facial gestures, etc.

 Influences meaning of verbal symbols

 Less rule bound than verbal communication

 Important part of emotional labor

 Most is automatic and nonconscious

9-13
Emotional Contagion
 The automatic process of sharing another
person’s emotions by mimicking their
facial expressions and other nonverbal
behavior
 Serves three purposes:
1. Provides continuous feedback to
speaker
2. Increases emotional understanding of
the other person’s experience
3. Communicates a collective sentiment --
sharing the experience
9-14
I Love Rewards Gets Media-
Rich Quickly
Every day at 11:15 am,
employees at I Love
Rewards Inc. meet face-to-
face for 10 minutes to
communicate priorities and
coordinate their efforts.
These quick meetings
provide a personal
connection and highly
interactive feedback.

9-15
Choosing the Best
Communication Channel: Social
Acceptance
How well the communication
channel is approved and
supported by the
organization, team, and
individual:
1. Communication channel
norms
2. Individual communication
channel preferences
3. Symbolic meaning of the
communication channel

9-16
Choosing the Best
Communication Channel: Media
Richness
The channel’s data-carrying
capacity needs to be aligned with
the communication activity
High richness when channel:
1. conveys multiple cues
2. allows timely feedback
3. allows customized message
4. permits complex symbols
Use rich communication media
when the situation is nonroutine
and ambiguous

9-17
Hierarchy of Media Richness
Rich

Overloaded
Zone

Media
Richness

Oversimplified
Zone

Lean

Nonroutine/
Routine/clear Situation Ambiguous

9-18
 Factors that Override Media
Richness

 Ability to multi-communicate with lean channels

 More varied proficiency levels

 Social distractions of rich channels

9-19
 Persuasive Communication

 Changing another person’s beliefs and

attitudes.
 Spoken communication is more persuasive
because:
1. accompanied by nonverbal communication, adding emotional
punch to the message.
2. has high quality immediate feedback whether message is
understood and accepted.
3. has high social presence, so receiver is more sensitive to
message content and more motivated to accept the message.

9-20
Communication Barriers

 Perceptions

 Filtering

 Language
 Jargon
 Ambiguity

 Information Overload

9-21
Information Overload
Episodes of
information
overload

Employee’s
information
processing
capacity
Information Load

Time 9-22
 Managing Information Overload

 Solution 1: Increase info processing capacity

 Learn to read faster
 Scan through documents more efficiently
 Remove distractions
 Time management
 Temporarily work longer hours

 Solution 2: Reduce information load

 Buffering
 Omitting
 Summarizing

9-23
Thumbs Up to the Boss!
In Australia, a co-worker asked
Patricia Oliveira why she laughed
when he gave the thumbs up
that everything is OK. She
explained that this gesture
“means something not very nice”
in her home country of Brazil.
After hearing this, several co-
workers gave the boss a lot
more thumbs up signs!
©Mark M. Lawrence/Corbis

9-24
Cross-Cultural Communication
Verbal differences
Language
Voice intonation
Silence/conversational
overlaps

Nonverbal differences
Interpreting nonverbal
meaning
Importance of verbal versus
©Mark M. Lawrence/Corbis
nonverbal
9-25
Gender Communication
Differences
Men Women
Report talk Rapport talk

Gives advice Gives advice indirectly

quickly and directly and reluctantly

Conversations are Conversations are

negotiations of status bonding events

Less sensitive to More sensitive to

nonverbal cues nonverbal cues

9-26
 Getting Your Message Across

1. Empathize

2. Repeat the message

3. Use timing
effectively

4. Be descriptive

Courtesy of Microsoft.
9-27
Active Listening Process &
Strategies Sensing
• Postpone
evaluation
• Avoid
interruptions
• Maintain interest

Active
Listening
Responding Evaluating
• Show interest • Empathize
• Clarify the • Organize
message information

9-28
 Communicating in Hierarchies
 Workspace design

 Clustering people in teams

 Open office arrangements
 Web-based organizational communication

 Wikis -- collaborative document creation

 Blogs -- personal news/opinion for sharing
 E-zines -- rapid distribution of company news
 Direct communication with management

 Management by walking around (MBWA)

 Town hall meetings

9-29
Organizational Grapevine
 Early research findings
 Transmits information rapidly in all directions
 Follows a cluster chain pattern
 More active in homogeneous groups
 Transmits some degree of truth
 Changes due to internet
 Email becoming the main grapevine medium
 Social networks are now global
 Public blogs and forums extends gossip to
everyone

9-30
Grapevine Benefits/Limitations

 Benefits

 Fills in missing information from formal sources

 Strengthens corporate culture
 Relieves anxiety
 Signals that problems exist
 Limitations
 Distortions might escalate anxiety
 Perceived lack of concern for employees when
company info is slower than grapevine

9-31
 Communicating
in Teams and
Organizations

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 9-32
McShane/Von Glinow OB 5e