Chapter 14- Organizational Communication

Definitional

By deffiniton organizational communication is “communication that occurs within the context of organizational culture” (Tubbs & Moss 468). Examples of an organizational culture could be businesses, clubs, religious organizations, military or really any social setting that has an organized chain of command. Within an organization there are usually different departments that all have different tasks as well as varying levels of authority. These components within an organization can include: individualism, power distance, dominance, time and uncertainty avoidance. Within these organizations Deal and Kennedy (1984) identified several different types of cultures: the “Tough-Guy-Macho” culture which usually occurs in high risk situations, the ‘Work-Hard-Play-Hard” culture which typically occurs in a business situation that focusses on sales as well as meeting the needs of the customer, “Bet-Your-Company” culture is also high risk but usually involves a large investment up front that will eventually be gained back over time, lastly is the “Process” culture which is both low risk as well as slow feedback and its main focus is on the process of the task that rarely gives feedback to its members, this type of culture would be heavily regulated environments such as the government or medical professions. Communication is absolutely essential within any type of organization and is often the number one sought skill when applying to any job, other skills that are deemed necessary when applying to a job are almost always various types of communication. Conrad (1985) believed that communication can be broken down into 3 main functions in any given organization: command is the essential coordination among the members of the organization, relationships often alter an employees job performance especially when it is crossing the lines of the chain of command, lastly the ambiguity management function whose outcome is clarity and explanation. Communication has been broken down into 3 main types that depend on the level of authority. Downward communication which occurs when a person who has a high position communicates with someone below them on the totem pole, upward communication occurs when someone of a lower authority communicates with someone above them such as a boss, lastly there is horizontal communication which occurs between people on the same level of authority such as co-workers in an office. Within all of these 3 types of communication it has been proven more effective to use a combination of oral and written messages such as email to communicate effectively with your boss, worker, or co-worker. Besides these types of communication between people in an organized setting informal communication can often be used and is proven to be both effective and ineffective depending on the message and situation. Rumors are often spread through word of mouth and most likely cause distractions in the workplace. Informal communication can also be good in some situations such as informal conversations relating to work, social activities that bond groups together or meetings with middle managers to help resolve issues between high and low end workers.

Application

For my application entry I have chose a clip from an episode of this season's show "The Office". The office is a great example of both the positives and negatives of organizational communication. Their office contains a hierarchical structure which starts with the low end sales representatives to their assistant manager, Michael the regional manager and then upward to their corporate office. Michael is in charge of their office and is a somewhat dysfunctional boss to his employees. In this episode he is returning from leave where he tried to start his own company. Upon his return he did not communicate effectively with his new and old employees and is then stuck in a conundrum that he has to lie his way out of by manipulating the situation. This is a negative example of downward communication however he does resolve the issue in the end. An interesting thing to note when watching The Office is the way in which Michael communicates to his employees, he uses very informal oral speech and very often deals with written forms of communication. This makes for a much more relaxed environment in the office, his casual fridays is an example of this. The other interesting thing to note in this episode is the way in which his employees communicate with each other in a horizontal communication setting. Because Michael communicates so informally this trickles down to the lower levels on the totem pole and often causes problems between his employees such as the conversation between Toby and Meredith about her outfit. Although the show is a comedy and is not meant to examine the levels of organizational communication it is really a brilliant representation of the good and the bad that occur as a result of organizational communication.

Personal

For my personal application of organization communication I have chosen to discuss my experience working in an organization culture and the communication used in that setting. The theatre is a great example of an organization that requires very precise communication because there are often many people involved each with their own task to complete. As the stage manager I am the middle man that is responsible for ensuring communication between my director, the assistant direction and all of our designers is clear and that my director's vision is fully conveyed in the technical aspect of the show. To ensure this is done correctly I often meet with my director in an downward communication exchange where he tells me his plans, I then hold a production meeting every Friday afternoon where our entire design team and directors are present, I put all of the topics into a schedule and we thoroughly discuss each topic and make sure that my directors vision is being conveyed but also ensure that it is technically possible with the materials we have and then check with our coordinator to ensure it is safe and doable for our actors. It is a very complex organizational structure because their is often communication across all levels of the organization and well as gossip that occurs and often hinders the performance of our design team.