4. Develop a shaping strategy.The change that may occur will entail changing some element of performance—structure, processes, technology, groups, or the task. The purpose of the strategy is to strengthen the desirable behaviors and weaken the undesirable ones.
5. Apply the appropriate strategy.Once the strategy has been developed, it needs to be implemented. In this step, an intervention occurs.
6. Measure the change that has occurred.An interven- tion should produce the desired results in performance behaviors. Evaluate the number of times the identified behaviors now occur. Compare these with the baseline evaluation in step 2.
7. Reinforce desired behaviors.If an intervention has been successful and the new behaviors are producing the desired results, maintain these behaviors through reinforcement mechanisms.
Practicing the Skill
a. Imagine that your assistant is ideal in all respects but one—he or she is hopeless at taking phone messages for you when you’re not in the office. You’re often in training sessions and the calls are sales leads you want to follow up, so you have identified taking accu- rate messages as a high impact behavior for your assistant.
b. Focus on steps 3 and 4, and devise a way to shape your assistant’s behavior. Identify some factors that might contribute to his or her failure to take messages—these could range from a heavy workload to a poor under- standing of the task’s importance (you can rule out insubordination). Then develop a shaping strategy by determining what you can change—the available tech- nology, the task itself, the structure of the job, or some other element of performance.
c. Now plan your intervention and take a brief meeting with your assistant in which you explain the change you expect. Recruit a friend to help you role-play your intervention. Do you think you would succeed in a real situation?
ETHICS DILEMMA
It‘s been called the “desperation hustle.”97Employees who are “anxious about layoffs want to look irreplaceable.” So they clean up their act. Those who might not have paid much attention to their manner of dress now do. Those who
were mouthy and argumentative are now quiet and compli- ant. Those who used to “watch the clock” are now the last to leave. The fear is there and it’s noticeable. “Managing that fear can be challenging.” What ethical issues might arise for both employees and for managers? How could managers approach these circumstances ethically?
WORKING TOGETHER Team Exercise
You may not like it or want to believe it, but unprofes- sional dress can be a career-killer.98Pretend that you’re a manager in a large, multinational company. Your com- pany has a dress code policy, but men and women alike
“cross the line.” One of your female subordinates is the worst offender. Several times, she has come to work
dressed in sheer, low-cut, sleeveless blouses with a micro-mini skirt and strappy sandals. How would you change her behavior?
Form small groups of three to four individuals. Your team’s task is to come up with a specific plan for changing (shaping) the behavior of any employee who violates the dress code policy. Write this up and be prepared to share your ideas with the class.
MY TURN TO BE A MANAGER
For one week, pay close attention to how people around you behave, especially those people who are close to you (roommates, siblings, significant others, cowork- ers, etc.). Use what you’ve learned about attitudes, personality, perception, and learning to understand and explain how and why they’re behaving the way they do. Write your observations and your explanations in a journal.
Write down three attitudes you have. Identify the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of those attitudes.
Survey 15 employees (at your place of work or at some campus office). Be sure to obtain permission before doing this anonymous survey. Ask them what rude or negative behaviors they’ve seen at work. Compile your findings in a report and be prepared to discuss this in class. If you were the manager in this workplace, how would you handle this behavior?
If you’ve never taken a personality or career compati- bility test, contact your school’s testing center to see if you can take one. Once you get your results, evaluate what they mean for your career choice. Have you cho- sen a career that “fits” your personality? What are the implications?
Have you ever heard of the “waiter rule”? A lot of busi- ness people think that how you treat service workers says a lot about your character and attitudes. What do you think this means? Do you agree with this idea?
Why or why not? How would you be evaluated on the
“waiter rule”?
Like it or not, each of us is continually shaping the behavior of those around us. For one week, keep track of how many times you use positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, or extinction to shape behaviors. At the end of the week, which one did you tend to use most? What were you trying to do; that is, what behaviors were you trying to shape? Were your attempts successful? Evaluate. What could you have done differently if you were trying to change someone’s behavior?
Create a job satisfaction survey for a business you’re familiar with.
Now, do a Web search for sample job satisfaction sur- veys. Find one or two samples. Write a report describ- ing, comparing, and evaluating the examples you found and the survey you created.
Steve’s and Mary’s recommended readings: Jonathan Littman and Mark Herson, I Hate People!(Little- Brown, 2009); Yoav Vardi and Ely Weitz, Misbehavior in Organizations(Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004); Murray R. Barrick and A. M. Ryan, eds., Personality and Work(Jossey-Bass, 2003); Daniel Goleman,Destructive Emotions: How Can We Over- come Them?(Bantam, 2003); L. Thomson, Personality Type: An Owner’s Manual(Shambhala, 1998); and Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence (Bantam, 1998).
Survey 10 Gen Yers. Ask them three questions:
(1) What do you think appropriate office attire is?
(2) How comfortable are you with using technology and what types of technology do you rely on most?
(3) What do you think the “ideal” boss would be like?
Compile your results into a paper that reports your data and summarizes your findings in a bulleted list format.
In your own words, write down three things you learned in this chapter about being a good manager.
Self-knowledge can be a powerful learning tool. Go to mymanagementlab.com and complete these self- assessment exercises: What’s My Basic Personality?
What’s My Jungian 16-Type Personality? (Note that this is a miniature version of the MBTI.) Am I a Type A? What Do I Value? How Involved Am I in My Job?
How Satisfied Am I With My Job? Am I Engaged?
How Are You Feeling Right Now? What’s My Affect Intensity? What’s My Emotional Intelligence Score?
How Committed Am I to My Organization? Using the results of your assessments, identify personal strengths and weaknesses. What will you do to reinforce your strengths and improve your weaknesses?
CASE APPLICATION
Understanding HCLites:
Part 2
HCL Technologies is headquartered in the world’s largest democracy, so it’s quite fitting that the New Delhi-based company is attempting a radical experiment in workplace democracy. CEO Vineet Nayar is committed to creating a com- pany where the job of company leaders is to enable people to find their own destiny by gravitating to their strengths.99As we discussed in the chapter opener, one thing that Nayar has done is to pioneer a culture in which employees are first. What has he done to put employees first? Part of the cultural initiative dealt with the organization’s structure. HCL inverted its organizational structure and placed more power in the hands of frontline employees, especially those in direct contact with customers and clients. It increased its investment in employee development and improved communication
through greater transparency. Employees were encouraged to communicate directly with Nayar. Through a forum called U&I (You and I), Nayar fielded more than 100 questions from employees every week. “I threw open the door and invited criticism,” he said. However, the signature piece of the company’s cultural mis- sion is probably what HCL called “trust pay.” In contrast to the industry standard in which the average employee’s pay is 30 percent variable, HCL decided to pay higher fixed salaries and reduce the variable component.
Does the unique “employees first” culture at HCL Technologies attract unique employees? Rajeev Sawhney, HCL’s European president, would say it does. He uses Slumdog Millionaire,the movie that won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2009, as a parallel. “It (the movie) is a reflection of the Indian race. It shows the adver- sity that creates the desire in people to reach out and create.... With each adversity they face, there is a greater desire to reach out and do something more.” Sawhney says that entrepreneurialism is a key value of the HCL culture. “You can still tell an HCL person from a mile off. I think there is a particular DNA for an HCL person. It includes a very high need for achievement and very persuasive skills. HCL people are very energetic; they want to do lots of things and to take risks on behalf of the company.”
Discussion Questions
1. What is your impression of an “employee first” culture? Would this work in other organiza- tions? Why or why not? What would it take to make it work?
2. How might an understanding of organizational behavior help CEO Vineet Nayar lead his company? Be specific. How about first-line company supervisors? Again, be specific.
3. What aspects of personality do you see in this story about HCL? How have the personal- ity traits of HCL employees contributed to make what HCL what it is?
4. Design an employee attitude survey for HCL’s employees. Compare your ideas with what our “real” manager suggested.
These new engineers at HCL Tech- nologies received certificates for becoming proficient in the Japanese language. As part of its “employees first” culture, the company invests in language training and other devel- opment programs that help satisfy HCLites’ high need for achievement.
CASE APPLICATION
Odd Couples
A29-year-old and a 68-year-old. How much could they possibly have in common? And what could they learn from each other? At Randstad USA’s Manhattan office, such employee pairings are common.100One such pair of colleagues sits inches apart facing each other. “They hear every call the other makes. They read every e-mail the other sends or receives. Sometimes they finish each other’s sentences.”
Randstad Holding NV, a Dutch company, has been using this pairing idea since its founding more than 40 years ago. The founder’s motto was “Nobody should be alone.” The original intent was to boost productivity by having sales agents share one job and trade off job responsibilities. Today, these partners in the home office have an arrangement where one is in the office one week while the other one is out making sales calls, then the next week, they switch. The company brought its partner arrangement to the United States in the late 1990s.
But when it began recruiting new employees, the vast majority of whom were in their twenties, it realized the challenges and the potential of pairing different generations together. “Knowing that these Gen Yers need lots of attention in the workplace, Randstad executives figured that if they shared a job with someone whose own suc- cess depended on theirs, they were certain to get all the nurturing they required.”
Randstad doesn’t simply pair up people and hope it works. There’s more to it than that! The company looks for people who will work well with others by conducting extensive interviews and requiring job applicants to shadow a sales agent for half a day. “One question Randstad asks is: What’s your most memorable moment while being on a team? If they respond: When I scored the winning touchdown, that’s a deal killer. Everything about our organization is based on the team and group.” When a new hire is paired with an experienced agent, both individuals have some adjusting. One of the most interesting elements of Randstad’s program is that nei- ther person is “the boss.” And both are expected to teach the other.
Discussion Questions
1. What topics of individual behavior do you see in this story? Explain.
2. What do you think about this pairing-up idea? Would you be comfortable with such an arrangement? Why or why not?
3. What personality traits would be most needed for this type of work arrangement? Why?
4. What types of issues might a Gen Y employee and an older, more-experienced employee face? How could two people in such a close-knit work arrangement deal with those issues? That is, how could both make the adjustment easier?
5. Design an employee attitude survey for Randstad’s employees.
Glenn A. Jones
Oral Care Consultant/Technology Trainer
Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals New York, NY
MY JOB:
I’m an oral care consultant for Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals in northern New Jersey. My primary job duties involve selling, advising, and educating dental professionals regarding prescription-strength oral care products for their patients. In addition to this, I serve as a technology trainer for Colgate. In this capacity I provide training and support to our sales team as it relates to the various technologies required to do our jobs.
BEST PART OF MY JOB:
What I love most about my job is advising dental professionals on the products and courses of action that will deliver the best outcomes for their patient’s oral health. In addition, I love the fact that I can help dental professionals maximize their success from an efficiency standpoint, which will in turn help grow their business.
WORST PART OF MY JOB:
Something I would like to change about my job is how we manage relationships.
Often because of the size of a given territory it is not possible to see dental professionals on regular basis. This makes it hard to build up a trust and comfort level with those I am advising. Every day I seek to find ways to better foster these client relationships. It is the key to long-term success.
BEST MANAGEMENT ADVICE EVER RECEIVED:
You are only as strong as your weakest link. This really resonated with me because no matter how successful you or your organization becomes, it is always vulnerable if strength is not developed through and through. If one employee or aspect of your organization is not strong enough because of inadequate training, disillusionment, or other negative practices, it can cause a domino effect that leads to more and more problems and failures.
In this respect, individuals and organizations should seek continuous improvement to shore up weak points and to foster continued success and longevity.
function of communication.
page 404
methods of interpersonal communication.
page 406
interpersonal communication and how to overcome them.
page 409
can flow most effectively in organizations.
page 412
affects managerial communication and
organizations.
page 416
issues in
communication.
page 417
403
404
What Would You Do?
One place where Twitter has caught on is college sports. For instance, Les Miles, head football coach at Louisiana State University calls himself “a Twittering kind of guy.”
He understands the power of instant communication. Miles wants to stay ahead of the competition, especially when it comes to recruiting and keep- ing fans informed. He said, “It (Twitter- ing) allows us to communicate blasts of information to those people that subscribe. And it’s also an opportunity for those recruiting prospects that sub- scribe to communicate to us.” During the fall 2009 season, he Twittered (via a Tweets. Twittering. Five years ago, the
only definition we would have known for these words would have involved birds and the sounds they make.
Now, practically everyone knows that Twitter is also an online service used by millions of people to trade short messages of 140 characters or less via the Web, cell phones, and other devices.1According to its founders (Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams), Twitter is many things: a messaging service, a customer- service tool to reach customers, real-time search, and microblog- ging. And as the numbers show, it’s become quite popular!
LEARNING OUTCOME 15.1
Define the nature and function of communication.
Welcome to the new world of communication! In this “world,” managers are going to have to understand both the importance and the drawbacks of communication—all forms of com- munication. Communication between managers and employees is important because it pro- vides the information necessary to get work done in organizations. Thus, there’s no doubt that communication is fundamentally linked to managerial performance.2
The Nature and Function of Communication
On a recent summer day, Chevrolet employees at General Motors’ Detroit headquarters got an internal memo requesting that they stop using the word “Chevy” when referring to their car brand.3Despite the fact that “Chevy” has been one of the world’s best-known, longest- lived product nicknames for a best-selling line of cars and trucks and was immortalized in a song about Miss American Pie driving to the levee, the memo was signed by two top cor- porate Chevrolet division executives who cited the need for brand consistency. After the memo made its way into the media and invoked a strong public reaction, GM backtracked.
It posted a video interview with one of the executives who had signed the memo on Chevro- let’s YouTube channel. During the video, the executive used the word Chevy no fewer than six times in less than two minutes. He also called the memo a “rough draft” and “a bit of fun” and explained that “there would be no massive change of direction.” This example shows why it’s important for managers to understand the impact of communication.
The importance of effective communication for managers can’t be overemphasized for one specific reason: Everything a manager does involves communicating. Not somethings, but everything! A manager can’t make a decision without information. That information has to be communicated. Once a decision is made, communication must again take place. Otherwise, no one would know that a decision was made. The best idea, the most creative suggestion, the best plan, or the most effective job redesign can’t take shape without communication.
What Is Communication?
Communicationis the transfer and understanding of meaning. Note the emphasis on the transfer of meaning: If information or ideas have not been conveyed, communication hasn’t taken place. The speaker who isn’t heard or the writer whose materials aren’t read
staff assistant) before games, at half- time, and after games. The challenge for organizations is how to control the information flow.
communication
The transfer and understanding of meaning
interpersonal communication
Communication between two or more people
organizational communication
All the patterns, networks, and systems of communication within an organization Menlo Innovations is a noisy, high-energy workplace where communication provides the information employees need to accomplish their work and the motivation to improve their performance. All employees at this software design firm work side by side in pairs and share a computer in one large work room. At the end of each week, the pairs switch partners. When a veteran employee and intern work together, the veteran can pass along experience and knowledge and the intern can share what’s new in college computer classes. Menlo’s CEO Richard Sheridan believes that continual information-sharing among employees results in higher-quality work and greater productivity and also boosts employee morale.
hasn’t communicated. More importantly, however, communication involves the understanding of meaning. For communication to be successful, the meaning must be imparted and under- stood. A letter written in Spanish addressed to a person who doesn’t read Spanish can’t be considered communication until it’s translated into a language the person does read and under- stand. Perfect communication, if such a thing existed, would be when a transmitted thought or idea was received and understood by the receiver exactly as it was envisioned by the sender.
Another point to keep in mind is that goodcommunication is often erroneously defined by the communicator as agreementwith the message instead of clear understanding of the message.4If someone disagrees with us, we assume that the person just didn’t fully under- stand our position. In other words, many of us define good communication as having some- one accept our views. But I can clearly understand what you mean and just notagree with what you say.
The final point we want to make about communication is that it encompasses both interpersonal communication—communication between two or more people—and organizational communication, which is all the patterns, networks, and systems of communication within an organization. Both types are important to managers.
Functions of Communication
Kevin M. Warren, chairman of the board, president, and CEO of Xerox Canada, Ltd. was awarded the 2010 Excellence in Communication Leadership (EXCEL) Award by the Inter- national Association of Business Communicators. This award recognizes leaders who fos- ter excellence in communication and contribute to the development and support of organizational communication. His award nomination stated, “Kevin has been an advocate of communication from the start. He is its biggest supporter and a role model for others.
Kevin clearly understands the relationship of employee communication and engagement, and ultimately business success. The positive impact of his commitment is far-reaching, and extends beyond employees to all his constituencies.”5
Throughout Xerox Canada and many other organizations, communication serves four major functions: control, motivation, emotional expression, and information.6Each function is equally important.
Communication acts to controlemployee behavior in several ways. As we know from Chapter 10, organizations have authority hierarchies and formal guidelines that employees are expected to follow. For instance, when employees are required to communicate any job- related grievance to their immediate manager, to follow their job description, or to comply with company policies, communication is being used to control. Informal communication also controls behavior. When a work group teases a member who’s ignoring the norms by working too hard, they’re informally controlling the member’s behavior.