Deck 12: Communication in Organizations

Question 1

How are electronic communication devices (cell phones, email, and websites) affecting the communication process? Describe both the advantages and the disadvantages of these three devices over traditional communication methods, such as face-to-face conversations, written notes, and phone calls.

Answer 1

Electronic communication devices like, phones, emails and websites are used for prompt communication. A company uses these to convey company's business policies, products and other social events. These are the days of smart phones, one of the easiest and the fastest device to communicate. If one has this, then ones does not even need the support of a system to access mails and blogs. A smart phone is enough to get access to internet anywhere anytime.
Websites and blogs have become very social these days. Consumers browse through company's website and their blogs before choosing a product or service. Consumers are given the leverage to express their views of any recently launched product thereby allowing the company to get instant feedback and suggestions.
Advantages of electronic communication
1. Company's get instant feedback about their products.
2. There is a direct interaction between the organization and consumer.
3. It gives way to work from home options. Since, electronic media used to directly interact, view and communicate with the co-employees without being physically present in office.
Disadvantages of electronic media
1. It becomes hard to build a strong work culture if the employees communicate through teleconferencing or video conferencing.
2. There will be a lack of strong work relationships.
3. Employers will not have trust on the employees who work through electronic media since they work out of sight and there will also be less cooperativeness among the employees.
4. Electronic media gives way to dysfunctional employee behavior where offensive or obscene mails / messages or videos are shared among employees during working hours using official mail ID's.

Question 2

Nonverbal Communication in Groups
Purpose: The role of nonverbal communication in organizations can be just as important as oral or written communication, but is often overlooked. This activity will make you more aware of the power of nonverbal communication and give you some practice in using it.
Instructions:
Step 1: Your instructor will break your class into groups of about 20. Change your seat as needed until the group members are sitting fairly close and facing each other. Count the exact number of members and agree upon the count as a group.
Step 2: Count out loud, one at a time, from 1 up to the total number of group members. The group must do this without discussion or planning about who will say each number. Members may not use any verbal or physical signals, for example no pointing, nodding, or touching. Each member must say exactly one number, and no number may be repeated. No two people may speak simultaneously.
Step 3: If any of the rules are violated, begin the task again from the number 1. Continue until the group successfully completes the task. Then answer the follow-up questions.
Follow-Up Questions:
Can you think of examples of situations that could occur in business organizations in which nonverbal communication might play an important role?

Answer 2

In organizations there are not many situations where nonverbal communication can be used or will be effective.
The notable scenario when nonverbal facial expressions can be given is when our peer tries to get into our boss room and try to talk to them. If we are aware that the boss is not in a good mood, then by eye contact and facial expression ask out colleague to avoid the meeting. If peer wants to talk about the appraisal or reward then that might definitely be not the right time. Instead of reward the communication might raise unwanted confusions and even lead to firing of the employee.
In this kind of situations nonverbal communication is very effective.

Question 3

Exercise Overview
Technical skills are the skills necessary to perform the work of the organization. This exercise will help you develop and apply technical skills involving the Internet and its potential for gathering information relevant to making important decisions.
Exercise Background
Assume that you are a manager for a large national retailer. You have been assigned the responsibility for identifying potential locations for the construction of a warehouse and distribution center. The idea behind such a center is that the firm can use its enormous purchasing power to buy many products in bulk quantities at relatively low prices. Individual stores can then order the specific quantities they need from the warehouse.
The location will need an abundance of land. The warehouse itself, for example, will occupy more than four square acres of land. In addition, it must be close to railroads and major highways because shipments will be arriving by both rail and truck, although outbound shipments will be exclusively by truck. Other important variables are that land prices and the cost of living should be relatively low and weather conditions should be mild (to minimize disruptions to shipments).
The firm's general experience is that small to midsized communities work best. Moreover, warehouses are already in place in the western and eastern parts of the United States, so this new one will most likely be in the central or south-central area. Your boss has asked you to identify three or four possible sites.
Exercise Task
With the aforementioned information as a framework, do the following:
Using additional information from the Internet, narrow the set of possible locations to three or four.

Answer 3

Not Answer

Question 4

For each of the following situations, tell which form of communication you would use. Then ask the same question to someone who has been in the workforce for at least ten years. For any differences that occur, ask the worker to explain why his or her choice is better than yours. Do you agree with his or her assessment? Why or why not?
• Describing complex changes in how healthcare benefits are calculated and administered to every employee of a large firm
• Asking your boss a quick question about how she wants something done
• Telling customers that a new two-for-one promotion is available at your store
• Reprimanding an employee for excessive absences on the job
• Reminding workers that no smoking is allowed in your facility

Question 5

In getting ready for a telephone interview for a new job, what are the three or four things for which you most want to be prepared? If you were getting ready to interview someone else for a job, what are the three or four major things that you'd expect that person to be prepared for?

Question 6

Linking video cameras to computers has become quite popular in setting up the complete online conversation. How might this technology be used in conjunction with telephone interviews? How about other forms of communication, such as text messaging?

Question 7

¿Qué Pasa in the Ad Agency?
• A contemporary Toyota television ad: A father is explaining Toyota's hybrid engine to his son. "[The car] runs on gas and electricity," he says. " Mira. Mira aquí. [Look. Look here.] It uses both." The son replies, "Like you, with English and Spanish." " Sí ," replies the father.
As the makeup of U.S. society changes, organizations have realized that they need to change the ways in which they communicate with diverse customer bases. It might come as something of a surprise, but this Toyota TV spot reflects a virtually revolutionary change in the way American companies address potential buyers from different cultures. Once, for example, they assumed that Hispanics living in the United States were immigrants, spoke no English, and clung to old-world values. Today, however, they're well aware of the fact that over half of the country's 45.5 million Hispanics were born in this country. Like the father and son in Toyota's depiction of Hispanic life, most Spanish speakers know English and mix elements not only of both languages but also of both U.S. and Latino culture. "This group is not about nostalgia for the home country," says Jaime Fortuño, managing partner of Azafrán, a New York-based agency.
There was also a time when advertisers relied on mainstream ads-ads aimed at the center of the market where they expected to find the "typical" consumer. But as the purchasing power of minorities has increased, companies have put more energy into developing targeted ads-ads aimed at specific groups of consumers and often delivered through language-targeted media. Today, for example, a corporation thinks nothing of budgeting $100 million a year for Hispanic-themed ads. Since 2004, about one-third of ads targeted to Hispanics have been presented in Spanish, and that proportion is growing-for good reason. The buying power of Hispanics is growing at a compound annual rate of 8.2 percent, compared to 4.9 percent for non-Hispanics. From $220 billion in 1990, Hispanic spending will reach nearly $1 trillion in 2009-an increase of 347 percent, compared to 148.5 percent for all consumers. (Spending by Asian Americans, incidentally, will also increase by 347 percent.)
• A contemporary Energizer battery ad: In Spanish, a man says, "When I lost my arm, I got a new one. From a Japanese guy. Now I can't stop taking pictures." He compulsively takes pictures everywhere-of himself in the shower, in bed, in the men's room-until a fight ensues.
Advertisers also recognize different segments of Hispanic customers, just as they've long recognized segments of the mainstream market. Another sign of the times: When it comes to offbeat, sometimes irreverent humor, ads targeted to Hispanic audiences are catching up to mainstream ads-which is to say, mainstream advertisers are getting more comfortable communicating to minority consumers.
• A contemporary Verizon ad: A young woman is trying to download a music-video clip using a slow dial-up connection. To add to her frustration, the song, José José's "La Nave del Olvido" [The Ship of Oblivion] gets stuck on the line "espera un poco, un poquitiiiiiiiii" [wait a bit more]. In Spanish, an announcer extols the virtues of Verizon High Speed Internet.
"A high percentage of Hispanic consumers," explains Marquita Carter, director of multicultural marketing for Verizon, "still use a dial-up connection." The spot ran on Spanish-language TV and radio in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Tampa, and Washington, D.C., as part of a campaign that also includes newspaper and online ads in Dallas and Los Angeles. Verizon is one of the country's top-ten advertisers in Spanish-language media, having spent $73.8 million in the first three quarters of 2008 (up 20 percent over the same period in 2007).
Other companies in the top ten include number-one Procter Gamble ($133.2 million for the first three quarters of 2008, up 13 percent), AT T, General Motors, McDonald's, Toyota, and Johnson Johnson. Total spending for the period topped $4 billion, an increase of 2.7 percent over 2007.
The Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) thinks it should be even more. "The Hispanic advertising industry," reported the organization's website in 2009, "is growing four times faster than all other sectors of advertising." Spending on Spanish-language advertising by 500 major U.S. companies represented 5.6 percent of the total spent in all media, but Hispanics, observes the AHAA, represent 15.1 percent of the total U.S. population.
About 9,000 members of that 15.1 percent are illegal aliens, but as far as John Gallegos is concerned, companies should direct advertising to them, too. "The guy who just came across the border with a coyote, do I want to go after him, too?" asks Gallegos, who runs Grupo Gallegos, an L.A.-area agency. "Well, he's going to get a job. He's going to work. He's going to start buying products and contributing to the economy. So while he might not be viable for a Mercedes today, I can introduce you to people who came here illegally or legally, with nothing, and are now driving a Mercedes. Advertising is aspirational. I want to aim ahead of where my audience is. Unless it's the equivalent of beef to Hindus, I always say, any product and any service should be sold to Latinos in this country."
• An old Milk Board ad: As a grandmother is preparing tres leches cake in a crowded kitchen, a slogan appears on the screen: " Familia, amor, y leche [Family, love, and milk]." A new Milk Board ad: Commuters hold on to train steps by their teeth. The slogan says, " Toma leche [Have some milk]."
Grupo Gallegos created the new Milk Board ad as well as one set in a town where gravity comes and goes. Locals aren't the least bit surprised to find themselves floating along 30 feet in the air or suddenly plummeting to the ground with bone-crushing impact. Fortunately, they drink a lot of milk, so they have exceptionally strong bones and walk away unscathed. "You have to put something out there that hasn't been seen before," says Gallegos art director Juan Pablo Oubiña, who didn't much care for the old " Familia, amor, y leche " Milk Board ad on more than one level. It reminded him of what's known as " Abuelita advertising," after a Spanish term for "grandma." It's better than traditional advertising for Hispanics dreamed up by non-Hispanic agencies (think businessmen in sombreros), but it's steeped in its own clichés-particularly Hispanics as cheerful suburban homeowners living in warm multigenerational families. "On any team I lead," vows Oubiña, "there is never going to be a kitchen with somebody exclaiming, 'Mmmm, how delicious.'"
Grupo Gallegos, which also has accounts with companies such as Fruit of the Loom, Comcast (high-speed Internet service), and Bally fitness centers, was careful to reconsider the Spanish wording of the Milk Board's well-known "Got Milk?" slogan. To many Spanish speakers, the easiest translation-" Tiene leche? "-apparently came across as something like "Are you lactating?" The replacement phrase-" Toma leche " ("Have some milk")-seems like an obvious solution, but as one journalist pointed out on her first viewing of the ad, "I appreciated what the challenge had been.… I was pretty sure that asking people in Spanish whether they have milk is a bad idea, since I had once learned the regrettable way that if you use Spanish to ask a male Mexican grocer, 'Do you have eggs?' you're inquiring as to his testicles."
• An ad for Southwest Airlines: A virile young Hispanic rollerblades up to a parked car to admire his image in the tinted window. The window unexpectedly rolls down to reveal two men inside the car who are also admiring him. "Want to get away?" reads the punchline, which is followed by a low airfare price.
"In advertising," observes Oubiña, "it's not easy to be different. It takes ten times as much work." And getting the language right isn't really the hardest part of making Spanishlanguage ads. Like this Southwest ad from the Hispanic-owned agency Dieste Harmel Partners, many of the latest-vintage Spanish-language ads have succeeded in appealing to Hispanic audiences by playing with and against stereotypes, but as one Hispanic marketing consultant observes, it's a tricky balancing act. "Not only are Americans comfortable with positive stereotypes as a means to be politically correct," says Jennifer Woodard, "but so are many Hispanics." The problem of stereotyping, she reminds us, is usually twofold: Advertisers tend to rely on stereotypes because they assume that they're somehow reflective of the mainstream, and the consumers being stereotyped tend to settle for stereotypes because they dominate the images of themselves that are available to them in the media.
• An ad for Fox Sports Net: Returning home from a shopping trip, a Hispanic woman detects an unpleasant odor in the house. The camera follows her as she follows her nose from room to room until she reaches the living room, where she realizes that her husband is so thoroughly immersed in a televised soccer game that he's been watching through the open door of a nearby bathroom.
This ad-another Grupo Gallegos creation-does a good job of playing with and against stereotypes because it bounces off the stereotype of the soccer-obsessed Latino in what Woodard describes as "a great example of taking a slice of life from a husband and wife, no matter the culture, and pushing the ad into entertainment." Contrast this ad, however, with the far more common appropriation of the same stereotype in TV advertising aimed at Hispanics. "[W]atch a few hours," suggests agency executive Tommy Thompson, "and count how many soccer-themed spots you see. And I'm not talking about World Cup season or during the airing of soccer matches where contextually it makes sense. It almost seems that soccer is the only way to connect with [Hispanic viewers]. What does soccer have to do with life insurance, for example? Are there really no other insights as relates to Hispanics' need for life insurance that can be communicated without soccer?"
Thompson, founder and president of Dallas-based iNSPIRE!, argues that advertisers should focus on "what makes the target [market] tick as it relates to [a] particular brand or category." It's advice that's already been put to good use in ads such as the Verizon and Energizer spots described earlier. For the Energizer ad, for example, Gallegos was originally given the task of making the brand "iconic" for Hispanic consumers-giving it immediately familiar symbolic value so that Spanish speakers would think of perpetual motion and say, " como el conejito Energizer ," the same way that English speakers think of perpetual motion and say "like the Energizer bunny." At Grupo Gallegos, brainstorming on a new account always starts with "Okay, aquí está el problema que tenemos when we really start looking at the brand," and the Gallegos team realized early on that most Hispanics don't associate batteries with perpetual motion (or anything else): For them, a battery is a battery. So Gallegos came up with an ad in which a Mexican man walks down the street and shares his realization that he's immortal-whereupon a two-story commercial sign falls on his head. Being immortal, he explains, he needs a very long-lasting battery for his camera.
• Ad for Virgin Mobile Telecoms: A man with cocker spaniel ears flapping in the wind drives his girlfriend in a convertible. A tagline appears: " No Soy Normal " [I'm Not Normal]."
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian-born governor of California, which is home to 13.2 million Hispanics, advised Latino immigrants that if they want to learn English more quickly, "You've got to turn off Spanish[-language] television.… I know that when I came to this country, I very rarely spoke German to anyone." Do you agree with Schwarzenegger's advice to immigrants on learning English in the United States? Why or why not?

Question 8

¿Qué Pasa in the Ad Agency?
• A contemporary Toyota television ad: A father is explaining Toyota's hybrid engine to his son. "[The car] runs on gas and electricity," he says. " Mira. Mira aquí. [Look. Look here.] It uses both." The son replies, "Like you, with English and Spanish." " Sí ," replies the father.
As the makeup of U.S. society changes, organizations have realized that they need to change the ways in which they communicate with diverse customer bases. It might come as something of a surprise, but this Toyota TV spot reflects a virtually revolutionary change in the way American companies address potential buyers from different cultures. Once, for example, they assumed that Hispanics living in the United States were immigrants, spoke no English, and clung to old-world values. Today, however, they're well aware of the fact that over half of the country's 45.5 million Hispanics were born in this country. Like the father and son in Toyota's depiction of Hispanic life, most Spanish speakers know English and mix elements not only of both languages but also of both U.S. and Latino culture. "This group is not about nostalgia for the home country," says Jaime Fortuño, managing partner of Azafrán, a New York-based agency.
There was also a time when advertisers relied on mainstream ads-ads aimed at the center of the market where they expected to find the "typical" consumer. But as the purchasing power of minorities has increased, companies have put more energy into developing targeted ads-ads aimed at specific groups of consumers and often delivered through language-targeted media. Today, for example, a corporation thinks nothing of budgeting $100 million a year for Hispanic-themed ads. Since 2004, about one-third of ads targeted to Hispanics have been presented in Spanish, and that proportion is growing-for good reason. The buying power of Hispanics is growing at a compound annual rate of 8.2 percent, compared to 4.9 percent for non-Hispanics. From $220 billion in 1990, Hispanic spending will reach nearly $1 trillion in 2009-an increase of 347 percent, compared to 148.5 percent for all consumers. (Spending by Asian Americans, incidentally, will also increase by 347 percent.)
• A contemporary Energizer battery ad: In Spanish, a man says, "When I lost my arm, I got a new one. From a Japanese guy. Now I can't stop taking pictures." He compulsively takes pictures everywhere-of himself in the shower, in bed, in the men's room-until a fight ensues.
Advertisers also recognize different segments of Hispanic customers, just as they've long recognized segments of the mainstream market. Another sign of the times: When it comes to offbeat, sometimes irreverent humor, ads targeted to Hispanic audiences are catching up to mainstream ads-which is to say, mainstream advertisers are getting more comfortable communicating to minority consumers.
• A contemporary Verizon ad: A young woman is trying to download a music-video clip using a slow dial-up connection. To add to her frustration, the song, José José's "La Nave del Olvido" [The Ship of Oblivion] gets stuck on the line "espera un poco, un poquitiiiiiiiii" [wait a bit more]. In Spanish, an announcer extols the virtues of Verizon High Speed Internet.
"A high percentage of Hispanic consumers," explains Marquita Carter, director of multicultural marketing for Verizon, "still use a dial-up connection." The spot ran on Spanish-language TV and radio in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Tampa, and Washington, D.C., as part of a campaign that also includes newspaper and online ads in Dallas and Los Angeles. Verizon is one of the country's top-ten advertisers in Spanish-language media, having spent $73.8 million in the first three quarters of 2008 (up 20 percent over the same period in 2007).
Other companies in the top ten include number-one Procter Gamble ($133.2 million for the first three quarters of 2008, up 13 percent), AT T, General Motors, McDonald's, Toyota, and Johnson Johnson. Total spending for the period topped $4 billion, an increase of 2.7 percent over 2007.
The Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) thinks it should be even more. "The Hispanic advertising industry," reported the organization's website in 2009, "is growing four times faster than all other sectors of advertising." Spending on Spanish-language advertising by 500 major U.S. companies represented 5.6 percent of the total spent in all media, but Hispanics, observes the AHAA, represent 15.1 percent of the total U.S. population.
About 9,000 members of that 15.1 percent are illegal aliens, but as far as John Gallegos is concerned, companies should direct advertising to them, too. "The guy who just came across the border with a coyote, do I want to go after him, too?" asks Gallegos, who runs Grupo Gallegos, an L.A.-area agency. "Well, he's going to get a job. He's going to work. He's going to start buying products and contributing to the economy. So while he might not be viable for a Mercedes today, I can introduce you to people who came here illegally or legally, with nothing, and are now driving a Mercedes. Advertising is aspirational. I want to aim ahead of where my audience is. Unless it's the equivalent of beef to Hindus, I always say, any product and any service should be sold to Latinos in this country."
• An old Milk Board ad: As a grandmother is preparing tres leches cake in a crowded kitchen, a slogan appears on the screen: " Familia, amor, y leche [Family, love, and milk]." A new Milk Board ad: Commuters hold on to train steps by their teeth. The slogan says, " Toma leche [Have some milk]."
Grupo Gallegos created the new Milk Board ad as well as one set in a town where gravity comes and goes. Locals aren't the least bit surprised to find themselves floating along 30 feet in the air or suddenly plummeting to the ground with bone-crushing impact. Fortunately, they drink a lot of milk, so they have exceptionally strong bones and walk away unscathed. "You have to put something out there that hasn't been seen before," says Gallegos art director Juan Pablo Oubiña, who didn't much care for the old " Familia, amor, y leche " Milk Board ad on more than one level. It reminded him of what's known as " Abuelita advertising," after a Spanish term for "grandma." It's better than traditional advertising for Hispanics dreamed up by non-Hispanic agencies (think businessmen in sombreros), but it's steeped in its own clichés-particularly Hispanics as cheerful suburban homeowners living in warm multigenerational families. "On any team I lead," vows Oubiña, "there is never going to be a kitchen with somebody exclaiming, 'Mmmm, how delicious.'"
Grupo Gallegos, which also has accounts with companies such as Fruit of the Loom, Comcast (high-speed Internet service), and Bally fitness centers, was careful to reconsider the Spanish wording of the Milk Board's well-known "Got Milk?" slogan. To many Spanish speakers, the easiest translation-" Tiene leche? "-apparently came across as something like "Are you lactating?" The replacement phrase-" Toma leche " ("Have some milk")-seems like an obvious solution, but as one journalist pointed out on her first viewing of the ad, "I appreciated what the challenge had been.… I was pretty sure that asking people in Spanish whether they have milk is a bad idea, since I had once learned the regrettable way that if you use Spanish to ask a male Mexican grocer, 'Do you have eggs?' you're inquiring as to his testicles."
• An ad for Southwest Airlines: A virile young Hispanic rollerblades up to a parked car to admire his image in the tinted window. The window unexpectedly rolls down to reveal two men inside the car who are also admiring him. "Want to get away?" reads the punchline, which is followed by a low airfare price.
"In advertising," observes Oubiña, "it's not easy to be different. It takes ten times as much work." And getting the language right isn't really the hardest part of making Spanishlanguage ads. Like this Southwest ad from the Hispanic-owned agency Dieste Harmel Partners, many of the latest-vintage Spanish-language ads have succeeded in appealing to Hispanic audiences by playing with and against stereotypes, but as one Hispanic marketing consultant observes, it's a tricky balancing act. "Not only are Americans comfortable with positive stereotypes as a means to be politically correct," says Jennifer Woodard, "but so are many Hispanics." The problem of stereotyping, she reminds us, is usually twofold: Advertisers tend to rely on stereotypes because they assume that they're somehow reflective of the mainstream, and the consumers being stereotyped tend to settle for stereotypes because they dominate the images of themselves that are available to them in the media.
• An ad for Fox Sports Net: Returning home from a shopping trip, a Hispanic woman detects an unpleasant odor in the house. The camera follows her as she follows her nose from room to room until she reaches the living room, where she realizes that her husband is so thoroughly immersed in a televised soccer game that he's been watching through the open door of a nearby bathroom.
This ad-another Grupo Gallegos creation-does a good job of playing with and against stereotypes because it bounces off the stereotype of the soccer-obsessed Latino in what Woodard describes as "a great example of taking a slice of life from a husband and wife, no matter the culture, and pushing the ad into entertainment." Contrast this ad, however, with the far more common appropriation of the same stereotype in TV advertising aimed at Hispanics. "[W]atch a few hours," suggests agency executive Tommy Thompson, "and count how many soccer-themed spots you see. And I'm not talking about World Cup season or during the airing of soccer matches where contextually it makes sense. It almost seems that soccer is the only way to connect with [Hispanic viewers]. What does soccer have to do with life insurance, for example? Are there really no other insights as relates to Hispanics' need for life insurance that can be communicated without soccer?"
Thompson, founder and president of Dallas-based iNSPIRE!, argues that advertisers should focus on "what makes the target [market] tick as it relates to [a] particular brand or category." It's advice that's already been put to good use in ads such as the Verizon and Energizer spots described earlier. For the Energizer ad, for example, Gallegos was originally given the task of making the brand "iconic" for Hispanic consumers-giving it immediately familiar symbolic value so that Spanish speakers would think of perpetual motion and say, " como el conejito Energizer ," the same way that English speakers think of perpetual motion and say "like the Energizer bunny." At Grupo Gallegos, brainstorming on a new account always starts with "Okay, aquí está el problema que tenemos when we really start looking at the brand," and the Gallegos team realized early on that most Hispanics don't associate batteries with perpetual motion (or anything else): For them, a battery is a battery. So Gallegos came up with an ad in which a Mexican man walks down the street and shares his realization that he's immortal-whereupon a two-story commercial sign falls on his head. Being immortal, he explains, he needs a very long-lasting battery for his camera.
• Ad for Virgin Mobile Telecoms: A man with cocker spaniel ears flapping in the wind drives his girlfriend in a convertible. A tagline appears: " No Soy Normal " [I'm Not Normal]."
You're assistant director of marketing for a maker of upscale furniture, and your company is preparing to enter new markets in California and the Southwest. Entering new markets, especially one of this size, is expensive, and your boss has decided to forgo Spanish-language advertising as part of the firm's market entry strategy. You're inclined to disagree. What might you say to your boss to change her mind?

Question 9

What are the similarities and differences of oral and written communication? What kinds of situations call for the use of oral methods? What situations call for written communication?

Question 10

Describe the difference between communication and effective communication. How can a sender verify that a communication was effective? How can a receiver verify that a communication was effective?

Question 11

Nonverbal Communication in Groups
Purpose: The role of nonverbal communication in organizations can be just as important as oral or written communication, but is often overlooked. This activity will make you more aware of the power of nonverbal communication and give you some practice in using it.
Instructions:
Step 1: Your instructor will break your class into groups of about 20. Change your seat as needed until the group members are sitting fairly close and facing each other. Count the exact number of members and agree upon the count as a group.
Step 2: Count out loud, one at a time, from 1 up to the total number of group members. The group must do this without discussion or planning about who will say each number. Members may not use any verbal or physical signals, for example no pointing, nodding, or touching. Each member must say exactly one number, and no number may be repeated. No two people may speak simultaneously.
Step 3: If any of the rules are violated, begin the task again from the number 1. Continue until the group successfully completes the task. Then answer the follow-up questions.
Follow-Up Questions:
What does this exercise demonstrate to you about the power of nonverbal communication?

Question 12

Nonverbal Communication in Groups
Purpose: The role of nonverbal communication in organizations can be just as important as oral or written communication, but is often overlooked. This activity will make you more aware of the power of nonverbal communication and give you some practice in using it.
Instructions:
Step 1: Your instructor will break your class into groups of about 20. Change your seat as needed until the group members are sitting fairly close and facing each other. Count the exact number of members and agree upon the count as a group.
Step 2: Count out loud, one at a time, from 1 up to the total number of group members. The group must do this without discussion or planning about who will say each number. Members may not use any verbal or physical signals, for example no pointing, nodding, or touching. Each member must say exactly one number, and no number may be repeated. No two people may speak simultaneously.
Step 3: If any of the rules are violated, begin the task again from the number 1. Continue until the group successfully completes the task. Then answer the follow-up questions.
Follow-Up Questions:
What methods of communication did you use to determine who would say each number? How effective was this method?

Question 13

Exercise Overview
A manager's interpersonal skills include his or her abilities to understand and to motivate individuals and groups. This in-class demonstration gives you practice in understanding the nonverbal and verbal behavior of a pair of individuals.
Exercise Background
Nonverbal communication conveys more than half of the information in any face-to-face exchange, and body language is a significant part of our nonverbal behavior. Consider, for example, the impact of a yawn or a frown or a shaking fist. At the same time, however, nonverbal communication is often neglected by managers. The result can be confusing and misleading signals.
In this exercise, you will examine interactions between two people without sound, with only visual clues to meaning. Then you will examine those same interactions with both visual and verbal clues.
Exercise Task
How accurate were your assessments when you had only visual information? Explain why you were or were not accurate.

Question 14

Exercise Overview
A manager's interpersonal skills include his or her abilities to understand and to motivate individuals and groups. This in-class demonstration gives you practice in understanding the nonverbal and verbal behavior of a pair of individuals.
Exercise Background
Nonverbal communication conveys more than half of the information in any face-to-face exchange, and body language is a significant part of our nonverbal behavior. Consider, for example, the impact of a yawn or a frown or a shaking fist. At the same time, however, nonverbal communication is often neglected by managers. The result can be confusing and misleading signals.
In this exercise, you will examine interactions between two people without sound, with only visual clues to meaning. Then you will examine those same interactions with both visual and verbal clues.
Exercise Task
Observe the silent video segments that your professor shows to the class. For each segment, describe the nature of the relationship and interaction between the two individuals. What nonverbal clues did you use in reaching your conclusions?

Question 15

What forms of communication have you experienced today? What form of communication is involved in a face-to-face conversation with a friend? A phone call from a customer? A traffic light or crossing signal? A picture of a cigarette in a circle with a slash across it? An area around machinery defined by a yellow line painted on the floor?

Question 16

At what points in the communication process can problems occur? Give examples of how noise can interfere with the communication process. What can managers do to reduce problems and noise?

Question 17

Exercise Overview
Technical skills are the skills necessary to perform the work of the organization. This exercise will help you develop and apply technical skills involving the Internet and its potential for gathering information relevant to making important decisions.
Exercise Background
Assume that you are a manager for a large national retailer. You have been assigned the responsibility for identifying potential locations for the construction of a warehouse and distribution center. The idea behind such a center is that the firm can use its enormous purchasing power to buy many products in bulk quantities at relatively low prices. Individual stores can then order the specific quantities they need from the warehouse.
The location will need an abundance of land. The warehouse itself, for example, will occupy more than four square acres of land. In addition, it must be close to railroads and major highways because shipments will be arriving by both rail and truck, although outbound shipments will be exclusively by truck. Other important variables are that land prices and the cost of living should be relatively low and weather conditions should be mild (to minimize disruptions to shipments).
The firm's general experience is that small to midsized communities work best. Moreover, warehouses are already in place in the western and eastern parts of the United States, so this new one will most likely be in the central or south-central area. Your boss has asked you to identify three or four possible sites.
Exercise Task
With the aforementioned information as a framework, do the following:
Again using the Internet, find out as much as possible about the potential locations.

Question 18

Sex Talk Quiz
Introduction: Research shows that men and women sometimes have trouble communicating effectively with one another at work because they have contrasting values and beliefs about differences between the sexes. The following assessment surveys your beliefs and values about each sex.
Instructions: Mark each statement as either true or false. In some cases, you may find making a decision difficult, but you should force yourself to make a choice.
True/False Questions
_______ 1. Women are more intuitive than men. They have a sixth sense, which is typically called women's intuition.
_______ 2. At business meetings, coworkers are more likely to listen to men than they are to women.
_______ 3. Women are the "talkers." They talk much more than men in group conversations.
_______ 4. Men are the "fast talkers." They talk much more quickly than women.
_______ 5. Men are more outwardly open than women. They use more eye contact and exhibit more friendliness when first meeting someone than do women.
_______ 6. Women are more complimentary and give more praise than men.
_______ 7. Men interrupt more than women and will answer a question even when it is not addressed to them.
_______ 8. Women give more orders and are more demanding in the way they communicate than are men.
_______ 9. In general, men and women laugh at the same things.
_______ 10. When making love, both men and women want to hear the same things from their partner.
_______ 11. Men ask for assistance less often than do women.
_______ 12. Men are harder on themselves and blame themselves more often than do women.
_______ 13. Through their body language, women make themselves less confrontational than men.
_______ 14. Men tend to explain things in greater detail when discussing an incident than do women.
_______ 15. Women tend to touch others more often than men.
_______ 16. Men appear to be more attentive than women when they are listening.
_______ 17. Women and men are equally emotional when they speak.
_______ 18. Men are more likely than women to discuss personal issues.
_______ 19. Men bring up more topics of conversation than do women.
_______ 20. Today we tend to raise our male children the same way we do our female children.
_______ 21. Women tend to confront problems more directly and are likely to bring up the problem first.
_______ 22. Men are livelier speakers who use more body language and facial animation than do women.
_______ 23. Men ask more questions than women.
_______ 24. In general, men and women enjoy talking about similar things.
_______ 25. When asking whether their partner has had an AIDS test or when discussing safe sex, a woman will likely bring up the topic before a man.

Question 19

Matt Aberham warns against simply trying to "sell yourself" during a phone interview. You agree, but you also believe that selling yourself is one of the things that you have to do as a job seeker. What sort of strategies do you regard as legitimate and effective in trying to sell yourself to a phone interviewer (or an in-person interviewer, for that matter)?

Question 20

Exercise Overview
Technical skills are the skills necessary to perform the work of the organization. This exercise will help you develop and apply technical skills involving the Internet and its potential for gathering information relevant to making important decisions.
Exercise Background
Assume that you are a manager for a large national retailer. You have been assigned the responsibility for identifying potential locations for the construction of a warehouse and distribution center. The idea behind such a center is that the firm can use its enormous purchasing power to buy many products in bulk quantities at relatively low prices. Individual stores can then order the specific quantities they need from the warehouse.
The location will need an abundance of land. The warehouse itself, for example, will occupy more than four square acres of land. In addition, it must be close to railroads and major highways because shipments will be arriving by both rail and truck, although outbound shipments will be exclusively by truck. Other important variables are that land prices and the cost of living should be relatively low and weather conditions should be mild (to minimize disruptions to shipments).
The firm's general experience is that small to midsized communities work best. Moreover, warehouses are already in place in the western and eastern parts of the United States, so this new one will most likely be in the central or south-central area. Your boss has asked you to identify three or four possible sites.
Exercise Task
With the aforementioned information as a framework, do the following:
Use the Internet to identify as many as ten possible locations.

Question 21

What forms of electronic communication do you use regularly?

Question 22

Experts suggest that you dress professionally for a telephone interview even though the interviewer can't see you. Do you agree that this is important? Why or why not?

Question 23

Nonverbal Communication in Groups
Purpose: The role of nonverbal communication in organizations can be just as important as oral or written communication, but is often overlooked. This activity will make you more aware of the power of nonverbal communication and give you some practice in using it.
Instructions:
Step 1: Your instructor will break your class into groups of about 20. Change your seat as needed until the group members are sitting fairly close and facing each other. Count the exact number of members and agree upon the count as a group.
Step 2: Count out loud, one at a time, from 1 up to the total number of group members. The group must do this without discussion or planning about who will say each number. Members may not use any verbal or physical signals, for example no pointing, nodding, or touching. Each member must say exactly one number, and no number may be repeated. No two people may speak simultaneously.
Step 3: If any of the rules are violated, begin the task again from the number 1. Continue until the group successfully completes the task. Then answer the follow-up questions.
Follow-Up Questions:
Can you think of examples of situations that you have experienced in which nonverbal communication played an important role?

Question 24

¿Qué Pasa in the Ad Agency?
• A contemporary Toyota television ad: A father is explaining Toyota's hybrid engine to his son. "[The car] runs on gas and electricity," he says. " Mira. Mira aquí. [Look. Look here.] It uses both." The son replies, "Like you, with English and Spanish." " Sí ," replies the father.
As the makeup of U.S. society changes, organizations have realized that they need to change the ways in which they communicate with diverse customer bases. It might come as something of a surprise, but this Toyota TV spot reflects a virtually revolutionary change in the way American companies address potential buyers from different cultures. Once, for example, they assumed that Hispanics living in the United States were immigrants, spoke no English, and clung to old-world values. Today, however, they're well aware of the fact that over half of the country's 45.5 million Hispanics were born in this country. Like the father and son in Toyota's depiction of Hispanic life, most Spanish speakers know English and mix elements not only of both languages but also of both U.S. and Latino culture. "This group is not about nostalgia for the home country," says Jaime Fortuño, managing partner of Azafrán, a New York-based agency.
There was also a time when advertisers relied on mainstream ads-ads aimed at the center of the market where they expected to find the "typical" consumer. But as the purchasing power of minorities has increased, companies have put more energy into developing targeted ads-ads aimed at specific groups of consumers and often delivered through language-targeted media. Today, for example, a corporation thinks nothing of budgeting $100 million a year for Hispanic-themed ads. Since 2004, about one-third of ads targeted to Hispanics have been presented in Spanish, and that proportion is growing-for good reason. The buying power of Hispanics is growing at a compound annual rate of 8.2 percent, compared to 4.9 percent for non-Hispanics. From $220 billion in 1990, Hispanic spending will reach nearly $1 trillion in 2009-an increase of 347 percent, compared to 148.5 percent for all consumers. (Spending by Asian Americans, incidentally, will also increase by 347 percent.)
• A contemporary Energizer battery ad: In Spanish, a man says, "When I lost my arm, I got a new one. From a Japanese guy. Now I can't stop taking pictures." He compulsively takes pictures everywhere-of himself in the shower, in bed, in the men's room-until a fight ensues.
Advertisers also recognize different segments of Hispanic customers, just as they've long recognized segments of the mainstream market. Another sign of the times: When it comes to offbeat, sometimes irreverent humor, ads targeted to Hispanic audiences are catching up to mainstream ads-which is to say, mainstream advertisers are getting more comfortable communicating to minority consumers.
• A contemporary Verizon ad: A young woman is trying to download a music-video clip using a slow dial-up connection. To add to her frustration, the song, José José's "La Nave del Olvido" [The Ship of Oblivion] gets stuck on the line "espera un poco, un poquitiiiiiiiii" [wait a bit more]. In Spanish, an announcer extols the virtues of Verizon High Speed Internet.
"A high percentage of Hispanic consumers," explains Marquita Carter, director of multicultural marketing for Verizon, "still use a dial-up connection." The spot ran on Spanish-language TV and radio in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Tampa, and Washington, D.C., as part of a campaign that also includes newspaper and online ads in Dallas and Los Angeles. Verizon is one of the country's top-ten advertisers in Spanish-language media, having spent $73.8 million in the first three quarters of 2008 (up 20 percent over the same period in 2007).
Other companies in the top ten include number-one Procter Gamble ($133.2 million for the first three quarters of 2008, up 13 percent), AT T, General Motors, McDonald's, Toyota, and Johnson Johnson. Total spending for the period topped $4 billion, an increase of 2.7 percent over 2007.
The Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) thinks it should be even more. "The Hispanic advertising industry," reported the organization's website in 2009, "is growing four times faster than all other sectors of advertising." Spending on Spanish-language advertising by 500 major U.S. companies represented 5.6 percent of the total spent in all media, but Hispanics, observes the AHAA, represent 15.1 percent of the total U.S. population.
About 9,000 members of that 15.1 percent are illegal aliens, but as far as John Gallegos is concerned, companies should direct advertising to them, too. "The guy who just came across the border with a coyote, do I want to go after him, too?" asks Gallegos, who runs Grupo Gallegos, an L.A.-area agency. "Well, he's going to get a job. He's going to work. He's going to start buying products and contributing to the economy. So while he might not be viable for a Mercedes today, I can introduce you to people who came here illegally or legally, with nothing, and are now driving a Mercedes. Advertising is aspirational. I want to aim ahead of where my audience is. Unless it's the equivalent of beef to Hindus, I always say, any product and any service should be sold to Latinos in this country."
• An old Milk Board ad: As a grandmother is preparing tres leches cake in a crowded kitchen, a slogan appears on the screen: " Familia, amor, y leche [Family, love, and milk]." A new Milk Board ad: Commuters hold on to train steps by their teeth. The slogan says, " Toma leche [Have some milk]."
Grupo Gallegos created the new Milk Board ad as well as one set in a town where gravity comes and goes. Locals aren't the least bit surprised to find themselves floating along 30 feet in the air or suddenly plummeting to the ground with bone-crushing impact. Fortunately, they drink a lot of milk, so they have exceptionally strong bones and walk away unscathed. "You have to put something out there that hasn't been seen before," says Gallegos art director Juan Pablo Oubiña, who didn't much care for the old " Familia, amor, y leche " Milk Board ad on more than one level. It reminded him of what's known as " Abuelita advertising," after a Spanish term for "grandma." It's better than traditional advertising for Hispanics dreamed up by non-Hispanic agencies (think businessmen in sombreros), but it's steeped in its own clichés-particularly Hispanics as cheerful suburban homeowners living in warm multigenerational families. "On any team I lead," vows Oubiña, "there is never going to be a kitchen with somebody exclaiming, 'Mmmm, how delicious.'"
Grupo Gallegos, which also has accounts with companies such as Fruit of the Loom, Comcast (high-speed Internet service), and Bally fitness centers, was careful to reconsider the Spanish wording of the Milk Board's well-known "Got Milk?" slogan. To many Spanish speakers, the easiest translation-" Tiene leche? "-apparently came across as something like "Are you lactating?" The replacement phrase-" Toma leche " ("Have some milk")-seems like an obvious solution, but as one journalist pointed out on her first viewing of the ad, "I appreciated what the challenge had been.… I was pretty sure that asking people in Spanish whether they have milk is a bad idea, since I had once learned the regrettable way that if you use Spanish to ask a male Mexican grocer, 'Do you have eggs?' you're inquiring as to his testicles."
• An ad for Southwest Airlines: A virile young Hispanic rollerblades up to a parked car to admire his image in the tinted window. The window unexpectedly rolls down to reveal two men inside the car who are also admiring him. "Want to get away?" reads the punchline, which is followed by a low airfare price.
"In advertising," observes Oubiña, "it's not easy to be different. It takes ten times as much work." And getting the language right isn't really the hardest part of making Spanishlanguage ads. Like this Southwest ad from the Hispanic-owned agency Dieste Harmel Partners, many of the latest-vintage Spanish-language ads have succeeded in appealing to Hispanic audiences by playing with and against stereotypes, but as one Hispanic marketing consultant observes, it's a tricky balancing act. "Not only are Americans comfortable with positive stereotypes as a means to be politically correct," says Jennifer Woodard, "but so are many Hispanics." The problem of stereotyping, she reminds us, is usually twofold: Advertisers tend to rely on stereotypes because they assume that they're somehow reflective of the mainstream, and the consumers being stereotyped tend to settle for stereotypes because they dominate the images of themselves that are available to them in the media.
• An ad for Fox Sports Net: Returning home from a shopping trip, a Hispanic woman detects an unpleasant odor in the house. The camera follows her as she follows her nose from room to room until she reaches the living room, where she realizes that her husband is so thoroughly immersed in a televised soccer game that he's been watching through the open door of a nearby bathroom.
This ad-another Grupo Gallegos creation-does a good job of playing with and against stereotypes because it bounces off the stereotype of the soccer-obsessed Latino in what Woodard describes as "a great example of taking a slice of life from a husband and wife, no matter the culture, and pushing the ad into entertainment." Contrast this ad, however, with the far more common appropriation of the same stereotype in TV advertising aimed at Hispanics. "[W]atch a few hours," suggests agency executive Tommy Thompson, "and count how many soccer-themed spots you see. And I'm not talking about World Cup season or during the airing of soccer matches where contextually it makes sense. It almost seems that soccer is the only way to connect with [Hispanic viewers]. What does soccer have to do with life insurance, for example? Are there really no other insights as relates to Hispanics' need for life insurance that can be communicated without soccer?"
Thompson, founder and president of Dallas-based iNSPIRE!, argues that advertisers should focus on "what makes the target [market] tick as it relates to [a] particular brand or category." It's advice that's already been put to good use in ads such as the Verizon and Energizer spots described earlier. For the Energizer ad, for example, Gallegos was originally given the task of making the brand "iconic" for Hispanic consumers-giving it immediately familiar symbolic value so that Spanish speakers would think of perpetual motion and say, " como el conejito Energizer ," the same way that English speakers think of perpetual motion and say "like the Energizer bunny." At Grupo Gallegos, brainstorming on a new account always starts with "Okay, aquí está el problema que tenemos when we really start looking at the brand," and the Gallegos team realized early on that most Hispanics don't associate batteries with perpetual motion (or anything else): For them, a battery is a battery. So Gallegos came up with an ad in which a Mexican man walks down the street and shares his realization that he's immortal-whereupon a two-story commercial sign falls on his head. Being immortal, he explains, he needs a very long-lasting battery for his camera.
• Ad for Virgin Mobile Telecoms: A man with cocker spaniel ears flapping in the wind drives his girlfriend in a convertible. A tagline appears: " No Soy Normal " [I'm Not Normal]."
You're a top manager in a large factory whose workforce is approximately 40 percent Hispanic. Business is down because of the recession, and you've learned that there's a rumor about layoffs circulating in the grapevine. In particular, a lot of Hispanic-speaking employees seem to think that they'll be laid off first. How should you deal with the rumor?

Question 25

Exercise Overview
A manager's interpersonal skills include his or her abilities to understand and to motivate individuals and groups. This in-class demonstration gives you practice in understanding the nonverbal and verbal behavior of a pair of individuals.
Exercise Background
Nonverbal communication conveys more than half of the information in any face-to-face exchange, and body language is a significant part of our nonverbal behavior. Consider, for example, the impact of a yawn or a frown or a shaking fist. At the same time, however, nonverbal communication is often neglected by managers. The result can be confusing and misleading signals.
In this exercise, you will examine interactions between two people without sound, with only visual clues to meaning. Then you will examine those same interactions with both visual and verbal clues.
Exercise Task
What does this exercise show you about the nature of nonverbal communication? What advice would you now give managers about their nonverbal communication?

Question 26

Which form of interpersonal communication is best for long-term retention? Why? Which form is best for getting across subtle nuances of meaning? Why?

Question 27

Keep track of your own activities over the course of a few hours of leisure time to determine what forms of communication you encounter. Which forms were most common? If you had been tracking your communications while at work, how would the list be different? Explain why the differences occur.

Question 28

Nonverbal Communication in Groups
Purpose: The role of nonverbal communication in organizations can be just as important as oral or written communication, but is often overlooked. This activity will make you more aware of the power of nonverbal communication and give you some practice in using it.
Instructions:
Step 1: Your instructor will break your class into groups of about 20. Change your seat as needed until the group members are sitting fairly close and facing each other. Count the exact number of members and agree upon the count as a group.
Step 2: Count out loud, one at a time, from 1 up to the total number of group members. The group must do this without discussion or planning about who will say each number. Members may not use any verbal or physical signals, for example no pointing, nodding, or touching. Each member must say exactly one number, and no number may be repeated. No two people may speak simultaneously.
Step 3: If any of the rules are violated, begin the task again from the number 1. Continue until the group successfully completes the task. Then answer the follow-up questions.
Follow-Up Questions:
How did the group arrive at this method? For example, did the group try several methods before settling on one?

Question 29

Think of one or two experiences from your own life that you'd particularly like to come up in a job interview. What sort of questions might allow you to "take the initiative" in making sure that they didn't fall through the cracks? How much time do you think each incident would be worth in a 30-45-minute interview?

Question 30

Exercise Overview
A manager's interpersonal skills include his or her abilities to understand and to motivate individuals and groups. This in-class demonstration gives you practice in understanding the nonverbal and verbal behavior of a pair of individuals.
Exercise Background
Nonverbal communication conveys more than half of the information in any face-to-face exchange, and body language is a significant part of our nonverbal behavior. Consider, for example, the impact of a yawn or a frown or a shaking fist. At the same time, however, nonverbal communication is often neglected by managers. The result can be confusing and misleading signals.
In this exercise, you will examine interactions between two people without sound, with only visual clues to meaning. Then you will examine those same interactions with both visual and verbal clues.
Exercise Task
Next, observe the same video segments, but this time with audio included. Describe the interaction again, along with any verbal clues you used.

Question 31

Describe the individual and organizational barriers to effective communication. For each barrier, describe one action that a manager could take to reduce the problems caused by that barrier.