Transcript Chapter 6: Overcoming Obstacles to Communicating in Organizations

Chapter 6:
Overcoming Obstacles to
Communication in Organizations
Communicator Anxiety
• Examples of
Communicator
Anxiety
– Expressing Ideas to
Colleague
– Giving instructions to
your employees
– Participating in a
group discussion
– Interviewing or being
interviewed
– Giving an oral
presentation
Types of Communication
Anxiety
• Situational Anxiety
– Firing an employee
– Presenting a
controversial idea
– Selling a product to a
new client
– Approaching a banker
for a loan
– Meeting new boss
• Trait Anxiety
– Personal
– Internal feeling
– Experienced
regardless of the
situation
Managing Situational Anxiety
• Prepare and Practice
• Warm Up
– Vocal exercises
– Stretching
• Use Deep Breathing
• Use an introduction that will relax you
• Concentrate on Communicating Your
Meaning
• Use Visual Aids
Trait Anxiety
Communication Apprehension
• Many people with trait anxiety feel that they
– 1) are different from other speakers
– 2) have a history of negative speaking experiences
– 3) consider themselves inferior to others.
• May be an inborn trait
– Communibiology
• Positive imagery and visualization, is a
successful technique in managing trait anxiety.
– Law of Attraction
– Positive imagery exercise on page 155
Obstacles to Communication
• Inadequate preparation
• Vague Instructions
– 8 rules for giving instructions (page 157)
• Jumping to conclusions
– Inference-observation confusion, occurs when we fail to
distinguish between what we observed firsthand and what we
inferred
– Examples page 163
• Bypassing
– we assume that a word has the same meaning for other people
that it does for us
– See terms on page 165
• Sexual Harassment
– Loss of human dignity and decreased productivity in the
workplace
– Definition on page 166
Communication Technology
Obstacles
• Figure 6.4 on page 169
• E-mail, Instant Messages, Blogs
– Increases access and faster retrieval of
information
• Electronic Meetings
– Telecommuters complete tasks offsite
• Videoconferencing
– Used by multiple location companies to
communicate with employees