Chapter 1 The Changing Enviorment for Business

The chapter talks about the changing environment in business. About how the environment is changing and the business needs to change for the good of the environment, the business needs to be socially responsible with their actions. The entire chapter was basically about the environment and how it has changed throughout the years. But one of the last points talked about how communication through the company is how the company stays socially responsible.

My focus is on what we discussed in class. We discussed how communication is one of the most important issues facing the workforce. We spoke about the communication process, and how many things can interrupt the encoding, and decoding process. The goal that the company is trying to set fourth can be at risk because of noise within the communication process. Noise is anything that can interrupt the process including literal noise (fans, radio), or the fact that your significant other had broken up with you that morning and that’s all you are thinking about, to even just being sleep deprived.

In company meetings where the mission statement and vision statement are being stated, the goal is to get all the employees on the same page. The reason a company does this is to share the mission/vision that the company is working for so the employees are working for the common goal.

For example, I work at a swim camp in Austin TX, as a Counselor/coach. The first week of our duties include attending meetings to get the 23 other Counselor/coach’s on the same page. Some of these meetings are long and drawn out. Our boss does not come up with any creative ways to get the messages across except his mono-toned deep boring voice that goes on for 3 hours. There is a problem here. For the sleep deprived people, especially the new employees who are sleep deprived from their late nights out, they seem to drift in and out of sleep during these meetings. The problem with this is if you do not hear all of the rules such as “you may not enter a room of the opposite sex (a kids room), without a counselor of the same sex with you.” Joe one of the counselors had dozed off during this rule, or was not paying attention (noise), because the first week of camp he was caught on three occasions in a female’s room without a female counselor present. This hurt Joe and he had to be talked to by the boss.

The funny thing about this example is, if our boss would have been a bit more creative getting the rules across Joe, would not have fallen asleep as easily.

A second topic we discussed was the encoding and decoding process. The message can get across by encoding through a cell phone, or face to face contact, and decoding is how the person being communicated to understands the message. The thing is different people learn/listen differently than others. Different personalities take information differently.

For example, at this swim camp, the counselors must help out in the locker room after every session. The counselors are supposed to know this rule, yet one counselor, Reba, did not usually enjoy the people she was working with so she would avoid the locker room which meant she was avoiding her responsibilities. The girls she did not like did not help out the situation; they just bickered and talked behind her back. I did not particularly like Reba, but to get her to do her task of going into the locker room I simply just talked her, and let her feel welcomed. After that I said “hey lets do what we need to do, to the locker room we go.” After this there were no complains of her not doing her duties. Different people need to be communicated with differently to get them to do what is needed. Sometimes it is more about actions than actual words.

For more information on communication here is a link to an article about “Effective Workplace Communication? It’s more than just talk.”

http://www.words-at-work.com/goodcomm.htm