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Leadership Harvard English Lessons
Leadership Harvard English Lessons
Leadership Communications
After one of her vice presidents came to her asking to spearhead new projects, Chris Coleman
believed she was handing him a plum assignment when she put him in charge of launching a new
competitive intelligence service for clients of her Atlanta marketing firm, Folio Z. So she was
thrown up for a loop when, 30 days after she offered him the project, he quit.
What happened ? It turned out that when Coleman made her offer, she said one thing, and her
employee heard something completely different. I told him it would be a big opportunity, she
says. And I didnt clarify what I meant.
For the vice president, the only possible meaning was getting a big staff and a bigger title. When
he discovered a few days later he would receive neither, he felt he was undervalued and had been
misled and left in a huff.
Unfortunately, such miscommunications are a fact of business life. And in todays high-pressure
workplaces, theyre more likely than ever to happen. A manager excuses an employee on deadline
from coming to a meeting, unwittingly making that employee think his input isnt valued. Another
remarks one Friday afternoon how glad she is the weekend is around the corner, causing her staff to
believe shes not committed to the company or to them.
The bottom line : If its possible for something to be misunderstood, it will be, says Francie
Dalton, president of Dalton Alliances, a communications consultancy in Columbia, Md.
Such misunderstandings can have a significant impact on productivity and morale, say
communications experts. In Colemans case, it led to the resignation of a valued employee. In
others, miscommunication may cause everything from confusion and hurt feelings to the sabotaging
of a managers ability to lead. And it takes a lot to set things right an average of five rounds of
back-and-fourth communication before you clear up your message, says Theresa Welbourne, an
adjunct professor of HR at the University of Michigan Business School (Ann Arbor), who also runs
eePulse, an Ann Arbor-based company that provides employee feedback to managers.
What happens between Points A and B
People will hear what they expect to hear, says Coleman. She points to a new employee who,
through no fault of her own, was involved in a major project failure, one that ran up $15,000 in
extra costs for the company. When it was all over, Coleman approached her and asked, How are
we going to keep this from happening again? The employee, expecting to be blamed for the
mishap, heard the simple question as a rebuke something Coleman discovered the next day, when
a colleague revealed the woman felt shed been beaten up, she says.
Welbourne cites a manufacturing company that held a town meeting to announce process
changes meant to increase product quality. When she polled employees later, however, she
discovered that the No. 1 message employees heard was that layoffs were in the offing even
though none were. Its just that the employees, anxious about job security, were primed to hear the
news they most feared.
Here are other reasons that a disconnect occurs between managers words and employees
understanding of them :
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VOCABULARY ACTIVITY
I - Check the right meaning of the boldfaced/underlined words in the article according to its context:
1- to spearhead new projects means :
(a) to prepare new projects
(b) to lead new projects
(c) to send new projects
2 - a plum assignment is :
(a) a very good assignment that a lot of people would like
(b) a very good fruit that everybody would like to eat
(c) a terrible task that no one wants to carry out
3 if someone leaves in a huff this person
(a) is extremely happy about something
(b) feels rewarded and fulfilled
(c) feels annoyed or offended
4 unwittingly means :
(a) unintentionally
(b) intentionally
(c) slowly
5 someones morale is
(a) their principles and beliefs
(b) the way they see the world
(c) their confidence and optimism
6 something considered as a rebuke is seen as a/an
(a) reprimand
(b) compliment
(c) effort
7 when youre polled you are
(a) registered in a group
(b) asked about something
(c) mentioned in a conversation
8 if something is in the offing it is
(a) imminent
(b) already happening
(c) not happening
9 to convey a message means :
(a) to write it down
(b) to listen to it
(c) to communicate it
The prefix mis- implies that something is wrong or is badly done (remember the
word mistake ?). Other examples :