CHAPTER Communication
7 Key terms
Key terms and learning
outcomes 211
Why study communication? 212
Interpersonal
communication 214
Verbal communication 219
Non-verbal behaviour 223
Cultural differences in
communication style 228
Impression management 230
Emotional intelligence 233
Organizational
communication 235
Recap, Revision, Research
assignment 239
Springboard, OB cinema 241
Chapter exercises,
References 242
social intelligence power tells
communication process high context culture
coding low context culture
decoding impression management
perceptual filters emotional intelligence
noise communication climate
feedback employee voice
non-verbal behaviour
Learning outcomes
When you have read this chapter, you should be able to define those
key terms in your own words, and you should also be able to:
1. Describe the dimensions of social intelligence, and explain the
importance of this capability.
2. Understand the components of the interpersonal communication
process.
3. Identify the main barriers to effective interpersonal
communication.
4. Understand different questioning techniques, conversation controls
and listening skills.
5. Explain the nature and significance of non-verbal communication
cues and clusters.
6. Understand the nature and mechanisms of impression
management skills and techniques.
7. Assess the concept of emotional intelligence and its practical
significance.
8. Explain the nature and significance of an organization’s
communication climate.
9. Assess how social media can improve organizational communication
and strengthen employee voice.
212 Chapter 7 Communication

Why study communication?

People management skills

According to research by the Chartered Management • The ability to communicate is the most important skill
Institute, employers look at the following attributes when that a graduate can possess, according to employers.
recruiting graduates: This is followed by problem-solving, team-building
and motivational skills.
• Graduates must be able to manage a project, work in
a team, and communicate and persuade – both orally Source: Chartered Management Institute (2014, p.8)
and in writing.
• Nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of employers agree
that graduates lack the interpersonal skills necessary
to manage people.

Communication is central to understanding organizational behaviour for several reasons:

• The effectiveness of communication affects individual careers and organizational

performance.
• Very few people work alone; the typical management job involves interacting with other
people, often for more than 90 per cent of their time.
• Communication is seen as a problem in many organizations.
• In an increasingly diverse society, sensitivity to the norms and expectations of others is
vital to effective cross-cultural communication.
• New technology has radically changed how, what, and when we communicate.
Everything significant that happens in an organization involves communication: hiring and
training staff, giving feedback, purchasing supplies, solving problems, dealing with customers
Social intelligence and deciding strategy. However, many factors can interfere with communication: hierarchy,
the ability to understand power and status differences, job design, the nature of (part time, temporary) employment,
the thoughts and physical layouts and rules.
feelings of others Communications are improved if you are able to ‘feel’ what others are feeling. Can you
and to manage our ‘read’ what’s happening in complex social settings? Do you use that understanding to manage
relationships accordingly. your relationships? If so, then you have social intelligence. Despite modern communications
technology, personal interactions, one-to-one, face-to-face
(F2F), or ‘face time’ are still important, perhaps even more
so. Our ability to interact effectively with others was first
described as social intelligence in 1920 by Edward Thorndike,
but the idea was seen then as just another aspect of general
intelligence.
For Daniel Goleman (2007), social intelligence involves
social awareness (what we sense about others) and social
facility (how we act on that awareness). Each of these
dimensions has four components (see Table  7.1). Social
intelligence is crucial in a culturally diverse world. We often
find ourselves working with people from other cultures.
Cultures have different norms concerning how conversations
are handled, appropriate greetings, degree of formality, eye
contact, suitable topics for discussion, physical distance
between speakers, and the interpretation of gestures.
Technology, including social media, seems to have
made communication simpler. But technology-mediated
 Why study communication? 213

Table 7.1: Social intelligence

Social Primal empathy ‘Reading’ others’ emotions intuitively from small clues, such as a brief facial expression
awareness

Attunement Understanding the other person through sustained attention and careful listening

Empathic accuracy Understanding, through observation and inference, what someone feels and thinks

Social cognition Knowing how the social world works, what is expected, reading the social signals

Social Synchrony Orchestrating our interactions with the right gestures – smiles, nods, posture, timing
facility
Self-preservation Ability in interactions to trigger desired emotional responses in others, charisma

Influence Shaping the outcomes of interactions with tact and control, tuning actions to fit the
circumstances

Concern Capacity for compassion, sharing others’ emotions, elation or distress

communications (text messages, FaceTime, Skype) offer fewer social and non-verbal cues,
and give little information about the context in which others are working. The anonymity of
digital media also means that we are less aware of how our behaviour affects others.
Thomas J. Allen demonstrated in the 1970s that the frequency with which we communicate
depends on distance (Allen and Henn, 2006). At that time, we were four times more likely to
communicate regularly with someone who was two metres away from us than with someone
who was 20 metres away, and we rarely communicated with colleagues on separate floors or
in other buildings. He expressed this finding in ‘The Allen curve’ (Figure 7.1).
Does distance no longer matter in today’s digitally connected world? Yes it does. Research
by Ben Waber et al. (2014) shows that the Allen curve is still valid. Indeed, proximity has
become more important as technology has developed. In one study, engineers sharing an
office were 20 per cent more likely to communicate digitally than those who worked at other
locations. When close collaboration was necessary, colleagues in the same location sent four
times the volume of emails compared with those in other locations, leading to faster project
completion times. Waber et al. (2014, p.73) conclude, ‘out of sight, out of sync’.
more
communications
less

close proximity distant

Figure 7.1: The Allen curve

214 Chapter 7 Communication

Instead of making communication easier, Moser (2013,

p.29) argues that, ‘Virtual work requires much more frequent
and elaborate communication and thus much more effort
compared to traditional work settings. Things that literally
work “without saying” in a face-to-face context need to be
made explicit, discussed and agreed on in a virtual work
context. This is only possible if there is an awareness of the
central differences in working face-to-face versus virtually,
and if the employees have both the motivation and the ability
to engage in that extra effort’. If you rely on the apps on your
smartphone to communicate with others, be aware that you
are not practising – and not developing – the face-to-face
skills that are needed in most jobs, and expected by most if
not all employers.

EMPLOYABILITY CHECK (interpersonal skills, communication skills)

How do you rate your communication skills – written and oral? Do you feel that you spend too much time
communicating through apps and social media rather than face-to-face? What practical steps can you take
in order to improve your face-to-face communication skills?

Interpersonal communication
Conversation: a competitive sport in which the first person to draw breath is declared
the listener.
Communication
process the In most cultures, conversation is a social imperative in which silences are discouraged
transmission of (Finland is different). Normally, as soon as one person stops talking, another takes their
information, and the turn, following the unwritten ‘no gap, no overlap’ rule. The currency of conversation is
exchange of meaning, information. We ask you the time. You tell us the time. Information has been transmitted.
between at least two Interpersonal communication has been achieved. However, the communication process is
people. more subtle and interesting.
We will first focus on interpersonal communication. A more detailed study would recognize
the importance of other aspects of communication, including the use of different media,
networks, and inter-organizational communication. The principles that we will explore, however,
have wide application. For the moment, let us focus on ‘one-on-one’ or F2F communication.

We all have experience of ineffective communication. Did you misunderstand the other
CRITICAL
person, or did they misunderstand you? The last time this happened to you, what caused
THINKING
that communication failure? Share this with colleagues to see if there are common causes.

We do not receive communication passively. We have to interpret or decode the message.

To the extent that we interpret communication from others in the manner they intended, and
they in turn interpret our messages correctly, then communication is effective. However, the
communication process is prone to errors.
 Interpersonal communication 215

Interpersonal communication involves more than the

transfer of information. Pay attention to the next person who
asks you what time it is. You will often be able to tell how they
are feeling, and about why they need to know, if they are in
a hurry, perhaps, or if they are anxious or nervous, or bored
with waiting. In other words, their question has a purpose, a
meaning. Although it is not always stated directly, we can often
infer that meaning from the context and from their behaviour.
The same applies to your response – which suggests, at
least, a willingness to be helpful, may imply friendship, and
may also indicate that you share the same concern as the
person asking the question (we are going to be late; when
will this film start?). However, your reply can also indicate
frustration and annoyance; ‘five minutes later than the last
time you asked me!’. Communication thus involves the
transmission of both information and meaning.
This process of exchange is illustrated in Figure 7.2 which
shows the main elements of interpersonal communication. This model is based on the work
of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver (1949), who were concerned with signal processing
in electronic systems, rather than with organizational communication. At the heart of this
Coding the stage model, we have a transmitter sending a
in the interpersonal message to a receiver. We will assume
communication process that the channel is face-to-face, rather
in which the transmitter than text, phone, or email.
chooses how to express a It is useful to think of how the
message for transmission transmitter phrases and expresses
to someone else. the message as a coding process; the
transmitter chooses words, and also
Decoding the stage how the message will be expressed
in the interpersonal (loud and with exasperation, quiet and
communication process in a friendly manner, for example). The
in which the recipient success of our communication depends
interprets a message on the accuracy of the receiver’s
transmitted to them by decoding; did they understand the
someone else. language used, and appreciate the

context

perceptual lters perceptual lters

coding channel decoding

transmitter message receiver

feedback

context

Figure 7.2: Exchanging meaning: a model of the communication process