Interviewing HR ManagerWhen interviewing the HR manager Ahmed Al-Salim, who works at a well-known bank in Kuwait, I addressed three specific questions to him regarding communication breakdowns. Because communication is really key to a strong HR department, I wanted to see how well he responded to breakdowns in communication among the topic areas of internal politics, decisions making and leadership. Specifically, I asked: How do communication breakdowns in these areas influence the manager's ability to function effectively in the job.

Regarding breakdowns in communication pertaining to internal politics, he responded: Internal politics is inevitable at any workplace, regardless of the culture. People will try to jockey for position, will try to curry favor, will be upset about some policy, or will want a co-worker or boss to be either rewarded or censored for various reasons. When two individuals cannot find a common ground or fail to see the other's point-of-view, this can lead to a breakdown in communication -- and what the HR manager is affected is in his ability to keep everyone moving on the same page towards the same goal. With internal politics, there is a tendency for different aims to appear organically and for movements to come up. What I like to do is to identify these movements and identify the seeds of them -- why they are happening,...

There is a need to locate the basis for the disruption, for the diversion so as to overcome the obstacle of communication breakdown. It is like running out of gas on the road. You get out and walk back to the last petrol station and fill up a can and take it back to the can: the fuel in this case is information -- and you take that back to the scene of the breakdown and call a meeting and share the information and show everyone where these different movements are coming from and why they are going in different directions. It can be very useful for everyone because it gives them context and they are able to step outside themselves for a minute and see more of their surroundings and more of themselves and more of the direction of the overall company and how aims and strategies should be aligning. If there is still a breakdown I repeat back to the person or group what they are saying to show that I understand and then I ask them why they feel that way and we walk back to gather more data, because maybe there is something that I missed. The important thing is that we are all together now communicating whereas before there was a breakdown. By listening and posing questions it provides space to clear the air and get things moving again. This is…