Guideline for topic selection and research

¶ … communications in a business setting compromise the work of that business, a solution must be found for the benefit of the company and of all who work there. Problems can arise when employees whose tasks require written communications skills are deficient in those skills. Problems can arise also when employees are expected to both understand and explain matters verbally and nonverbally.

The cure for the first problem could be as simple as sending the employee in question for writing instruction.

The cure for the second is, however, much less straightforward. The problem might arise because of the use, or misuse, of strategic ambiguity either by the employee exhibiting the problem, or by managers and colleagues who deal with her. Or it might be caused by an unrecognized personal problem of the employee, for example, a drinking/drugs problem or a cognitive disability of short or long duration. This paper looks at a single case of a financial manager exhibiting distressing verbal communications deficits, and suggests avenues for exploration in curing or minimizing the problem. It also explores the ways strategic ambiguity might be in play either by the other members of the company, or by the employee in question.

Research

Strategic ambiguity ethics

An important contribution to the literature concerning strategic ambiguity ethics was written by Jim Paul and Christy Strbiak. Paul was a doctoral candidate and Strbiak an assistant

Professor in the Department of Management at New Mexico State University when they wrote "The Ethics of Strategic Ambiguity" in 1997.

Paul and Strbiak began with the assumption that strategic use of ambiguity in communications would minimize the importance of ethics. Theirs was not so much a practical investigation of the effect of strategic ambiguity on workplace behavior by individuals or on the behavior of corporations, but rather an investigation into whether -- regardless of effect -- strategic ambiguity created an ethical dilemma.

They noted the strategic ambiguity allows addressing difficult issues and resolving or avoiding conflicts within organizations. They also noted that the absence of a clear message means that the receiver of the message can then apply to it his or her own construct. This might be a factor in the case of Abbie Logan, a group financial manager at an ad agency who has exhibited communications problems upsetting to colleagues and superiors alike. However, this will be further dealt with in the Synthesis section, below.

Paul and Strbiak also commented that ambiguous communications also allow denial of responsibility, another possible factor in the case of Abbie Logan.

But it was the ethics of strategic ambiguity, not its effects, that Paul and Strbiak were most interested in. They describe the problem as being one created when an individuals espoused ethics -- those they intend to live by -- and their 'ethics-in-use -- their actual behavior in any given situation -- are at odds. This, they conclude, constitutes unethical behavior. They wrote: "Strategic ambiguity is ethical when communicative behaviors are congruent with communicators' rational, logically consistent espoused ethics. Strategic ambiguity is unethical when it results from ethics-in-use that are incongruent with communicators' espoused ethics."

They also noted that employees might find themselves engaged in unethical behavior because a superior demanded it; a company executive might find himself of herself in such a predicament because of the needs of the corporation.

Paul and Strbiak concluded that whether strategic ambiguity minimized the importance of ethics was a moot point. "Intrapersonal ethical analysis does not differentiate between strategic ambiguity and other communicative strategies," and they agreed with a prior researcher, Clampitt (1991).

An instance of such a strategy might be the one they described in which a manager might respond to a proposal from a supplier with the strategically ambiguous phrase, "We'll study it." This, they said, would leave open the options, which was good for the organization, its employees and its customers.

To arrive at the conclusion that strategic ambiguity was not really an ethical issue, the authors used an intrapersonal approach; in other words, if the communication was not inconsistent with the individual's ethical intentions, then it was ethical. They called for further research in the realm of interpersonal assessment of strategic ambiguity; in short, does it violate the espoused ethics of either the person (group) issuing the communication or the person (group) receiving it?

Communications challenges

While strategic ambiguity can easily create problems of understanding in verbal communications, there are other reasons as well that frustration may occur in business communications. Lamar Reinsch and Annette N. Shelby investigated those experienced by a group of MBA students and reported the findings in their article, "Communication challenges and needs: perceptions of MBA students." Their intention was to better define needs of students when designing communications courses for MBA students, but the findings can apply equally well in the workplace, at least shedding light on some of the frustrations and challenges experienced there.

Reinsch and Shelby did an exhaustive literature review of studies regarding communications behaviors of people in various industries, or through various channels (writing, listening, interviewing), and job descriptions.

But they seemed particularly interested in the work of DiSalvo and Larsen, who found that the importance of specific communications skills depends on occupation (engineering or sales, for instance) and on direction, whether to one's superior or subordinates. They investigated the link between communications and business performance through a body of literature that suggested that communications practices affect both he success of individual managers and teams or even the organization itself.

Obviously, the success of all these entities is involved in any assessment of and cure for the Abbie Logan case.

By profiling and quantifying reports of enter students challenging work-related communications episodes, the researchers intended to find the locus of the problems. The questions asked were:

1. What types of communication events at work have most challenged MBA students?

2. What personal communication needs (skill deficiencies or general areas of weakness) do MBA students perceive?

The challenging communications episodes occurred in appraisal interviews, formal speeches, committee meetings, task assignments, telephone calls, interorganizational correspondence, customer service, and conversations with coworkers. Of these, of most cogency to the Abbie Logan case would be the committee meetings, task assignments, and conversations with coworkers aspects.

Predictably, the authors note:

The data identify task-related work-place interaction as the most frequently reported arena for a challenging episode. The second most commonly identified difficult communication setting, the formal speech or presentation, was listed by 20% of the respondents. Problems in formal meetings were noted by 10% of the respondents, while communication in social interaction was a reported difficulty for only 6% of the individuals. Most striking from these data is the fact that, of the incidents that challenged the respondents, most were either exclusively or partially oral ones.

Further, they noted that the most challenging of the incidents required respondents to transmit a message, rather than simply receiving messages created by others. And, they noted, the situation often required the respondent to communicate across an organizational boundary (for example, representing the employing firm to a client firm) or to communicate with individuals higher up in their firm (for example, senior managers).

The respondents themselves were asked what they thought would be the answer to their problems, and they indicated that increased self-confidence, more persuasiveness, better explanatory skills, less nervousness and better analytical skills would help.

Listening skills: part of the problem?

Lynn O. Cooper investigated the possibility that listening training programs are often based upon faulty assumptions about effective listening rather than appropriate research data, and she set out to correct that. Cooper's literature review discovered research by Lewis and Reinsch (1988) that argued that the question for corporate consultants to answer is not the same as that which educators are concerned about. It is not about the value of listening competency in the workplace; Cooper takes that as a given. It is, however, about how to effectively train workers to be more effective listeners and therefore more productive employees. Cooper intended to answer that question through the results of a ten-year Managerial Listening Survey.

Cooper concluded that listening competency is defined by behavior that is "appropriate" and "effective" as a result. This means that workers must understand the content of the interaction and not violate conversational norms or rules to excess. Effectiveness denotes the satisfaction of needs, completion of tasks or achievement of goals.

Cooper cites Lewis and Reinsch's 1988 study in which they identified three factors of effective organizational listening: following directions and suggestions, giving eye contact, and portraying general attentiveness Cooper noted that other researchers added the ability to paraphrase and to understand another's point-of-view.

Ineffective listening, on the other hand, was seen as failing to follow directions, not responding to a message verbally or nonverbally, talking to another, and forgetting previous messages.

The Managerial Listening Survey confirms other research on training and development, including that which recommends breaking down complex communication behavior into component skills. Lewis and Reinsch, Cooper noted, insisted that it is impossible to improve listening competency without looking at the employee's interpersonal communication, nonverbal communication and related skill training.

Cooper noted that formal training programs are helpful, but cited another researcher (Hall, 19976) who argued that most "real" training happens during peer-assisted, self-directed learning through such activities as project teams, task forces, electronic relationships, personal networks, customer relationships, and relationships with co-workers. But there was a caveat:

The organization will need to provide supervisory and technological support as well as an organizational culture that promotes learning and risk-taking.

Other possibilities

1. Annette Shelby investigated the quality of communication and determined that perceptions about it depended on variance, or lack thereof, between receiver expectations and outcomes. She developed six testable propositions regarding that, including the mechanical ways in which receivers process information. One of those described the optimal scenario: Under conditions of perceived high aesthetic quality, receivers process cues peripherally, with a result of high efficiency and enhanced effectiveness.

2. Jeanne D. Maes, et al., identified the core competencies that managers consider when selecting college graduates for entry-level jobs. The importance and usage frequency of specific oral communication skills used in entry-level jobs was examined. The researchers consistently identified oral communication as the most important competency in evaluating entry-level candidates. The four oral communication skills identified as most important for entry-level jobs are following instructions, listening, conversing, and giving feedback, all of which have some impact in the situation of Abbie Logan.

3. In a study called "Negative messages as strategic communication: a case study of a New Zealand company's annual executive letter," Winifred Crombie and Helen Samujh, both faculty members at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, investigated the common wisdom that all corporate communications should be positive, and found there was much to be gained, at times, from negative communications.

4. Timothy Sellnow investigated the use of ambiguity in crisis situations, and wrote:

We contend that ambiguity, when viewed in the context of a crisis situation, enables organizations to strategically communicate seemingly contradictory messages to distinct audiences. Putnam (1981) explains that "organizations are able to manage equivocally by imposing meanings on events; meanings that reduce, maintain, or increase equivocality."

5. In a study of the role of women in public relations, Krider and Ross discovered that language shaped reality. Verbal and nonverbal messages reminded women they are women; language women used to describe their own realities differed from that used by men.

6. "The relationship of drinking and hangovers to workplace problems: an empirical study," Genevieve M. Ames, Joel W. Grube, and Roland S. Moore indicates that employees who drank at work or just before work were significantly more likely to report that they had argued with a supervisor. Overall, they determined that work-related problems consisted of five factors, two of which -- the first and last -- may be intimately tied to communications problems. The five factors are: (1) conflicts with supervisors, (2) medical problems/injuries, (3) absences, (4) sleeping on the job, and (5) problems with job tasks/co-workers.

7. "Brief Cognitive Behavioral Interventions in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury," by Lori Jean Miller, Department of Psychiatry, University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, Tucson, Arizona, and Wiley Mittenberg, Center for Psychological Studies, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is interesting in that it defines behavioral factors that might follow a head injury, whether from an accidents, sports participation and so on. Among the factors are: memory impairment, a decline in intellectual functioning, impairment of planning abilities, and impairment of other higher cognitive functions. Additional symptoms that may follow traumatic brain injury include headache, dizziness, poor concentration, irritability, anxiety, depression, blurred vision, and fatigue. In addition, they point out that psychological factors may also follow on the initial injury, or during the period of coping with the other effects, a period which can last up to three months. Any of these symptoms persisting beyond that time would be considered brain disorders.

Synthesis

The authors cited here neither agree nor disagree with each other, as no two have investigated the specific issue of the ethics of strategic ambiguity. In fact, most support the others' findings, if from slightly different perspectives. And two of the studies cited, those concerning workplace drinking and cognitive problems caused by head injury, are included to offer some insight into other possible causes of what is apparently Abbie Logan's problem.