Cross-cultural Communication (Kartik)

Today's bay area knowledge workers come from all the over the world and many people come from India. Understanding cultural differences is indeed crucial if one wants to have productive working relationships. I have been working with people from India for many years and I slowly learned about what is appropriate and what is not, like the example given with the handshake. I am sad to know that I have made some mistakes in the process but I eventually learned thanks to the patience of many people from India who eventually became my mentors and friends.
Learning and being culturally educated seems to become more important everyday and I am not surprised to know, based the research, that people that are better cross-culture communicators are paid more.

The Effect of Gender on Verbal and Non-Verbal Communications in the Work Place

I always figured there were differences between the verbal and the non-verbal communication between males and females but I did not what these differences were. Reading this poster has helped me understand how to better communicate when I communicate with my colleagues and my manager.

For example, you wrote that Allen and Griffith’s study suggests that “female employees send less information to their supervisors than male employees”. When I think about it I see that this is true for me. I do not send as much information to my supervisor as my male colleague. Now, I can see that this can be perceived as me interacting less with my supervisor than my colleague.

This is just one example. Reading your web poster made me more aware of how my communication verbal and non-verbal can be more efficient in the work place.

Concise versus Lengthy Communication

Most teachers ask students to write concisely. The objective is to learn to say what we mean to say in fewer words.
Yet, when I observe people communicating at work, it seems that the opposite is true and better perceived. People who communicate more are the ones getting noticed and eventually promoted. It seems that someone who does excellent work but keeps a lower profile does not get noticed as much as the person always talking... intelligently or not. It is almost as if the longer a person speaks the higher the chances of that person influencing others are. This influence seems to be more based on people just wanting the speaker to stop talking and therefore agreeing with him or her than on logic or data. Why is there a contradiction between what we learn in school and the corporate world?

People who only hear what they want to

When I met my new manager six months ago for the first time I thought that it would take a little time for him to come up to speed. I now realize that it is not a matter of time. He is not willing to understand our department current processes so he wants to change them all. While I agree that some changes are necessary, others are worth keeping. When I explain him the reasons why we should keep these processes, he does not listen. He only wants me to say what he wants to hear. This attitude puts me in a difficult position. If I tell him what he wants to hear, I am not thinking about what's best for the company. If I don't, then I risk losing my job. I really like the company I work for. How does one communicate with someone who refuses to listen? Or is it me who has not found the correct way to communicate? I have tried various methods such as emails, one on one meetings or talking to his manager. It is a very difficult juggling act. My next move is to try to talk to my mentor.

Not communicating as the most effective way of communicating

One of my colleagues always wants to know about everything all the time. She wants to be copied on every email. She currently has over 6000 emails in her inbox. We go to meeting and she will ask questions about everything and interrupt everyone to give her opinion. While we all appreciate her input we feel that our meetings with her are not productive. So we all started sharing information about what she really needed to know and inviting her less to meetings. Some people just seem hungry for information yet they never "digest" it. Some people make the correct assumptions with the little amount of information provided to them. When communicating, one should always remember who she or he is talking to and remember that sometimes too much information is worse than silence.

Emotions as a communication enabler or stopper

As I continue to think about what affects my communication skills and the reasons why I am not as good of a communicator as I should be, I realize that the effectiveness of my communications is heavily based on how I feel at a particular moment. If I have plenty of energy and if my day has gone well, I make more of an effort to communicate well. However if I am tired and it's close to the end of the day, then I tend to not communicate well if at all. Along the same line, if I am in a great mood and things are going well, I will make more of an effort to be more engaged. I know what I should say and how but sometimes I just chose not to, for reasons that I nothing to do with my communication skills. I guess it is better to not do the right thing and know about it than not do the right thing and not have a clue.

As I read about each chapter and learn more about organizational communication, I realize that many of the concepts do make sense yet I wonder why they are not followed by the majority of people in organizations. People who do not have the opportunity to take this class or any communication class should still be able to use their common sense to decide what to communicate, how and to whom. Throughout the postings from the students I read about so many situations where that has not happened. We all have been in situations where someone did not communicate or did but inappropriately. And, we'll also all been in situations where we did not communicate appropriately either. When I only focus on reasons why I haven't communicated at all or well enough, I realize that it is not easy. It seems that life goes by so fast and doing the right thing all the time is almost impossible. My management expects me to get things done, deadlines are aggressive and communication is often the part I must leave out.