Week 11 - Emotion Processes

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Hi guys, welcome to Week 11. This week we are going to discuss something about processes of emotion in the workplace. Emotion? Yes, because communication and operation in organisations are not purely logical and rational. Decision-making processes, for instance, could not be perfectly rational because of cognitive and situational limits on rationality.

Emotion is part of the job. In many cases, communication between employee and client involves some degree of emotional or affective content, such as nurses and physicians. Hochschild (1983, cited in Miller 2012, p.200) uses the term “emotional labour” to refer to jobs in which workers are expected to display certain feelings in order to satisfy organisational role expectations.

Miller et al. (2007, cited in Miller 2012, p.201) use the term emotional work to describe people who are not in frontline service jobs but instead hold professional positions in industries where emotion management are rarely recognised by workers.

Individuals in all organisational roles feel emotion in the workplace. A number of aspects of work relationships are largely emotional.

l  Psychological abuse (bullying)

l  Feelings and emotional display

l  The tension between the public and private in work relationships

l  Relational networks and emotional buzz

l  Conflicting allegiances

l  Emotional rights and obligations at work

Understanding the emotion rules for emotional display in the workplace and understanding the role that emotional intelligence might play in a wide variety of workplace interaction are very critical.

Negative emotions are likely to jeopardise organisational performance, the investigation of stress in the workplace plays a crucial role in coping with negative emotions in organisations.

There are some key concepts must take into consideration:

Burnout – refers to a “wearing out” from pressures of work.

Stressors – workload, role conflict and role ambiguity

There are many ways an individual might react to burnout:

l  Problem-centred coping

l  Appraisal-centred coping

l  Emotion-centred coping

Organisation can also play a role in reducing burnout:

l  Participation in decision making

l  Social support

It is quite obvious that emotions, including anger, fear, frustration, hurt, give us clues about what needs to change in our workplace, in our approach to jobs, or in our relationship with co-workers.

In this week's tutorial, we discussed quite a lot about emotion and its workplace and even social influences. We used an example regarding the NSW bushfire media briefing, the emotional response by RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons is noteworthy because his break-down can not only stimulate frontline firefighters who fighting severe bushfires in NSW but also stimulate firefighters in other states. We found that  

His emotion is a kind of positive energy motivating firefighters to protect our homes. 

This week, I’d recommend you guys to watch Rachel Green’s interview with Steve Wells. A very interesting and concise conversation with respect to emotional processes in organisational communication.  

References:

Green, R 2011, What values are emotions in the workplace? with Emotional Intelligence coach Rachel Green, video, YouTube, 6 October, viewed 12 November 2013,

< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_LSCn8PPYw>

Miller, K 2012, Organisational communication – approaches and processes, 6^th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston.

Seven News 2013, RFS Commissioner breaks down, video, YouTube, 17 October, viewed 20 October 2013,

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-5brBb-gqQ>

Week 10 - Leadership Processes

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Welcome to Week 10, pals, as we’ve discussed last couple of weeks, contemporary organisations are changing constantly, hence organisational communication processes are therefore designed to fit in with this changing society. This week, we are going to discover a very static component in the organisation – leadership – which has not been changed as dramatic as other components such as human resources management processes and decision-making processes.

Some theorists propose that there are particular qualities that will tend to be associated with leaders and that will result in success in leadership activities (Miller 2012, p.188). Intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability are the determinant traits that could identify a person’s leadership. But in recent year, many scholars rejected that trait approach to leadership, they turned to ideals that emphasised the “match” of the style of the leader to the characteristics of the situation.

Scholars suggest that models of leadership have moved from relatively simplistic ideas about the traits and styles of effective leaders, through models that suggest that different styles and skills are appropriate in different situations, to models that see leadership as a process of building relationships through interaction with followers and modelling desired values.

Likewise, Fairhurst (2007, cited in Miller 2012, p.193) believes that leadership is accomplished through interaction with others, is a process of meaning management, and is grounded in the accomplishment of tasks. His view replaces simplified concepts of leaders using the tool of communication to influence followers with a consideration of the ways in which leading is constructed through the discourse of a dispersed group of actors in an organisational context.

Schachter (2013) in his media article discusses some essential skills for leaders in organisations. As he points out, there are seven interaction sins need to be steered away:

l  Going straight to the problem

l  Figuring one size fits all

l  Avoiding tough issues

l  Influencing through facts only

l  Forgetting to engage others

l  Neglecting to coach in the moment

Schachter said there are many things happening in every day’s conversation, but leaders need to focus on two priorities during conversation:

l  Dealing with practical needs

l  Recognising personal needs

Please read Schachter’s article carefully, see how he portrayed the processes of leadership in organisational communication.

References:

Miller, K 2012, Organisational communication – approaches and processes, 6^th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston.

Schachter, H 2013, ‘Essential conversation skills for leaders’, The Global and Mail, 10 November, viewed 12 November 2013,

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/management/essential-conversation-skills-for-leaders/article15295536/>

Week 9 - Conflict Management Processes

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Welcome to Week 9, guys, the topic of this week revolves around conflict management processes in organisation. Conflict occurs every day and everywhere around the world, for organisations, conflict can be both destructive and productive (Miller 2012, p.161). Through communication, organisational members create and work through conflicts in ways that can be either functional or dysfunctional.

Conflict is the interaction of interdependent people who perceive opposition of goals, aims, and values, and who see the other party as potentially interfering with the realisation of these goals (Putman & Poole 1987, cited in Miller 2012, p.162).

There are three basic level of organisational conflict:

1)   Interpersonal level

2)   Intergroup conflict

3)   Interorganisational conflict.

Likewise, people move through phases as conflicts develop subside. Pondy (1967, cited in Miller 2012, p.163) proposes five phases that characterise organisational conflict:

1)   Latent conflict

2)   Perceived conflict

3)   Felt conflict

4)   Manifest conflict

5)   Conflict aftermath

Some theorists used the Managerial Grid as a way of exploring the styles and strategies when people involved in interpersonal conflict. Thomas (1976, cited in Miller 2012, p.165) conceptualise the two dimensions of the Managerial Grid, 1) concern for self, 2) concern for others. He then identified five conflict styles:

l  Competition

l  Collaboration

l  Compromise

l  Avoidance

l  Accommodation

Bargaining and negotiation is seen as a more formal way of settling organisational dispute. Third-party intervention is a very effective way to buffer conflicts.

There are a number of approaches can be used to resolve conflict, approaches ranged from classical approach to critical approach. Please see Table 9.4 in your text book, page 176.

As far as I am concerned, resolving conflicts in an organisation is very complicated and thorny, therefore problem solvers require sophisticated skills regarding conflict management and organisational communication.

When I worked for that English-training organisation, I was involved in a conflict that that was long been stuck in my mind. One day our department manager requested me and my colleague to discuss a teaching activity regarding Christmas Day with colleagues of the Department of Academy. But the conflict between us occurred instantly,

1.    Our department expect to do more entertainment-oriented and marketing-oriented activity so that students are able to have a chance to be involved in further services and products out of traditional studying and teaching activity.

2.    The colleagues of the Department of Academy insist in their notion that students would not be interested in any commercial and creative events, they focus only on study and score.

But our managers tried not to be involved in our conflict because they did not want to be in trouble with their own relationships. As a result, the Christmas Day event was become naught. So a set of concise and consistent conflict management is crucial for organisational communication.

It is therefore obvious that conflict management techniques are substantially indispensable for organisations.

Don Capener wrote a very detailed and comprehensive media coverage regarding workplace conflict management and resolution. He provides a six-step conflict resolution model that can be employed effective in resolving organisational conflict. Please click the link below and find something useful from his article.

References:

Capener, D 2013, ‘Conflict resolution – a proven model for success’, Advantage Business Magazine, 5 November, viewed 11 November 2013,
< http://advantagebizmag.com/archives/17568>

Miller, K 2012, Organisational communication – approaches and processes, 6^th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston.