Question

Describe an instance when your job was made more difficult and/or less pleasant because of poor communication on the part of your organization and/or manager.

• Explain what went wrong in that instance.
• Describe how the negative impacts could have been ameliorated or avoided. Distinguish between various communication obstacles and apply strategies to mitigate their negative effects when dealing within organizations.
  • Compare and contrast how communication obstacles and strategies to mitigate their negative effects would differ when dealing within organizations on a global scale.

Support your comments by discussing one or more examples from the contemporary environment.

Answer 1

Before leaving the workplace to become a home mom stay the last retail business I worked for had some significant communication challenges. I was a store manager and I would talk directly with my district manager; but, we got a new regional manager and HR manager constantly popping up in our stores or sending us an email without consulting with our district manager that contributed to a lot of uncertainty and mixed messages about what I was doing well and what I needed to do. Getting such a mixed-up communication mechanism and upper management did not see the issue was still incredibly frustrating for me, but it was certainly the store managers who did. The correspondence would have stayed solely via the district manager, and without the district manager the national and HR managers would not have stopped around. If they decided to be aware of the first-hand contact, instead of directly to the district manager, they would have revised our contact criteria to them.

Another struggle I had as a store manager at this particular retail company was with information overload. Information overload is when one is given more information than their processing capacity can hold. The communication mess from the district manager versus the regional and HR managers was also part of the information overload. The amount of phone calls and emails to answer to doubled because they all were sending information including sales information, things to be done, merchandise resets in stores, and miscellaneous communications. All three managers expected an answer back to each call and email while we were still just focused on running our stores and ensuring successful numbers (sales, conversion, transactions). It was way too much for one person to process.

Information overload is a common problem in retail environments and since reducing information is not always feasible or desirable, it is important to find other ways of overcoming information overload. If the managers at my previous company didn’t feel they needed to change the amount of phone calls or emails, they could have found another way to overcome the information overload. For example, giving each store manager the option to appoint one of their assistant managers to be in charge of the emails and that would only leave the phone calls/phone conferences to the store manager.