User talk:Maya Geleroff

Managerial Communication refers to communication in the workplace between managers and team members. The term manager according to the Oxford dictionary is “a person responsible for controlling or administering all or part of a company or similar organization”. The manager’s job ,in a basic sense, can be divided into three broad areas: planning, coordinating, and commanding (Cite1).

There has been plenty of research surrounding the uses and differences between informal and formal communication as used by managers in the workplace. Formal communication is communication that is established in advance, with a set agenda. An example of formal communication is weekly agenda meetings. However, informal communication is seen to be much more commonly used by managers. Informal communication is unscheduled and random, with varying numbers of participants and topics (Cite 4). Furthermore, the following study by Kraut, Fish, et. al 1990 professes that informal communication leads to better organizational and group communication and increased efficiency (Kraut 7). This is because managers can gain a broad idea from a variety of sources about how his/her team is working. It is essentially the difference between constant continuous updates and periodic updates.

Managers, the gatekeepers of an organization

In studying research and development laboratory communication patterns, Thomas Allen developed the concept of a “gatekeeper”. In the science field, technological gatekeepers are described as “key people to whom others frequently turned for information”. The results of this study show that the reason people become gatekeepers is because they communicate and retrieve information from outside their organization. This concept can be applied to many different fields (it has been studied in the case of voter decisions as well) and proves that groups respond better to a person who communicates outside information to them, even if they have already accessed that information on their own. Managers themselves often act as gatekeepers because their general job description entails communicating outside their organization. Thus, they can later relay that information back into their group who will then use it for some purpose. (Cite 14)

''' Managerial Roles '''

''Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles (Cite 5)''

Henry Mintzberg, a renowned academic author on business and management developed ten distinct roles that managers take part in. As a whole, the roles are part of a larger responsibility that the manager has of formal authority. The roles are grouped into three sections: interpersonal roles, information processing roles, and decision roles. The roles described below are some that involve direct managerial communication. Interpersonal roles involve basic relationships between the manager and their stakeholders. Within the interpersonal category, the roles Mintzberg defined are as follows:


 * Figurehead: performs ceremonial duties, ex. Taking an important client out to lunch.
 * Leader: hiring and training their staff, motivate and encourage employees
 * Liaison: making contacts outside the vertical chain of command

These interpersonal roles are a key component of managerial communication due to the importance of superior-subordinate communication. In the role of “leader”, superior-subordinate communication is the main way information is shared between leader and team (Cite 13). In the example given above, this type of communication would apply to a leader training their staff. Additionally, the roles of figurehead and liaison utilize communication in the “gatekeeper” sense, explained further “here” (hyperlink to gatekeeper section).

Processing information is one of the most integral parts of a manager’s job. Most of an executive’s time is spent in transmitting information and most of their incoming mail is purely informational. Within transmission of information there is communication and the three roles that describe this transmission process are:


 * Monitor: perpetually scanning the environment for information. ex: asking questions to liaison contacts and subordinates
 * Disseminator: passes information to subordinates and others who otherwise would not have access to it
 * Spokesperson: sends information to people outside the group

Within the informational roles of a manager, communication is the root of their actions. Over 70% of managers’ mail (a method of communication) is purely informational and other information-dispensing actions such as telephone/video calls and meetings consist solely of verbal and face to face communication(Cite 5). Once again, the spokesperson role matches well with the communication concept of managers as “gatekeepers”.

Differences between Leaders and Managers

While the terms “leader” and “manager” are often used interchangeably, there are subtle differences between the roles of leaders and those of managers. Abraham Zaleznik describes the difference by looking at what the two focus on. He says that leaders are “active instead of reactive, shaping ideas instead of responding to them”. On the other hand, managers “tend to adopt impersonal attitudes towards goals...[that] arise out of necessity rather than desire” (Cite 8). Furthermore, he says that in general, managers are the ones to cut down and make projects feasible, whereas leaders are constantly expanding on ideas. He basically is saying that leaders are the creative force that drives a project, whereas managers are the ones who make sure people are staying up to date with tasks and are the ones who delegate what must be done next. Another common view of the differences between leaders and managers is by JP Kotter, a Harvard Business School professor. He describes managers as “coping with complexity”, and “bringing a degree of order and consistency to key dimensions like the quality and profitability of products”. He then describes leadership as “coping with change” (Cite 9). These are two very similar, but slightly different, ideas about leadership and management. That is not to say that leaders and managers cannot be the same person (often times they are), but that they are two figurehead roles that aim in slightly different directions. Types of Leadership

Task leadership vs Relational Leadership

Task leadership is defined as the strong concern for the group’s goals and the means in which the group can achieve their goals. Within task oriented leadership, managers focus on the assumed roles, skills, and behavior that each group member can use to complete a task and move them closer to the group’s goal. A common method of communication within task leadership is the use of a written agenda in a staff meeting. With this agenda, members of the group are able to simultaneously read and listen to what actions the group must take to complete a certain goal. As a result, managers who utilize task leadership are often psychologically distant from their followers and can be perceived as aloof and cold. Additionally, task oriented leaders tend to create very systematic, organized groups that allocate labor efficiently and successfully finish the task at hand. (Cite 12) Relational leadership is defined as the extent to which a manager uses a human relations approach and attempts to try and remain friendly. The communication aspect of relational leadership can be most exemplified by informal communication, i.e. hallway chats, coffee breaks, etc.(CITE SOMETHING IN INFORMAL COMM?) Leaders who express great concern and care are grouped as “relational” and can often develop social and emotional ties to their subordinates. There is less control in relational leadership than in task leadership, but the leader does take a supervisory role. This type of leadership is characterized by trust, support, and open communication between leader and followers. In order to achieve fair separation of labor, the leader would delegate opportunities for the subordinates to use their potential skills in completing a task.(Cite 11)(Cite 5) Transactional Leadership

Transactional Leadership is based mostly on task accomplishment. In exchange for the subordinate’s completed task, the manager awards them with communication of a praise, reward, or withholds punishment. This type of leadership allows for managers to be clear with group roles and establishes an incentive for the group members to complete their respective tasks.Transactional leadership is most common in cases where the leader is an expert who is “coaching” a certain team or group. Coaches will be able to develop and better their team through transactions of corrections, the group/subordinate’s result, and feedback. In this basic example, if a member of a team does a task correctly, they are rewarded with positive feedback which is enough incentive to make them continue practicing that correct task. (Cite 5)

Transformational Leadership Transformational (or charismatic) leadership is a style that embodies meaningful and creative exchange between leaders and followers in order to elicit a vision within the group and lead towards the goals that would make that vision a reality. Transformational leaders are often risk-takers and seize opportunities to solve problems within their group. They lead through charisma and work to transform a group members motivation to achieving the group’s goals. Working to develop the group and increase self-actualization within group members, transactional leaders communicate and take action using inspiration, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. (Cite 5)

Management, Communication, and Distributed Teams

Managing a distributed team is one aspect that managers deal with rapidly growing frequency. In today’s world, the advent of easy communication methods across geographic locations has spurred the growth of distributed teams, with members located in different offices, sometimes even in different countries. However, there is a lot of evidence that this can cause more harm than good. The following study by Armstrong and Cole studied nine distributed groups within a Fortune 100 company. All groups had access to technological communication devices such as email, fax, group video conferencing and chat, etc. The study found two main problems: issues with communications, and that they suffered from escalating conflicts (cite 10). First, while technology surrounding communication methods have greatly improved in recent years, there are still issues with communicating across locations. There are logistical issues like lapses in time zones which cause problems; there are technology issues like poor quality for group video conferencing. Furthermore, and more importantly, most group bonds are made when people work face to face. Across distances, it is harder to establish group cohesion. There is plenty of evidence that shows groups that are co-located maintain closer communities (cit 10).

Management, Informal Communication, and Interruptions There have been several studies that look into the idea of interruptions and informal communication. Informal communication is characterized by interruptions. This is because as information is needed (by managers and team members alike), these people go out and get the information they seek because to wait for the necessary information would put a stop to whatever work he/she was doing at the same time. However, this causes a major issue: while these interruptions significantly help the manager complete his task, these interruptions significantly detract from the efficiency amongst workers. One study by O’Conaill and Frohlich (1995) spent 29 hours of studying 2 managers to see their interruption patterns. They found that on average, every 13.9 minutes they interrupted one of their team members, and that most of these interruptions benefitted the manager and detracted from the team member’s work. Only 50% of the time the person interrupted ends up going back to the work that he/she was doing before the introduction (Cite 6). This ties in to the idea of the time famine, which is discussed below.

Perlow Time Famine, An Overview The Perlow Time Famine was an experiment by Leslie Perlow, of the University of Michigan, that studied the work habits of managers and their engineering teams. This experiment, over the course of 9 months, looked at how the work teams’ working habits led to an idea of a “time famine”, which means that workers feel like they have too much work to do and never enough time to do it. The experiment took interviews, shadowing, and diary entries from workers to chart their work levels and how they spent their day. What Perlow found was that people were constantly being interrupted at all points of the day, and that, like the O’Conaill and Frohlich study, participants rarely went directly back to the task they were previously working on. Furthermore, their inability to return to the task at hand elicited a much more stressed out worker who felt like they could not finish their tasks. Perlow had the following explanations for the effects. Perlow Time Famine, Results It appeared that managers needed to communicate to a much larger extent than their team members did, partly because of the essence of the manager’s job is to understand where the team is at all times. However, the team members needed solo time to sit down and complete their work without interruptions. For example, if a manager came and told one of their team members that he needed some special task done by a certain time, the worker would stop the task he/she was working on and finish what the manager asked, because it would reflect badly on him/her if that task were not completed on time, regardless of the other work the team member had to finish. Perlow noted that engineers did find interruptions helpful as a whole, yet it detracted from the “real” work they had to do. One suggestion that Perlow had to fix this was to designate different sections of the day to either independent work or interactive collaborations. For example, this could be accomplish by setting the morning as a quiet time, where you do not interrupt subordinates (if you are the manager), followed by a period where you go around asking your questions/following up on things you need. Finally, you could have a quiet period before its time to leave work, in order to complete tasks assigned/from the collaborative period. However, the main issue with this suggestion is that for a lot of people who need help, they cannot continue with their work until they get whatever they need from other people. As a result, while some people may be extremely efficient, others will be unable to work until they receive help.

Managerial Time Patterns According to the Time Famine concept, it appears that just over 30% of an engineer’s time was spent on interactive activities and the other close to 60% of their time was spent working alone. These engineers are a specific sample of the working manager, but their observations can be applied to most managers. The pattern that emerges within managerial time is small stretches in which the manager can work on their own problems/goals with frequent “interruptions” that cause them to exercise their managerial roles. These patterns work because the combination of the two responsibilities allows for a manager to be involved in their employees work as well as their own. It is the specific length of the stretches of uninterrupted work time that managers receive that determines how productive they are. In the engineering example, managers felt liek they were not productive because they needed longer stretches of time without interruption, but this may not be true for managers in every industry. References

Cite 1. http://www.iluv2teach.com/mgt304/hales.pdf (Hales 2001)

Cite 2: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/257243 (Stewart 1976)

Cite 3: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6486.1989.tb00713.x/pdf (Stewart 1989)

Cite 4: Informal communication in organizations: Form, function, and technology

RE Kraut, RS Fish, RW Root, BL Chalfonte - Human reactions to …, 1990 - Citeseer

Cite 5: http://kraut.hciresearch.org/sites/kraut.hciresearch.org/files/protected/Mintzberg90-ManagersJob.pdf

cite 6: O’Conaill and Frolich 1995

cite 8: managers and leaders: are they different. abraham zaleznik

cite 7: perlow time famine http://kraut.hciresearch.org/sites/kraut.hciresearch.org/files/protected/perlow99-TimeFamine.pdf

cite 9: http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/DIII/What%20Leaders%20Really%20Do.pdf kotter

Cite 10: managing distances and differences in geographically distributed groups- armstrong and colehttp://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3aAwmlgC7YMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA167&dq=managing+distances+and+differences+in+geographically+distributed+work+groups&ots=3Pd7X-cgbC&sig=0iZCHk_bx1WVCsY5fEMrHUH00Kc#v=onepage&q=managing%20distances%20and%20differences%20in%20geographically%20distributed%20work%20groups&f=false

Cite 11: Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership, Ch. 23 http://books.google.com/books?id=KxLizZ3aYmUC&pg=PA489&dq=task-+versus+relations-+oriented+leadership+bass&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SVuQUJrnHLHwiQLA_4DgBQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=task-%20versus%20relations-%20oriented%20leadership%20bass&f=false

Cite 12: Salas, E., Dickinson, T. L., Converse, S. A., & Tannenbaum, S. I. (1992). Toward an understanding of team performance and training. In R. W. Swezey, & E. Salas (Eds.), Teams: Their training and performance (pp. 3–29). Norwood, NJ: ABLEX.

Cite 13: Jablin, F. M. (1979). Superior–subordinate communication: The state of the art. Psychological Bulletin, 86(6), 1201.

Cite 14: Allen, T. (1977). The technological gatekeeper Managing the flow of technology (pp. 141-181). Cambridge, MA: : MIT Press. Maya Geleroff (talk) 03:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation
 Thank you for your recent submission to Articles for Creation. Your article submission has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. Please view your submission to see the comments left by the reviewer. You are welcome to edit the submission to address the issues raised, and resubmit once you feel they have been resolved.
 * If you would like to continue working on the submission, you can find it at Wikipedia&.
 * To edit the submission, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
 * If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk, or on the [ reviewer's talk page] . Please remember to link to the submission!
 * You can also get live chat help from experienced editors.
 * Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! Mr T  (Talk?)  [ (New thread?) ] 16:35, 15 November 2012 (UTC)