Communication in Organizations

Contents

OVERVIEW

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

CHAPTER TWO

COMMUNICATING AT WORK

CHAPTER THREE

COMMUNICATING IN GROUPS AND TEAMS

CHAPTER FOUR

LISTENING AND NON-VERBAL

COMMUNICATION

APPENDIX

WHAT IS YOUR BODY LANGUAGE AND YOUR DESK TELLING PEOPLE?

CHAPTER FIVE

PREPARING AN ORAL PRESENTATION

APPENDIX

VISUAL AIDS

CHAPTER SIX

COMMUNICATING ACROSS CULTURES

APPENDIX

WHAT IS CULTURE?

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN WORKPLACE

CHAPTER EIGHT

BUSINESS WRITING

PART I

PREPARING TO WRITE

PART II

ORGANIZING AND WRITING

PART III

REVISING

CHAPTER NINE

COMMUNICATING THROUGH E-MAIL AND INSTANT MESSAGING

CHAPTER TEN

ROUTINE LETTERS

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SALES AND PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATIONS

CHAPTER TWELVE

CONVEYING NEGATIVE NEWS

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BUSINESS REPORTS

PART I

PREPARING TO WRITE BUSINESS REPORTS

APPENDIX 1 to PART I

INTERNET SEARCH TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

APPENDIX 2 to PART I

EVALUATING INTERNET RESEARCH SOURCES

APPENDIX 3 TO PART 1

WORLD WIDE WEB RESEARCH TOOLS

PART II

ORGANIZING AND WRITING TYPICAL

BUSINESS REPORTS

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EMPLOYMENT COMMUNICATIONS

APPENDIX 1 TO CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WAYS YOUR RESUME CAN SAY I’M UNPROFESSIONAL

APPENDIX 2 TO CHAPTER FOURTEEN

COMMON MISTAKES THAT KEEP YOU FROM GETTING HIRED

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

INTERVIEWING SKILLS

APPENDIX 1 TO CHAPTER FIFTEEN

TYPICAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

ADDENDIX 2 TO CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE INTERVIEW WAS AWESOME! NOW WHAT?

APPENDIX 3 TO CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HOW TO NEGOTIATE SALARY

APPENDIX 4 TO CHAPTER FIFTEEN

IN INTERVIEWING, BODY LANGUAGE SPEAKS VOLUMES

APPENDIX 5 TO CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WHAT TO BRING TO AN INTERVIEW

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NEGOTIATION PROCESS AND TECHNIQUES

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CONDUCTING EFFECTIVE MEETINGS

APPENDIX 1 TO CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHECKLIST FOR PLANNING A MEETING

APPENDIX 2 TO CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MEETING AGENDA

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

BUSINESS ETHICS

CHAPTER NINETEEN

COMMUNICATING TOMORROW

IN CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

GLOSSARY

WITH APPRECIATION

To my wife who inspires me.

To my students who invigorate me.

OVERVIEW

The art of communication is the language of leadership.

(James Humes, presidential speechwriter for

Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan.)

In the 1970s, employees worked in offices. Communication was primarily face-to-face, by telephone, and through the mail. By the 1980s, two major changes occurred in business communication patterns: We moved out of our offices and into cubicles and we began using computers.

Organizations began using cubicles to divide and maximize office space. It’s more economical to fit as many employees as possible into a work area whenever possible because the company doesn’t have to lease as much floor space. Furthermore, cubicles may be used to mark off certain teams or sections of workers who perform different functions. Besides allowing more employees to occupy the same space, the theory was that moving out of individual offices and into open-office configurations would foster better communication and sharing. And, giving all employees computers would increase productivity, allowing more production with less resource.

As we entered the 1990s, three more changes occurred; computers became much more portable, personal digital assistants (PDAs) were born, and we began working from home. By 2009, 20% of us were working at home at least one day per week (Lister & Harnish, 2009).

Like the television in the 1950s and the Internet in the 1990s, mobile telephony has emerged as one of the defining communication technologies of our time (Castells et al., 2007). By 2010, 60 percent of the world’s population had access to mobile devices capable of both voice and data communications (Sadri & Fammia, 2011). Mobile communications is a delivery and transactional vehicle that is fostering job creation in emerging economies. In the United States, it is also transforming other industries, such as health, banking, and education.

The future of business communications is a fully interconnected world where every business employee will be able to access, create, and use content from anywhere. An international web is inevitable. Currently North America is still the major player on the Internet, but a decade from now that will be different. China is already seen as a growth market, as is India and Brazil. African nations are also emerging. The international web will bring with it increased international business, and in turn the potential for increased profits.

Mobile communications is the fastest growing technology in the history of mankind, and is also the most effective technology to date for enabling individuals, particularly those at the bottom of the economic pyramid, to participate in the global economy. Consequently, mobile communications will have a profound effect on the ability of all levels of the economic strata.

The world’s nearly five billion mobile phone subscribers are realizing multiple macro—and micro-economic and social benefits (Sadri & Fammia, 2011). This will only continue as more individuals become connected to the global economy and more products and services are deployed via mobile communications.

Businesses are struggling to keep up with the rapid changes taking place in communications. It’s really sort of an embarrassment of riches problem. There are now so many different ways to communicate; land-line phones, mobile phones, PDAs, e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging, online chat, social networking, virtual meetings, pod casts and digital video. At the same time, companies want to keep their employees connected anytime and anywhere, which requires the interoperation of various wireless devices. People are no longer tied to their desktops, and they want the same communications options on the road or from home as they have in the office.

The generation now entering the workforce, a generation sometimes called Millennials, is making such issues more pressing (Salkowitz, 2008). Millennials, who make up one of the largest groups of workers since the baby boomers, have grown up with the Web (Lippincott, 2010). Thus, they expect to be totally connected and are completely comfortable with an increasing array of multimedia communications options. Simple e-mail is passé and digital video is a big favorite. These workers will have high expectations of their business communications and will be attracted to those companies that get it. For each virtual collaboration task, Millennials will want to use the most effective communications method, whether a company supports it or not.

These new patterns of communications, plus new thinking about where work is best performed, have resulted in the rise of virtual offices. In the world of virtual offices, groups of employees interact primarily via communication media such as teleconferencing, e-mail, Internet social network services, or instant messaging, rather than face-to-face. New methodologies are therefore being developed to facilitate virtual communication; these methodologies include social networking software, text-based chat rooms, and forums that use voice, video text, and avatars.

Added to new types and uses of communication technologies are the changing roles of managers and employees. Hierarchical management is giving way to collaborative styles where the leadership role is often shared. Employees are being asked to enter more and more into the decision-making process. Increasingly, employers are using interdisciplinary teams that attack issues on a global level rather than having each employee confine his or her approach within a personal level of expertise; more often than not, these teams represent increasing diversity in gender and national origin. All of the above factors, together, emphasize the importance of business communication.

Business Communication is any type of communication that takes place for the purpose of facilitating the regular business or commercial affairs of any party. Changes in the world over the past two decades have expanded the boundaries of business communication. Besides how to best construct an e-mail or letter, or make an oral presentation, we must now also consider globalization, cultural diversity, technology, ethics, and a host of other issues.

Face-to-face communication is quickly becoming a lost art in this age of e-mail, texting, voice mail, and social networking. But ultimately, when it comes to persuading an audience or making a compelling argument, there remains no substitute for personal face-to-face communication. Technology may set the stage, but speaking face-to-face, with its body language, tone, and use of language, seals the deal.

Lack of communicative ability plagues many corporations, and the professionals who rise to the top are overwhelming the people who develop good communication approaches that achieve desired results (Dodd, 2011). Communicating with influence takes work and requires constant attention. The primary goal in this text will be to explore ways in which individuals may improve their communication skills.

This text focuses on providing professionals with the tools and techniques necessary to foster open dialogue, project credibility, and effectively communicate, even in challenging situations. The goal is to expose you to the skills needed to become effective communicators. These skills include business writing, report preparation, and oral presentation, as well as negotiation, group facilitation, presentation, and interviewing within the professional context.

INTRODUCTION

Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.

(Emanuel James Jim Rohn, American entrepreneur,

author and motivational speaker)

In this text, we will explore communication in organizations. An organization is a social group that distributes tasks to achieve a collective goal. There are many types of organizations, including corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, the armed forces, charities, not-for-profit corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, and universities. None of these can be successful unless their members can communicate successfully.

Communication is the process and activity connecting senders and receivers through space and time. It is a fundamental, universal process. How often have you heard statements such as these?

• If you want to be promoted, you’ll have to improve your communication skills.

• One of the strengths of our relationship over the years has been that we communicate so well.

• He’s really smart, and he knows his stuff, but as a teacher he just doesn’t communicate it very well.

• They say they built the product to meet our specifications, but it’s not what we asked for—I think we have a communication problem here.

These familiar statements demonstrate how central the process of communication is within our everyday life.

The word communicate derives from the word common, meaning to share, exchange, send along, transmit, talk, gesture, write, put in use, or relate (Merriam-Webster, 2010). So we might begin an investigation of this subject with these questions: What do all studies of communication have in common? What are the shared concepts that make the study of communication different from the study of subjects such as history, literature, science, mathematics, or engineering? When someone says, This is a communication problem, what does that mean?

When a baby sees his mother’s face for the first time, communication happens. When someone steps out onto a beach and feels warm sand under their feet, communication happens. When the Congress passes legislation and the President signs it, communication happens. When a computer in New York calls up a computer in Tokyo and transmits a message, communication happens. Communication is a general phenomenon. Whether we recognize it or not, we have no choice except to communicate. When we try to avoid communicating by not replying to a message, we are nevertheless sending a message—it just may not be the one we intended. If we keep silent in a meeting, our body language may nevertheless be speaking volumes. So, the only choice we can make about communication is whether we are going to attempt to communicate effectively!

What do we mean by ‘communicate effectively?’ The object of communication is to successfully convey thoughts, intentions, emotions, facts, and ideas of one person or group to another person or group. When the message sent is received and understood by the receiver in the same way as the sender intended, effective communication takes place. When the receiver misunderstands a message, the communication has not been successful. Ideally, we should constantly be improving our communication skills so we can make ourselves better understood. But the fact is we spend so much of our time communicating, we tend to assume we are experts. Surveys indicate when business professionals are asked to rate their communication skills, virtually everyone overestimates his or her abilities as a communicator. There is a natural tendency to blame the other person for problems in understanding or making ourselves understood. The better option is to improve one’s own communication. To do that, we need a thorough understanding of the meaning and process of communication.

Why Study Communication?

But why we study communication? The importance of communication can be gauged from the fact that we are communicating in some from or the other almost every moment of our lives. Whether we are walking, talking, playing, sitting, or even sleeping, a message is being formulated and transmitted. We humans are social animals who are constantly interacting with other individuals. We are constantly composing and conveying ideas and concepts. Communication is more than just understanding spoken or written language, it is also understanding symbols and unspoken messages.

People in organizations spend over 75% of their time in interpersonal situations; thus it is no surprise to find poor communications at the root of a large number of organizational problems. Effective communication is an essential component of organizational success whether it is at the interpersonal, intergroup, intragroup, organizational, or external levels. For example, one of the measures of business success or failure is man hours spent in the completion of a task. Suppose a senior executive instructs his subordinate to complete a project in a particular manner within a stipulated timeframe. The subordinate spends four weeks (320 hours) completing the project. The employee’s salary is $100,000 a year (about $48 an hour), which means those 320 hours cost the organization $15,360. The subordinate does his/her best, however the end result is a failure because the end product does not match the senior executive’s expectations. As a result of this miscommunication; 4 weeks have been wasted; $15,360 has been wasted; not to mention the cost associated of doing the project all over again and losing the opportunity that could have been gained by finishing the assignment on time. Now multiply this by literally hundreds of miscommunications that happen across organizations every day.

The example above is one of the most common and prevailing examples of miscommunication and results from a lack of feedback. However, this is not the only type of communication problem in organizations. Let’s take a look at the communicative competence required at different levels in an organization.

As you go higher up in the hierarchy of the organization, you are more responsible for coordinating, issuing instructions, collating information, and then presenting it to senior leadership. All these activities require effective communication skills and the sooner these skills are honed, the easier it is for you to successfully accomplish these tasks. A manager vying for a quick promotion is always judged in terms of work done with other people; so effective communication skills become a necessity. Prior to entry in any organization, certain communicative abilities are looked for in candidates. These are their ability to speak, conduct themselves properly in an interview, get along with others, listen carefully and accurately, make effective presentations, prepare good yet brief reports, make proposals, sell ideas, and convince and persuade others. If you can train yourself to excel in these skills, then you will find it much easier not just to secure a good position in an organization, but also to achieve considerable success.

But communication in today’s business organizations has become more complex, with the introduction of technology presenting both opportunities and challenges. Robust organizations demand effective communicators who can effectively manage business and organizational changes, concerns, and events, both using technology and by traditional means.

The Act of Communicating

Good communications are basic to successful management. In spite of much literature dealing with the theory and practice of this subject, our communication skills are still very poor. Peter Drucker, widely considered the father of modern business management, states quite bluntly that poor communications are a direct result of our ignorance (Schwartz, 2004). Drucker contended we do not know what to say, when to say it, how to say it, or whom to say it to (Schwartz, 2004).

The best way to describe communications is through the use of a conceptual model showing a two-way process in which people transmit (send) and receive ideas, information, opinions, or emotions. These must be interpreted and acted on, normally through feedback, before the communication process is completed. Within organizations, the aim should be to develop communication patterns between individuals and groups that are meaningful, direct, open, and honest.

We can all agree managers convey information and instructions through communication, either written or verbal. Communication, therefore, is a vital link between the manager and his or her team; and effective communication is the key to good management. Yet, in most real-life situations, it is a very poor link. If you have doubts, consider the results of two recent surveys on this subject. The first survey found we are all constantly bombarded with messages, around 2000 a day, of which we only remember about 65—hardly a good average (Ormrod, 2007). In a separate survey, McKay (2009) confirms this very low rate of retention, and goes a step further by looking at retention levels for different means of communication. McKay (2009) notes we retain 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, and 50% of what we both see and hear. This study provides a very useful clue to effective communication: Audio-visual techniques are much better than just audio or just visual. Note also written messages, whether letters, texts, or e-mails, are by far the least effective way to communicate.

There are, broadly, four components to any communication; the communicator, the medium, the message, and the recipient. But we tend to focus on only one component—the message. Ignoring the other three components leads to a complete breakdown in communications. And in the case of international organizational communications, additional factors, such as language barriers and cultural differences, can further complicate the picture by distorting even the message.

Increasingly, most of the work done within organizations is performed by project teams (Jones, 2007). The members of these teams often have varied backgrounds. For example, team members may come from accounting, engineering, legal, production, or computing. Because of this, the team is likely to behave like five different teams, each concerned with its own world. For example:

• The accountant presents analysis in the jargon of numbers and spreadsheets.

• The engineer uses technical phrases and blueprints.

• The lawyer speaks in colloquialisms of regulations and restrictions.

• The production person speaks in the stop talk of components, raw materials, and manufacturing processes.

• The information systems specialist speaks in the idiom of technology.

In effect, they are all communicating on different wavelengths. It seems plain talk is a neglected skill and we need to be taught how to talk plain language. I would advise managers to make and enforce a rule that anyone who cannot use words comprehensible to a high school student will be kicked off the team. Always remember this rule: If they can’t explain a concept so someone outside their field of expertise can understand it, then they don’t understand it.

Now, words can indeed mean different things to different people. When I was in the military and assigned to The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., I remember seeing a sign that proclaimed:

I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

In Carroll’s (1946) book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty explains his philosophy of life to Alice, saying, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." But are we as business communicators living in Wonderland, as those gentlemen at The Pentagon seemed to think?

Listening

Why all the fuss about ‘listening’? Surely, after all that we have said so far on communications, that question should hardly need to be asked, but however many times it is asked, it seems nobody really listens to the answer! Listening is a vital communication skill, yet it is always being taken for granted.

One survey of 400 project engineers indicated nearly 80 percent of a manager’s time is spent in face-to-face interpersonal interaction with coworkers (White, Vanc, & Stafford, 2010). It was also found although the substance of the oral message was important, style and credibility is the key to the impact of the message on the receiver (White et al., 2010). In another survey, more than three hundred members of the Canadian Association of Certified Administrative Managers were asked what abilities or competencies they considered to be the 20 percent that yield the 80 percent of results (Ahmed, Shields, White, & Wilbert, 2010). This survey led to a consensus on twenty critical managerial skills, of which four were rated by the participants as super-critical, seven as highly critical and nine as critical. The four super-critical activities were, in descending order of importance; active listening, giving clear and effective instructions, accepting your share of responsibility, and identifying the real problem (Ahmed et al., 2010). Isn’t that interesting? All four super-critical activities relate to communication—and listening is considered to be the most important.

Listening is also big business these days. Several full-time consultants and seminar leaders are occupied entirely, day in and day out, with this one subject. The International Listening Association (2009), which aims to promote effective listening through exchange of information, methods, experience, and materials, and through research on the subject, has chapters in several countries. And there are many books dealing exclusively with the subject of listening. The core message conveyed by all of the above is simply this; listening is vital yet much neglected. It is a skill that can and must be acquired.

Although listening specialists differ somewhat in approach, they all express the same rules in principle. For our purposes, we will use the ten rules published by the American Management Association’s Executive Writing, Speaking, and Listening Skills (1988):

• Look at the speaker.

• Question the speaker to get clarification.

• Show concern about the speaker’s feelings.

• Repeat occasionally to confirm.

• Don’t rush the speaker.

• Have poise and emotional control.

• Respond with a nod, a smile, or a frown.

• Pay close attention.

• Don’t interrupt.

• Keep on the subject until the speaker finishes his or her thoughts.

Listening is a skill that can be learned; and that skill is absolutely essential for you, as a manager and an individual, in your professional and your personal life, if you are to be truly effective.

Business Communications in the Twenty-First Century

The far-reaching potential of new communications technology poses the valid question of how we can integrate these advances into our lives and coordinate them with such basic skills as listening. Historical experience shows that technological progress does not always lead to human progress. The new tools of communication have as much power to alienate people as to bring them together.

One of the most important principles to internalize is: Hear with your ears, but listen with your mind. Communications are vital in management; in fact, they are the essence of management. Still, our communications skills are poor, and the poorest of these is listening. Managers spend over half of their time listening, or at least hearing, and yet most of them have never had any formal training in this discipline (Ahmed et al., 2010). Is it any wonder, then, that their overall listening efficiency is very low—on the order of 25 percent (Ahmed et al., 2010)?

Meanwhile, employees around the country and the world are experiencing change and upheaval: The kind of work you do, the tools you use, the forms of management you work under, the environments in which you work, and the people with whom you interact are all undergoing transformation. Many of the changes relate to how information is processed and communicated. The most successful participants in the evolving workplace will be those with highly developed communication skills.

The ability to read, listen, speak, and write effectively is not inherited, and success in a dynamic, changing, and demanding workplace may depend on factors that you cannot control. But one factor you can and do control is how well you communicate. No matter what field you enter, your success will hinge on your ability to communicate effectively. The goal of this book is to teach you the skills for communicating in organizations, from basic talking and listening to writing effectively and making presentations.

Although this book will provide you with formats and examples of business letters, e-mails, and reports, to become a truly effective communicator you will also need practice and meaningful feedback. Take every opportunity to write and speak in forums where you have the opportunity for constructive critique. It is only through constant practice that your skills will improve.

CHAPTER ONE

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.

(Tony Robbins, American self-help author and success coach)

Principles Underlying Interpersonal Communication

There are four principles underlying the real life workings of interpersonal communication. They are basic to communication. We can’t ignore them.

Interpersonal Communication Is Inescapable.

We cannot not communicate. The very attempt not to communicate communicates something. Through not only words, but through tone of voice, gesture, posture, and facial expression we constantly communicate to those around us. Through these channels, we constantly receive communication from others. Even when you sleep, you communicate. Remember a basic principle of communication in general: People are not mind readers. Another way to put this is: People judge you by your behavior, not your intent.

Interpersonal Communication Is Irreversible.

You can’t really take back something once you’ve said it. The effect inevitably remains. Despite the instructions from a judge to a jury to disregard that last statement the witness made, the lawyer knows it can’t help but make an impression on the jury. A Russian proverb says, Once a word goes out of your mouth, you can never swallow it again.

Interpersonal Communication Is Complicated.

No form of communication is simple. Because of the number of variables involved, even simple requests are extremely complex. Whenever we communicate, there are really at least six people involved: (1) who you think you are; (2) who you think the other person is; (3) who you think the other person thinks you are; (4) who the other person thinks he/she is; (5) who the other person thinks you are; and, (6) who the other person thinks you think he/she is.

Another complication is we don’t actually swap ideas, we swap symbols that stand for ideas. For example, we have a concept of ‘a book’. It is a general distinction for a thing containing words that imparts information, but it is a vague distinction since there are many different percepts of the same concept. A textbook and a children’s book are two distinctly different perceptions of the same concept. This complicates communication. Words (symbols) do not have inherent meaning; we simply use them in certain ways, and no two people use the same word exactly alike. Always remember:

• If communication can fail, it will.

• If a message can be understood in a different way, it will be understood in the way which does the most harm.

• There is always somebody who knows better than you what you meant by your message.

• The more communication there is, the more difficult it is for communication to succeed.

These tongue-in-cheek maxims are not real principles, but they do remind us of the difficulty of accurate communication.

Interpersonal Communication Is Contextual

In other words, communication does not happen in isolation. There is:

Psychological context. Psychological context is who you are and what you bring to the interaction. Your needs, desires, values, personality, etc., all form the psychological context.

Relational context. Rational context concerns your reactions to the other person—the mix.

Situational context. Situational context deals with the psycho-social where you are communicating. An interaction that takes place in a classroom will be very different from one that takes place in a bar.

Environmental context. Environmental context deals with the physical where you are communicating. Furniture, location, noise level, temperature, season, time of day, are all examples of factors in the environmental context.

Cultural context. Cultural context includes all the learned behaviors and rules affecting the interaction. If you come from a culture (foreign or within your own country) where it is considered rude to make long, direct eye contact, you will out of politeness avoid eye contact. If the other person comes from a culture where long, direct eye contact signals trustworthiness, then we have in the cultural context a basis for misunderstanding.

Until recently, organizations hired employees based on technical skills. Now, with increasing competition, quickly expanding communication technology, and a rapidly expanding global economy, organizations have been forced to move toward service-oriented, information-focused organizations that are increasingly organized in teams. Fortune 500 companies name strong interpersonal communication and team skills as the most important criteria for success in management positions (Hughes & Terrell, 2007). And, employers consistently name interpersonal communication skills as crucial for success on the job (Dodd, 2011).

Managers often contrast the ‘soft’ interpersonal skills with the ‘hard’ analytical problem solving skills, but managers are starting to discover their ability to learn and grow is limited unless they learn to empathize or cope with the emotional reactions of others that naturally occur in the workplace (Berko, Aitken, & Wolvin, 2010). As we know, the typical organization is not an easy place to maintain interpersonal relationships. Today’s organizations’ growing diversity of communication styles and cultural expectations, lack of time to develop relationships, and heavy reliance on electronic forms of communication are all exactly opposite to the ways in which people traditionally create and maintain relationships.

Some use the term ‘interpersonal communication’ to differentiate face-to-face interaction from written or electronic messages. In other cases, people define interpersonal communication as their personal relationships with family members, friends or coworkers, thus distinguishing these communications from work relationships that are perceived to be somehow different. Neither of these characterizations captures the complexity of interpersonal communication within an organizational setting.

Interpersonal communication is real-time, face-to-face or voice-to-voice conversation that allows immediate feedback. While interpersonal communication plays a large role in any manager’s daily activities, it is especially important in team-based organizations. As one communication text puts it, interpersonal communication occurs not when you simply interact with someone, but when you treat the other person as a unique human being (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2002, p. 28). From this perspective, interpersonal communication can occur in writing or by email, as well as in a face-to-face setting. Further, even total strangers who interact with each other respectfully could be said to be communicating interpersonally even though the topic of conversation might be trite