organizations vary in the type of information they need to know,
their preferred channel for receiving the information, and their
understanding of language, so you should take this into account and
tailor your message to your audience.
10. Remember the value of face-to-face communication when dealing with
change: as we shall see immediately, some channels are more rich
than others. Especially in times of uncertainty, it is appropriate
to use a rich channel to convey ambiguous and nonroutine messages.
11. Channels: understand that some channels have different effects on
different audiences.
To conclude, I want to give some additional information to these last two.
As a manager in the 21st century, you can make use of a wide variety of
communication methods thanks to the rapid progression in information
technology. These include: face-to-face, telephone, group meetings, formal
presentations, memos, traditional mail, employee publications, bulletin
boards, audio and videotapes, hot lines, electronic mail, computer
conferencing, voice-mail, teleconferences, and videoconferences. As a
manager, it is of crucial importance that you select the appropriate
method/channel to communicate a specific message. Recent research has found
that channels differ in their capacity to convey information. Some are rich
in that they have the ability to (1) handle multiple cues simultaneously,
(2) facilitate rapid feedback, and (3) be very personal. Attachment 2 shows
us the hierarchy of channel richness. The rule to choose one channel above
another depends then on the fact of whether the message is routine or
nonroutine. For example firing a person by sending him/her an e-mail isn’t
quite effective. Instead, sending an e-mail to let him know that he/she’s
invited for a personnel party this Saturday do is so.
As a conclusion we can say that effective communication is of extreme
importance if you want to be an effective manager. However, this doesn’t
mean that good communication skills alone make succesfull managers. We do
can say that нf the suggestions made here to communicate effective are
applied in a correct manner, then a lot of problems for a manager can be
avoided and surely the company as a whole will benefit from this.
5. Decveloping Trust inside the organization
Ethics and values have always been an important part of business, but they
are now looked at more closely as there have been many instances where they
were not adequately defined. According to Szwajkowksi in “The Myths and
Realities of Research on Organizational Misconduct”, managerial ethics are
“principles that guide the decisions and behaviors of managers with regard
to whether they are right or wrong in a moral sense.”[41] Because not
every manager and individual follows the same principles, ethical dilemmas
occur. It is crucial for a manager to first develop a list of core values
for himself in order to be consistent in his business practices. As a
manager handles each situation with these values, trust is built.
It is difficult to decide which values a manager should pay more attention
to. According to Stephen Robbins’s in “The Essentials of Organizational
Behavior” trust is defined as a “positive expectation that another will not
– through words, actions or decision -- act opportunistically”.[42] He
goes on to present that trust is multi-dimensional and therefore
encompasses a vast range of values within it. The Five Dimensions of trust
that he mentions are as follows:
. Integrity: honesty and truthfulness
. Competence: Technical and interpersonal knowledge and skills
. Consistency: Reliability, predictability, and good judgement
. Loyalty; Willingness to protect and save face for a person
. Openness: Willingness to share ideas and information freely[43]
By developing each of these qualities, a manager will encourage a
trustworthy environment in his relationships with his employees as well as
his superiors.
As Robbins suggests, trust is something that we expect as the outcome from
a person through our experiences with them. Over time, we get a sense of
how that person behaves and acts accordingly to our behavior. Trust is a
rather sensitive issue to most people and requires that managers act
appropriately to gain the trust needed to lead effectively. It is
dangerous to lose trust of an employee as they may not respect your
judgment without it.
Managers who want to engage in trustworthy relationships with their
workers, according to Robbins’s guidelines, must follow certain practices
that show integrity, competence and consistency.[44] Without these three
characteristics, all aspect of trust becomes meaningless. The normal day
to day actions of a manager affect the level of trust that each employee
will have in him/her.
Managers of different levels and cultures prioritize trust differently.
This is evident when evaluating how managerial decisions can build trust
through the Managerial Linkage System. In “Managerial Leadership at Twelve
O’Clock” Charles Kerns, describes that on one end of the managerial scale
is an untrustworthy manager who accomplishes his goals with lies and
deception to obtain the numbers. On the other end of the scale is a
manager who uses the trust of his workers to accomplish the same numbers.
It is clear that the untrusting manager is taking a shortcut through the
managerial system from 12-9 and the trusting manager has taken the time and
effort to move along from 12-3-6-9 as shown in the figure below.[45]
[pic]
The untrusting manager’s shortcut disregards the concerns of the workers
and in turn ignores the quality of output to the customers. This will
effect worker retention times and create poor customer satisfaction.
Though this manager may achieve sales targets the first time around it will
not last. The second time through the cycle the results will begin to drop
off due to poor management and a lack of trust. Conversely, the trusting
manager gains the trust of the workers and forms a great relationship with
them. Worker retention is much longer and they tend to do a much better
job caring for the customers. With happier customers will come the
increased sales. The second time around the cycle, the trustworthy manager
will have an easier time achieving the same or improved sales. The
Managerial Linkage System demonstrates that having employee trust will
cause business performance to increase.
2. Can we learn how to become an effective manager?
Last decades, many visions thought that we could learn how to become an
effective manager. We could refer to the success of many institutions where
MBA programs are offered. Many young high intelligent business men are
taught how to become successful. Nevertheless the success of these business
schools, there is a lack of correlation between scholastic standing and the
success in business. Clearly, what a student learns about management in
graduate school, does not equip him to build a successful career in
business.
For Livingstone S. (1971) the reason for this failure could be found in the
fact that[46]:”they don’t learn from their formal education what they need
to know to perform their job effectively. The tasks that are the most
important in getting results usually are left to be learned on the job,
where few managers ever master them simply because no one teaches them
how.”
Formal management education programs typically emphasize the development of
skills which enables the future manager to solve problems and to make
decisions (‘respondent behaviour). But little attention is given to the
development of skills required to find the problems that need to be solved
(‘operant behaviour’). Furthermore, the problem solving in the classroom is
seen as an entirely rational process, while in reality human emotions make
it hard to deal with the problems objectively.
As the research of Norman H. Mackworth revealed[47], the distinction
between the problem-solver and the problem-finder s vital. He concluded
that managers not only should be able to analyze data of financial
statements or other written reports, but even more important they should be
able to scan the business environment for less concrete clues that a
problem exist. These perceptual skills are extremely difficult to develop
in the classroom and must be developed on the job.
We should ask our self the question: Are there people who have more
managerial skills than others, because they are able to learn from their
experience what they need to know to manage effectively. Livingstone S
(1971) found three characteristics of men who learned to manage
effectively.
. Need to manage: to be able to manage effectively, you should have a
strong desire and satisfaction to influence the performance of others.
Many of those who aspires high- level positions are driven by the
expectations of high salaries or high status, but are not motivated to
get effective results through others. Those managers don’t learn how
to develop an effective managerial career, because there is a lack of
willingness to manage. They are not able to devote enough time and
energy to find a suitable way to manage. So the need to manage is a
crucial factor in determining whether a person will learn and apply in
practice what is necessary to get effective results on the job. For
example, managers who are outstanding individual performers, but with
