During my one year of work experience, I have witnessed a great deal of poor organizational communication and very little good communication. In a sales driven company, emails from the sales floor to the credit department often seem pushy and confrontational. One particular credit analyst does not take kindly to such emails, and repeatedly returns emails in the same confrontational manner. Her responses are not conducive to creating cooperation between departments. Yes, the sales reps could get a lot further by slightly adjusting their attitudes in their emails, but that is not the point. The poor communication is the analyst’s confrontational replies. She needs to better understand the situation and circumstances. The interdepartmental communication would improve if she just took sales' tone with a grain of salt. Not only is it part of sales' personality, but it is also attributed to the fact that sales' paychecks depend on getting orders released and that sales reps do not fully understand credit policies. She needs to take a moment to analyze to context of the email before letting her emotions get the best of her.
A second example of poor communication is between our leasing specialist and our credit manager. One time, the leasing specialist sent the credit manager three emails regarding one lease. The manager did not reply to any of her emails. Ignoring her three emails was clearly poor communication on his part, but so was her response. Rather than walk into his office and address the issue, she let the order sit for a week without being worked on. It was poor communication on her part because she put a $200,000 order in jeopardy. Due to the manager’s lack of response and her reluctance to speak directly with him, they both put the company’s well being at risk.
I agree with your perspective on taking tone with a grain of salt in organizational settings. I have seen many instances where co-workers have become so focused on the tone that may or may not have been used that their emotions hinder their ability to effectively perform their roles. When employees in an organizational setting become preoccupied with a perceived tone they are hurting themselves and their co-workers. Rather, I believe it is important to always strive to focus on the task at hand and complete your work. I have seen how emotions can hinder productivity in a work setting, and when reactive communication is eliminated productivity and effective communication can increase exponentially.
ReplyDeleteEmail is one of the worst communication mediums to be confrontational in. It's really easy to misunderstand the senders tone. Additionally, any heated responses you might send as a result are carved in stone. An email can be forwarded or copied limitless times!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ryan. Email is easily misinterpreted and misunderstandings set in stone are never a good idea. Whenever I have something that I need to correct or convey, I make a phone call or go to the person directly.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience I have found that most credit folks don't care for the sales people and feel they give things away. That all stems from misunderstandings and misdirection from the top of the organization.
I strongly agree with you, especially, the second part of your post. In fact, I wrote about choosing the right communication tool in my post. I believe that employees should be trained about choosing the right communication tool more than the way they use them. I see a lot of people using emails knowing that the recipient would not respond for a while so they can use that as an excuse for not finishing their tasks!
ReplyDeleteSounds like the people you mention are dealing with safety and benefit issues. No wonder relationships are strained resulting in little buy-in and even retaliatory action. Toxic stuff!
ReplyDeleteRyan and Paige, I absolutely agree with your viewpoints on emailing.
ReplyDeleteIn this world of increasing technology, we are unfortunately becoming more and more reliant on electronic communications such as email. As you mentioned, it can be very difficult to interpret the email sender's tone. One way I try to deal with this is, whether emailing a coworker or text messaging a friend, is to choose my wording very carefully so that I convey the message in a manner that is not easily misinterpreted. Clearly, we cannot control the way somebody will read our message, but I do believe that by stepping back and rereading a message before it is sent, one can effectively construct the language in such a way that little is left open for misinterpretation.
Now if only I can teach some of my coworkers that! :)