johnson chapter one

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ManagerialCommunication


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ManagerialCommunication

Evaluating the Right Dose

J. David JohnsonUniversity of Kentucky


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Managerial Communication: Evaluating the Right Dose

Copyright Business Expert Press, 2012.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any

meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other

except for brief quotations, not to exceed 400 words, without the prior

permission of the publisher.

First published in 2012 by

Business Expert Press, LLC

222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017www.businessexpertpress.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-60649-464-6 (paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-1-60649-465-3 (e-book)

DOI 10.4128/9781606494653

Business Expert Press Corporate Communication collection

Collection ISSN: 2156-8162 (print)

Collection ISSN: 2156-8170 (electronic)

Cover design by Jonathan Pennell

Interior design by Exeter Premedia Services Private Ltd.,

Chennai, India

First edition: 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.


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For college deans past, present, and future

who often do too much to achieve too little.


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Copyright Acknowledgments

Table 2.2 Mingling Decision-Making Metaphors

Meyer, A. D. (1984). Mingling decision making metaphors.Academy o

Management Review, 9, 617.

Table 3.3 Lawrence and Lorschs Findings

Lawrence, P. R., & Lorsch, J. W. (1967). Organization and environment:

Managing diferentiation and integration. Boston, MA: Harvard Busi-ness School, pp. 138. With permission obtained rom Harvard Business

School.

Table 4.1 Te Journey Metaphor

Kovecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor: A practical introduction. New York:

Oxord University Press, p. 7. With permission obtained rom Oxord

University Press Inc.


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Abstract

Te metaphor o dosage ofers a rich organizing principle or managers.

It ocuses our eforts on such undamental, pragmatic communication

issues as amount, requency, delivery system, sequencing, interaction with

other agents, and contraindications. It suggests compelling new answers

to undamental problems that all managers must ace, with an apprecia-

tion o basic issues beyond our conscious awareness. Te book is targeted

toward graduate, executive, and proessional audiences.

In our day-to-day liveswhether we are discussing things with ourhousing contractor, our cable repair man, our doctorwe must con-

stantly decide how much communication we should engage in to pur-

sue our projects. Tis work ocuses on the dosage metaphor as a way o

conronting this questionwhat level o communication, both in terms

o amount and o depth, is really necessary to accomplish particular pur-

poses? Most communication theories implicitly paint a picture o the

prevalence and paramount importance o communication, with a com-

munication metamyth that more is necessarily better. Tis book providesthe rst truly comprehensive treatment o dosage. It also ocuses on per-

haps the most contemporaneously interesting issues o change and o pro-

ductivity. Te nal chapter presents the dosage metaphor in broad sweep,

suggesting a countervailing minimalist approach to communication.

Keywords

dosage, innovation, managers, managerial communication, managing

relationships, match, metaphors, organizational change, productivity


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Contents

List o Tables and Figures....................................................................................x

List o Boxes......................................................................................................xi

Preace............................................................................................................xiii

Prologue ........................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1 Introduction and Overview ........................................................... 3

Chapter 2 Denition and the Use o Metaphor ............................................. 9

Chapter 3 Te Idea o Match ....................................................................... 23

Chapter 4 Managing Relationships .............................................................. 35

Chapter 5 Productivity ............................................................................... 57

Chapter 6 Change ....................................................................................... 71

Chapter 7 Te World Outside .................................................................... 91

Chapter 8 Summing Up ............................................................................ 111

Notes............................................................................................................. 127

Reerences ...................................................................................................... 143

Index ............................................................................................................ 167


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List of Tables and Figures

Tables

1 Dosage in a Managers Everyday Lie ........................................................ 1

2.1 Comparing Machine and Organismic Metaphors ................................... 16

2.2 Mingling Decision-Making Metaphors ................................................... 21

3.1 Woodwards Findings .............................................................................. 26

3.2 Matching and the Dosage Metaphor ....................................................... 27

3.3 Lawrence and Lorschs Findings .............................................................. 28

4.1 Te Journey Metaphor ............................................................................ 36

4.2 Te Impact o Superior Subordinate Communication

Relationships on Other Organizational Processes .................................... 42

6.1 Comparing ranser Approaches and the Dosage Metaphor .................... 87

Figure

5.1 Communication Networks, Productivity, and Dosage ............................. 64


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List of Boxes

4.1 Seeking Inormation on Superiors Expectations ..................................... 37

5.1 Small Group Structure ............................................................................ 63

6.1 Tis Is Harder Tan It Looks .................................................................. 74

7.1 Boundary Spanning Over ime .............................................................. 95


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Preface

I have been a practicing manager or nearly two decades in a number o

diferent capacities: as a department chair, as a dean, as a noncommis-

sioned o cer in charge o the supply and services division o a hospi-

tal, and as a warehouse supervisor. I have also been conducting network

analysis, innovation, and inormation behavior research or over three

decades now. Te combination o these experiences has led me to a centralquestion: what level o communication is really necessary to accomplish

particular purposes?

Most communication theories implicitly paint a picture o the preva-

lence and paramount importance o communication, through a meta-

myth that more is necessarily better. However, in our rapidly expanding

inormation society, there is increasing evidence that less communica-

tion actually may be better. Some reliable empirical studies indicate

desired impacts resulting rom much less communication than previouslythought. In my own research I have oten been surprised by the efective-

ness o relatively low levels o communication, which I will detail in this

work.

I came to a greater appreciation o these issues as a result o long-

standing research programs in innovation, inormation seeking and

media exposure, and network analysis. My rst research paper ocused

on the normative level o communication activities in a range o organi-

zational communication networks.1 It demonstrated surprisingly low

levels o communication, especially or innovation content. Tis is a nd-

ing that was again conrmed in my longitudinal research on innovation

within the Cancer Inormation Service Research Consortium (CISRC), a

somewhat unique virtual organization composed o researchers and prac-

titioners. While communication has been viewed as central to innova-

tion, surprisingly little communication occurred during the length o this

project. Te empirical work that has been done on actual communication

behavior suggests that, especially or innovation-related communication

in organizations, people do not talk to each other very much.


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xiv PREFACE

Another program o research, which has now spanned nearly 30 years,

grew out o my work in the O ce o Research o the US InormationAgency that ocused on pragmatic concerns relating to the actors which

lead to exposure to particular inormation carriers (e.g., magazines, lms).

Tis line o research has expanded to ocus on more general issues related

to inormation seeking summarized in my books Inormation Seeking: An

Organizational Dilemma, Cancer-Related Inormation Seeking, and my

more recent work with Donald Case Health Inormation Seeking. One

o the major theoretical problems with traditional, unctionalist explana-

tions o structures has been a ailure to incorporate a comprehensive per-

spective o individual action. A ocus on individuals inormation seeking

embedded in communication structures has caused me to recognize the

dosage issues embedded in such transactions.

Needless to say I draw on this prior work or some basic descriptions o

the communication theories discussed here. However, ollowing a classic

narrative approach to literature reviews, I interweave these basic descrip-

tions, with a ocus on their signicance or a dosage metaphor. I also use

my recent overview essay2 ocusing on dosage as a bridging metaphor or

theory and practice as a starting point or Chapters 1, 2, and 8.In recent years communication research has shown a curious ten-

dency to ignore undamental issues critical to practice. Tis is certainly

the case with productivity, efectiveness, and e ciency issues. Even more

troubling, our comortable shibboleths do not stand up to close empirical

scrutiny. Most communication theories assume that more communica-

tion is better and imply high volumes are benecial, but the ew studies

that have been done suggest, at best, complex contingencies and cost/

benet equations.

Tis work, then, is about uncovering a metaphor in use, making

explicit how it enriches the practice o management, particularly in terms

o understanding that more is not necessarily better.It is not about the

study o metaphor qua metaphor, which has been the ocus o extensive

research in a variety o disciplines. Here I will argue that the metaphor o

dosage ofers us a rich perspective on communication, ocusing our eforts

on such undamental, pragmatic communication issues as amount, re-

quency, sequencing, delivery system, interaction with other agents, and

contraindications. It suggests compelling new research questions and


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PREFACE xv

answers to undamental problems that all managers must ace, with an

appreciation o basic issues beyond our conscious awareness, thus provid-ing a primer highlighting basic principles o managerial communication.

As Dean o the College o Communications and Inormation Stud-

ies or over a decade at the University o Kentucky, I jokingly reerred to

mysel as the stealth dean, preerring a minimalist level o communica-

tion. As oten as not I have seen other managers embroiled in needless

di culty rom overdoing management. In many ways managers might be

better guided by the old medical maximum o rst do no harm, but, o

course, US managers have a bias toward action.

Here, I seek to bridge both the world o practice and o research. O

course in doing so, I run the risk o pleasing no one. While it has become

commonplace or scholars to apply metaphors to acilitate theory devel-

opment, they are only haphazardly applied to practice. In spite o decades

o research, we have at best only a uzzy notion o what dosage is needed

or specic efects. My desire here is to acquaint a range o readers with

the underlying substantive and pragmatic issues related to the metaphor

o dosage, providing readers with an analytic ramework that can readily

be applied to the everyday world o work.

My Thanks

I would like to thank Dr. Sally Johnson, who oten has a diferent per-

spective on the arguments I present here, and my students in my intro-

ductory graduate communication theory class or reviewing earlier drats

o this work.

I would also like to thank David Parker, ounding editor and pub-

lisher o Business Expert Press, and Debbie DuFrene, corporate commu-

nication collection editor, or their assistance and support.

Plan of Book

Te rst chapter has provided a ramework or applying the basic prin-

ciples o dosage to a managers work. In the next chapter we ocus on

expanding the metaphor o dosage, detailing its many elements as well

as discussing the use and limits o metaphor generally, and the history o


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xvi PREFACE

the use o metaphor in organizational thought. Tese latter two sections,

in particular, may be o only passing interest to the practicing manager.Organizational communication has oten explicitly used metaphors

as a basis or its theoretic approaches. In Chapter 3 we ocus on such

basic organizational approaches as the right match between communi-

cation eforts and desired outcomes primarily reected in communica-

tion channel research, diferentiation and integration, and technology

and structure. Chapter 4 ocuses on managing relationships between two

people in interpersonal communication, particularly in terms o compli-

ance gaining in supervisorsubordinate relationships. Chapter 5 details

the application o the dosage metaphor to the central managerial concern

o productivity. Chapter 6 ocuses on perhaps the most contemporane-

ously interesting issue o change. Here I highlight network analysis con-

cepts such as the strength o weak ties, structural equivalence, and social

contagion in the adoption and implementation o innovations. Chapter 7

turns to how an organization communicates with its publics, particularly

in campaigns.

Te nal chapter discusses broader policy issues raised by application

o the metaphor o dosage and the development o a minimalist approachto management. Managers must be ever sensitive to the issues o match

and the possibility that overdoing communication can have as many bad

outcomes as not paying enough attention to communication. How to

achieve the right balance while minimizing their eforts, while still achiev-

ing the outcomes they desire, is perhaps the Holy Grail o management.


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PrologueLet us examine a common situation where a manager must increase his

units sales. Unconsciously in most situations (consciously i the manager

is a particularly good one) while those business goals are being deter-

mined, the manager must address the underlying communication dosage

problems in deciding how best to impart critical inormation to his direct

reports (able 1).

We are all amiliar with the elements that would be considered whena manager establishes immediate business goals. He will need to deter-

mine staging beore specic tactics can be developed. I this is a new

product, then the manager will need to do additional testing to determine

the characteristics o the target audience and its needs. He will need to

determine the ollowing types o things:

Te amount o contact that should be acquired ater the sale

to ensure customer satisaction.

How requently ollow-up visits should be arranged and whattheir duration should be.

Whether a visit should be in person or can be arranged by

videoconerencing.

Whether an image campaign is necessary to improve

receptiveness o an audience beore direct marketing can occur.

I the content o the campaign interacts with other company

campaign.

I the company truly has the appropriate manuacturing

capacity to produce a product.

I a ast gear up will result in poor product quality.

Coincident with the managers business decision-making, a set o

decisions will also be reached relating to communication.1 Te manager

may decide to set aside two separate, sequential appointments with key

personnel to discuss thoroughly all o their marketing options. Alterna-

tively, he might decide to give the client the recommended solution based

on their initial marketing analysis, and then, ater the client has had time


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2 MANAGERIAL COMMUNICATION

to consider how the product might be used in their everyday work urther

testing to see i it is still a good t; then to ollow-up with a more lengthy

detailed interview about additional product options. While this would be

the preerred approach with most clients, managers might also consider

traditional clients who dont handle change well and are usually rustratedby delays in product introduction (a contraindication), and that it would

be best to have this sort o discussion with their manager rather than the

end-user themselves.

For most clients, the manager then decides what communication

channels would be the most appropriate to supplement ace-to-ace calls

that deliver the initial sales pitch. He might decide to reer the client to

a company website, to give them a manual, to show them a videotape,

and so orth. Unortunately, a manager may not know how the inorma-

tion provided might interact with other inormation sources the client is

exposed to, such as coworkers, competitors, proessional organizations,

business analysts, the Internet, and so on. Te manager also needs to

be concerned with how this might impact clients more broadly. In this

case, he might be worried about the clients business model, competitive

situation, and general decline o their industry, and so on. In short, or

their business strategy to be most efective, the manager needs to develop

parallel elements relating to communication dosages to the one he ollows

more overtly or business ones.

Table 1. Dosage in a Managers Everyday Life

Dosageelements

Parallel elementsManagers goals Communication elements

Amount Increasing sales Duration of campaign

Frequency Weekly goals for 2 months Follow-ups

Delivery systems Marketing strategies Brochures

MP3

Face-to-face meetings

Sequencing Problem analysis,

Implementation of solutions

Image campaign, then direct

marketing, then mass advertising

Interactions New product Competitors campaigns

Contraindications Lack of capacity Resistance to change, frustrating

expectations

Dysfunctions Poor quality Client/customer pushback


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CHAPTER 1

Introduction and Overview

Overview

As the prologue illustrates, in our everyday lives, when conronted with

problems, we must decide how much efort we will engage in to achieveour ends. Managers must decide how much time they will expend to

describe to workers the seriousness o potential layofs; marketing direc-

tors must decide how much V time they should buy, how requently

to sell a product; salesmen must decide when they have made enough

arguments to close the deal, adapting their persuasive attempts to the

level o resistance they sense in their audience; airline pilots must decide

how much inormation they need to impart to their co-pilots to deal

with emergencies; and skilled mechanics need to ensure that they get the

right instrument or the next stage o their repairs. Fundamentally, in our

day-to-day interactions with others, we must constantly conront issues

o dosage.

In this work we will look at dosage as a metaphor that encapsulates

undamental principles that managers can use to guide their communi-

cation. When I have an ailment I go to a doctor or a diagnosis. Te

doctor evaluates my condition and then prescribes a treatment. I I am

a good patient, I then exactly ollow her prescription regarding the re-

quency, duration, and so on. But, unortunately, we also know that peo-ple do not oten comply with medical advice. Tey inadvertently skip

doses, change treatment agents (oten because o cost, the advice o their

riends, or just reverting to habits), and they do not continue adminis-

tration ater the rst signs that the immediate precipitating conditions

have disappeared. All o these circumstances have direct analogs to the

experiences o organizational consultants, change agents, and manag-

ers o internal communication campaigns (e.g., increasing workplace

saety).


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Fundamentally we must address the notion o what dosage is needed

or particular efects. What volume, depth o communication, or both dowe need to achieve particular purposes? Communication theories oten

implicitly paint a picture o the prevalence and paramount importance o

communication. Systems theories point to the importance o coordina-

tion and interdependence, interpretive theories ocus on sharing o per-

spectives in sense-making activities, discourse theories on the importance

o dialog or collective action, and so on.

Tere is also what has been described as a communication meta-

myth that more is better, with organizational members always desiring

more communication, especially rom ormal channels, regardless o how

much they are receiving,1 interpersonal scholars historically argued that

increased communication leads to relational panacea,2 and uncertainty

reduction has oten been cast as a direct and linear unction o an objec-

tive quantity o inormation.3 On the receivers side there has been a

concern with impacts o communication overloads, but there has not

been concomitant interest in underloads and the, perhaps related, topic

o ignorance.4 As we will soon see, some partial, oten implicit, attempts

have been made to incorporate dosage, but not a synthetic approach.Te metaphor o dosage ofers a rich organizing principle or manag-

ers in their everyday work. It ocuses their eforts on such undamental,

pragmatic concerns as:

amount

requency

sequencing

delivery system

interaction with what other agents

contraindications

It suggests compelling new answers to undamental problems that

all communicators must ace, with an appreciation o some basic issues

beyond conscious awareness. Tis is the ultimate hope or the more com-

plete development o the dosage metaphor, that we look at some old

problems, which are critical to any manager, with a new set o tools and

vocabulary.


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INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW 5

Dosage and Metaphor

All this suggests that a key question is just what dosage is needed to achieve

particular impacts. Simply proposing more or better communication is

the oldest consulting recommendation in the bookand no one today

really needs more meetings.5

What numbers o people and what amount o communication are

needed to achieve threshold, critical mass efects, or both or the difusion

o innovations such as social media, or example? It may be the case or a

number o innovations, minimalist communication strategies, involving

some mediated communication and intense interpersonal communica-tion involving only those immediately afected may be the best approach

or, alternatively, perhaps a more viral marketing approach targeting

opinion leaders.

Communication theorists tend not have measured approaches to

problems. We do not know when to stop, and perhaps like a doctor who

gives someone a drug because they expect one, in our consultant roles we

are oten pressed to do something. Unortunately, however, too much

communication is oten associated with chaos, low morale, and ine -

ciency in organizations,6 with inormation overload impeding efective

communication,7 and thus making groups less intelligent.8

Te dosage metaphor ofers an encompassing way o addressing these

issues, particularly with an emphasis on the increasing importance o out-

comes in this age o accountability. It ocuses on the issue o how much

should I give, how oten, or how long, with an underlying appreciation

or the darker side o efects (e.g., overdoses, allergic reactions, contrain-

dications) as well. Te dosage metaphor has rich implications, bridg-

ing us to persistent problems that managers ace daily in implementing

change.9

Seen as allegories or as gures o speech, metaphors may appear

to be no more than simple literary or linguistic tools, yet there is

ar more to them than that. Tey are the outcome o the cogni-

tive process that is in constant usea process in which the lit-

eral meaning o the phrase or word is applied to the content in a

gurative sense.10


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Metaphors become a way o seeing and thinking; they provide a way

o understanding one thing by appeal to another. Tey also reect centralissues o a particular time and place. Tey have been central to our think-

ing about organizations given their complexity. Tis was particularly

so early on or issues related to productivity, e ciency, and efective-

ness, seemingly the most rational o pursuits. Some o this early work

in e ciency likened organizations to machines, while later work, more

concerned with t, match, and efectiveness, used more organismic

metaphors.

Fundamentally, dosage reers to the administration o a therapeutic agent

in prescribed amounts. Given its ubiquity in health disciplines, it is some-

what surprising that dosage has not been related in a more systematic

way to communication. In part, this might be because o a presumed

association with unctionalist, post-positivistic explanations o behavior,

and their concern with outcomes. Common denitions o dosage inher-

ently have an element o administrative science that might be uncomort-

able to some, in spite o the words Greek root, which means giving. o

those with a more simplistic understanding o modern medicine, dosage

also seems to imply a denial o the particularistic, contextual, individu-alized ocus o communication. However, the more modern movement

to personalized medicine would seem to encapsulate many o the con-

temporary trends in communication as well. Just as a doctor knows

that a therapeutic agent will not work or all people, a good communi-

cologist knows that not all messages will have the same meaning or all

people.11

Conclusion

Tere are several key componentso a denition o dosage.

First is the notion o an agent that promotes change.

Second is the suggestion that the agent is therapeutic in

some sense. Both o these components relate to the extensive

use o the metaphor in the organization change literature.

In a darker way, oten a dose needs to be prescribed by an

authoritative agent (e.g., doctor) beore we can administer it


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INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW 7

and it may have unintended or unknown side efects. It also

can be associated with agents o inection and with hard luck. Tird is the relative strength, duration, and repetition o

the agent needed to achieve the desired efect. In medicine,

these actors are known with some precision because o

evidence.

In the next chapter we expand on these elements, highlighting their

importance or the practice o management.


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johnson chapter one

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