Miscommunication in the Workplace

September 10, 2014 at 7:51 pm (Business Conflicts, Communication Problems, Diversity in the Workplace, Effective Communication)
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I’m sure we can all relate to miscommunication with a boss or fellow employee at work. When this happens, processes could potentially fall behind or customers could become angry about not being properly attended to. Without having good communication skills in the workplace, it is hard to get things done in a timely manner. Proper communication is vital to a workplace running smoothly and efficiently.

There are many reasons behind miscommunication in the workplace. One of the main issues is language barriers. I have had bosses, as well as customers, who spoke a different language than I do and it is tough trying to figure out what they need and how to appropriately help them. It is nice having interpreters that can help, but the communication issue is still always there. Another really big reason behind the lack of communication is being given confusing information. For example, if my boss tells me to do something but I am not sure what she means, I might not get the process done as effectively as I would if I fully understood what needed to be done. Be sure to double check information with the person in charge to make sure it is correct.

Along with confusing information being given, there might also not be enough information being given. If there isn’t enough information given, the process might not get completed all the way. My boss has left out some information when giving me a project to do and I had to go back and redo some of it and it is just frustrating. Be sure to get all of the information out in a timely manner to the person doing the job in order for the job to get completed properly.

There might also be miscommunication between employees. When talking to a coworker, people need to be sure to not put it in a way for the other person to misinterpret what is trying to be said. Be sure to have a clear understanding of the point you are trying to get across before sharing it with someone. Some employees have trouble listening to their leaders. If employees don’t fully listen to what their bosses are telling them to do, they won’t efficiently get the job done.

Another big issue in the workplace is mixing personal lives with professional lives. People need to be sure to leave their personal lives at home before coming to work. There is no reason for everyone to know what is going on with you outside of work, unless you feel the need to talk to human resources. Bringing personal lives into the workplace takes the mind off of the job you are doing, causing mistakes to happen and sometimes those mistakes could cost you your job.

Having negative attitudes in the workplace could cause miscommunication to occur. There could be two employees that do not get along, creating communication issues. There could also be an employee that doesn’t particularly care for their job, causing them to not listen to direction as much as others. Negative attitudes could cause the workplace to be a hostile environment, which could lead to other problems in the future.

Having effective communication in a workplace is an essential part of getting the job done that is needed. If there are communication issues, the workplace could have meetings to talk about them and fix them to the best of their abilities. It is a good idea to talk about things that are going wrong so that it won’t be an issue in the future and things will fun more efficiently and smoothly. Good communication leads to effective productivity, which leads to happy managers and employees.

By: Taylor Bray, Accounting major at IUPUC

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Miscommunication That Can Lead to Malpractice in Hospitals

October 17, 2013 at 5:32 pm (Communication Problems, Conflict, Diversity in the Workplace, Effective Communication, Uncategorized)
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Did you know that the leading cause for malpractice in hospitals is miscommunication?

According to the research that I have done, there are five key risk factors as to why miscommunication can happen in hospitals; Culture/ Ethnicity, Beliefs, Literacy, and Gender.

Culture and Ethnicity are major reasons why there is miscommunication in hospitals. “In 2008, according to the U.S. Census, nearly 20% of people living in the United States spoke a different language.” (Quan. Introduction) Though, that does not seem like a lot of people, think of how many people speak a foreign language in today’s world. This is a problem for hospitals and medical professionals because there is a language barrier between the two. If you have a Spanish speaking patient, and an English speaking doctor, chances are there is going to be some type of miscommunication. This is where it is necessary for hospitals to have language translators. Whether it be the medical staff learning the major languages that are in the United States, or by hiring immigrants who know English well enough that the medical staff can understand what the patient needs or wants.

Socioeconomics is another risk for miscommunication in hospitals that can cause malpractice. A patient’s beliefs can determine what a doctor can and cannot do for them. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in blood transfusions, this can cause a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding for hospital staff. Even if it means, letting them die, the doctor has to respect the patient’s beliefs. Ways that this can be dealt with is for the doctor to understand the culture itself. If the doctor is trying to give the patient something they do not believe in, that is going against who they are. Medical staff should always be understanding and caring even if what the patient believes in hurts them more than helps.

Does every patient understand medical terms? More than likely, absolutely not. If every patient understood medical terms, they would not receive a prescription, and wonder, “Now, what’s this for?” This is where miscommunication falls into place. When patients do not know their medical terminology, and do not ask the doctor questions when it is appropriate, things can get sticky. Not knowing what you are taking, can hurt you rather than help. A solution for this maybe to require students in high school to take classes to understand these words. An etymology class would be great for this. Advisors at my high school suggested this class for students who planned on going into the medical field.

Many people do not understand that there is a difference between sex and gender. Sex refers to biological, or what you are born with. Such as, your external sex organs. Gender is the characteristics that a society or culture defines as masculine of feminine. When a patient is a male, but dresses as a female, this can cause miscommunication between the patient and staff. One, they do not know what to call this patient. And, if they did not know what sex the patient was and gave him a medicine they would typically give a female, this can lead to a problem. In order to understand these kinds of people, is to actually get to know them before prescribing them medicine. Even if the patient checked off on the patient form that he was a she, it is still important to figure out who the doctor is really dealing with.

All of the things that I have talked about lead to the malpractice if miscommunicated. My suggestions will hopefully, one day, be a thing in the past and we will not have to worry about miscommunication between patients and medical staff.

Works Cited Page

http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HHNMAG/PubsNewsArticle/data/2006August/0608HHN_gatefold&domain=HHNMAG

http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah’s_Witnesses_and_blood_transfusions

https://www.ecri.org/Forms/Documents/Communication.pdf

http://healthlaw.org/images/stories/High_Costs_of_Language_Barriers_in_Malpractice.pdf

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Communication Breakdown

January 27, 2012 at 3:19 pm (Business Conflicts, Business Ethics, Communication Problems)
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COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWNS

 Lost Money

Communication breakdowns in the business world can be very costly. Many companies focus on increasing profit and decreasing their costs. What most companies don’t realize is how much of these costs come from communication problems between managers and employees or the business and customers. Millions of dollars are lost every day due to poor communication. United States hospitals alone lose more than $12 billion a year due to poor communication. The worst part is most managers realize that there are problems with communication but don’t realize how big of a role that they play in the miscommunication themselves. These communication breakdowns can be due to several reasons including:

  • Different generations not understanding each other
  • Long meetings where the employees fade in and out of conversations and only pick up bits and pieces
  • Poor documentation
  • Or simply misunderstanding a person’s meaning

Lost Employees

Money is not the only thing that is lost due to these communication breakdowns. Around 80% of all complaints by employees are due to some form of communication misunderstanding. Poor corporate communication can cost a business its best employees. Replacing key talent can cost anywhere between 70 to 200 percent of that individual’s annual salary. If this is a common thing in a business then they are going to waste a lot of money.

A good example of a breakdown between a boss and one of his employees is going on right now. Earlier this week Peyton Manning stated that he felt the current situation wasn’t “healthy for his healing” and stated everyone is “walking on eggshells.” Him saying this upset Jim Irsay who responded by calling Manning a “Politician.” This is an example of how wording one thing wrong can lead to much bigger problems. Originally all Manning was trying to express were his concerns about continuing to play for the Colts and how he was upset to no longer be working with old friends. The way he worded it made it sound like he was calling his boss out which is never a good idea.

 Loss of Public Trust

            Using poor communication with your customers is a quick way to have your business fail. If a company is unable to talk with its customers in a way that they both understand and trust then that company will lose its customers and therefor lose money.  A great example of poor communication ruining a businesses’ reputation is the British Petroleum oil disaster. After the disaster BP’S CEO admitted that he had previously received information that there may be a problem. BP’S CEO was later fired for his poor handling of corporate communication.

What It All Means

So what does this all mean? Good communication skills are essential to having a successful business. Even if you are not involved in business, having poor communication skills can cost you your job. If a business was ran and staffed by people who all had excellent communication skills, that business would save themselves a lot of time, resources, and money. A little thought and revision can go a long way.

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Real World Examples of Groupthink and the Consequences

November 5, 2011 at 2:04 pm (Business Ethics, Diversity in the Workplace, Effective Communication, Internet Consensus, Internet Consensus, Uncategorized, Working Well with Teams)
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First, what is Groupthink?

Groupthink was discovered as an undesirable by-product of group cohesiveness by a psychologist named Irving Janis. He further defined groupthink as a “mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ striving for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”

What are the symptoms of Groupthink?

Excessive Optimism                                      Assumptions of Inherent Morality

Suppression of Dissent                                 Desperate Quests for Unanimity

Stereotyping                                                  Rationalizing

  • These symptoms create a decision-making climate where the probability of making a poor decision is very high.

Real World Examples and Their Consequences

Corporate

Swissair’s Collapse: Thought to be so financially stable that people referred to it as the “Flying Bank.” Poor decision-making processes eventually led to its collapse.

Symptoms: The belief that the group is invulnerable and the belief in the morality of the group.

Lack of expertise, similar backgrounds / norms and pressure to conform were also present.

Consequences: Collapse of Swissair

Political

Vietnam: Groupthink is believed to be main reason for the war. Strategic advisors in 3 successive administrations rubber-stamped battle plans laced with false assumptions.

Symptoms: Groupthink prevented contradictory views to the war from being expressed and subsequently evaluated.

Consequences: 58,220 United States servicemen died.

Newly studied areas of groupthink outside of Politics and Business where symptoms were present.

Sports

Major League Umpire Association: In 1999, the Major League Baseball Association staged a mass resignation in a failed attempt to gain a stronger negotiating stance.

Symptoms: The umpires overestimated the power that they had over the baseball league and the strength of their group’s resolve. There was the presence of self-censorship; some umpires who disagreed with the decision to resign failed to voice their dissent.

Consequences: Failed strategy, Major League Baseball accepted their resignations, 22 umpires were out of jobs and eventually replaced.

Groupthink Consequences and Preventing Them

Previous examples show how groupthink can have devastating consequences. In some cases, thousands of lost lives have been associated with it.

How can we prevent groupthink?

According to Irving Janis, there are some things we can do to improve decision quality in cohesive groups but groupthink will always be a threat.

Most Important: Group members must always ask, “Are we allowing ourselves to become victims of groupthink?”

                Fundamental prevention measures:

  1. Avoid the use of groups to rubber-stamp decisions.
  2. Urge each group member to be a critical evaluator.
  3. Bring in outside experts for fresh perspectives.
  4. Assign someone the role of challenging assumptions.
  5. Take time to consider possible consequences of action.

References:

Kreitner, Robert. Management. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2009. Book.

By David Rice, Business (Computer Information Systems) Major-Indiana University Purdue University Columbus

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Cultural Diversity in the Workplace

August 5, 2011 at 2:06 pm (Diversity in the Workplace, Working Well with Teams)
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The following is an article written by X204 Business Communication Adjunct Lecturer Robin Fritz for Chron.com, the online business portal for the Houston Chronical:

Overview – Thanks to technology and faster transportation, the world is growing smaller every day, leaving plenty of opportunities for businesses to expand their products, services and staffs on a global scale.  But with a more global business environment comes a host of new challenges, not the least of which is learning to function in a multicultural workplace comprised of people with widely differing backgrounds.  For businesses with a very diverse workplace, successfully juggling a multicultural staff can make or break the bottom line.

What is Culture? – Culture is an interwoven system of customs, morals, traits, traditions and values shared by a group of people or a society.  It provides people with a common heritage, and it links them through shared experiences and joint learning.  Cultures exist on scales both large and small, ranging from large cultures extending to countries and regions, such as the American culture or Middle Eastern culture, to such small and distinct cultures as that of Amish communities in Pennsylvaniato the Basque culture in southern France.  Moreover, cultures provide people with a sense of self identity and community, and it greatly influences their actions within the workplace.

What is Diversity? – But, not all cultures are the same.  For instance, some cultures operate on a more “low-context” level than others.  People raised in low-context cultures tend to be very literal – focusing on the spoken word – and they’re more often analytical and action oriented.  Low-context employees also tend to use linear logic in the workplace, for example proceeding from point A to point B to point C and so on.  Additionally, business managers raised in low-context cultures strive to be efficient and professional, and they treat time as a very limited commodity.  North America and Western Europe are examples of low-context cultures.

Embracing Cultural Diversity – High-context cultures, on the other hand, tend to be more contemplative and intuitive, and workers raised in such cultures often treat time as an endless resource.  Additionally, in such cultures, spiral logic is more common, with individuals circling indirectly around a topic, considering it from all angles and viewpoints instead of head on.  Whereas Americans may be very literal, high-context workers pay attention to more than just the spoken word, believing that all aspects of communication – body language, facial expressions, etc.  – carry as much meaning as the actual words themselves.  Examples of high-context cultures include Far Eastern, Middle Eastern and Hispanic cultures.

Encouraging Cultural Diversity – In today’s global economy people from both low-context and high-context cultures are interacting in multicultural workplaces like never before and, as people are affected both visibly and invisibly by their cultures, conflict can result from the inevitable misunderstandings.  For example, employees from high-context cultures such as China, Mexico or Japan may prefer to imply no with their body language rather than saying no in actual word form.  Literal Americans and Canadians, however, often overlook these subtle implications and may fail to understand. 

To overcome multicultural misunderstandings, smart business managers will take the time to learn about and understand the differing cultures represented within their workplace, and will train their employees from different cultures on how best to communicate with each other in the workplace.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/multicultural-effects-workplace-10989.html

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Strengths and Weaknesses in Workplace Communication

August 4, 2011 at 12:10 pm (Effective Communication)
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The following is an article written by X204 Business Communication Adjunct Lecturer Robin Fritz for Chron.com, the online business portal for the Houston Chronical:

Overview – When hiring, one of the first qualities managers look for in new employees is superior communication skills.  Smart managers recognize that creative employees with great ideas offer little value if they lack the communication skills necessary to adequately share those ideas in the workplace.  To improve upon communication in the workplace, managers build upon communication strengths while identifying and eliminating communication weaknesses.

Effective Communication – Most people are born communicating, thus it’s something many take for granted, but some people communicate more effectively than others.  Effective communicators recognize two vital aspects of communication – sharing both the intended information and the meaning of that information with their intended audience.  In fact, most communication errors occur because one of those two aspects of a message is missing.  For instance, if a supervisor instructs an employee to have a project completed by noon, but the employee hears 2:00, the message was ineffective because, while the proper meaning was communicated – have the project completed –  the correct information – have it done by noon – was not.

Communication Strengths in the Workplace – Skilled communicators recognize that effective communication takes forethought.  For example, smart managers first evaluate their intended audience to gauge such factors as the current mood, their education level, the context of the situation, etc., and they frame their message accordingly.  Effective communicators also evaluate all the possible channels available for communicating, such as face-to-face, over the phone, via email, etc., and they chose the channel best suited for that particular message and audience.  Also key to communicating effectively is learning to engage in actively listening as it takes two people – a sender and a receiver – to communicate.  

Important too, effective communicators avoid distractions and focus on more than just the spoken word, and they evaluate body language, tone of voice, etc. for clues to gauge whether their intended audience comprehends the message.  Skilled communicators in the workplace also encourage open feedback, recognizing that communication is a constant process.

Communication Weaknesses in the Workplace – Given its complexity, it is little wonder that most people, at some point, fail to communicate effectively in the workplace.  Typical weaknesses in communication include failure to adequately consider the needs of the audience.  For example, rushed employees trying to meet deadlines often overload their audience with information, and important details are often lost in the process.  Additionally, many communicators inadequately evaluate their audience and ignore the impact of such crucial details as cultural background or education level on the communication process.  For instance, industry experts who speak only in jargon will lose members of a general audience lacking experience with those terms. 

Ineffective communicators also underestimate the impact of physical distractions and emotional interference on their audience.  For example, audiences often discount a speaker’s message if that person uses bad grammar, appears sloppy, or lacks enthusiasm for the topic.

Building the Strengths while Avoiding the Weaknesses – Smart business managers encourage communication strengths in the workplace by modeling superior communication skills with their own messages.  Effective communicators educate themselves on the their employees’ individual frames of reference, and adapt their messages accordingly.  They recognize that meaning exists not in words, but in the people who use those words, and they use language that their audience will understand, for instance, using or avoiding slang, colloquial expressions or jargon based on their understanding of the audience.  Most importantly, though, smart business managers listen to their audience, and they seek to ensure that they fully understand both the intended information and meaning of a message by asking questions and encouraging feedback.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/strength-weakness-workplace-communication-10946.html

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