Erin BosmanCJ 355 Message DesignMartha Fay

Communication Breakdown Paper

Communication challenges can be seen within various different organizations, and

generally people are involved with more than one organization. This leads to encounters with

ineffective communication on a daily basis for many individuals. Throughout this paper, I am

going to discuss a communication challenge for an organization that I am a part of, and an

intervention plan for that communication challenge.

As a student manager at one of the dining locations on the University of Wisconsin- Eau

Claire’s campus, I think that communication between managers is less effective than it could be.

In becoming a student manager rather than a regular student employee, I had roughly two shifts

where I was trained into the differences. The regular student employees, are not informed of who

is a student manager, and there is no identifier for both other employees or customers other than

through verbal communication from the student manger themselves. Also, there is very little

formal, organized communication between all employees and supervisors which is the

communication challenge that I intend to focus on.

This location of this dining establishment has a very calm, casual environment which

leads to less than effective communication. Generally, the employees communicate in a way that

you would with family or friends, rather than what you typically would see between coworkers

and a supervisor. After becoming a student manager and through my courses in both

communication and psychology, I’ve been able to identify this informal, casual environment and

sometimes ineffective communication. In addition, when asking, reminding, or instructing

regular student employees to complete or help with a task, I have had many reply poorly saying

that what I’m asking is ‘unnecessary’ or the minimal effort for that task is ‘good enough’ rather

than them being as effective as they could be at their work. Partially, this is due to new additional

protocol that has recently begun. Partially, it is due to the relaxed, casual environment that the

employees tend to engage in. To summarize, I see a communication challenge between

supervisors, student managers, and regular employees in relation to when formal communication

and casual communication should be occurring, as well as in relation to who is in command and

what tasks need to be completed.

I think that one theory that this communication challenge can be described with is

Anthony Gidden’s structuration theory. This theory considers the idea that social life is more

than random individual acts but also isn’t determined by specific social protocol. Furthermore,

Human agency and social structure are correlated together, and it is the repetition of the acts of

individual agents which reproduces the structure. This means that there is a social structure or

specific protocol in place but that this structure can be changed when people start to ignore the

protocol or respond differently than expected (Gauntlett, 2002). In context of the communication

challenge that I discussed above, the company, supervisors and managers have specific protocol

targeted for their intended structure, but the employees along with the supervisors have changed

that protocol by acting in a more casual manner and acting how they feel comfortable and

relaxed with rather than fully adhering to the structure that was intended. Often times

structuration theory is a positive concept, that can help an organization to form a unique identity

that applies to their goals and to the organizations members. While this has occurred for this

organization I am a part of, it has also lead to a lack of cooperation and compliance from

employees, which in turn has lead to a need for an intervention plan.

Organizations need to have the characteristics of being constructed through

communication, having a willingness to cooperate among members, and having a common

purpose among members. The organization I have been discussing has all of these characteristics

except the willingness to cooperate is not as strong and effective as it could be. In order to

achieve a stronger willingness to cooperate, and more effective communication between

supervisors, managers, and students, a communication intervention needs to be initiated and

achieved.

The first step in creating an intervention plan is to assess communication needs in the

organization. In discussing the communication challenge, I have done this. To repeat and once

again summarize, the communication needs in this organization is a need for effective

communication between supervisors, managers and other employees. It is necessary that all of

the employees of this organization know when to be more formal and when to be more casual in

their communication. Supervisors and managers also need to be able to be more assertive when

needed.

Next, it is necessary to Design an intervention to meet the communication needs that

were assessed. I think that a necessary part of an intervention would be to execute a review of all

three levels of employees. For this review, I would ask employees both how effective they feel

they are performing and communicating and how they believe they could improve. Then I would

ask how effective they feel that the different level(s) of employees surrounding them are

performing, and how those employees, managers, and/or supervisors could improve. For each

question I would expand by asking how they or the other employees were being ineffective.

Their perceived notions about themselves and their perceived notions about the other employees

in the organization could be conflicting and not allowing them to understand each other point of

view and needs. I would then discuss anything that was seen as being ineffective and anything

that one considered effective, but others did not.

Furthermore, for the implementation step in intervention, I would implement regular

performance reviews between supervisors and managers, and managers and employee. I would

also implement weekly team meetings to discuss changes, or communication needs that could be

made more effective. Finally, to evaluate the intervention I would come back later, preferably six

months later, and go over the performance reviews. I would also sit down with the various

employees to see if they felt there had been any improvement, and if there was any ineffective

communication that needed to be reassessed. Hopefully, the initiation of this intervention plan

would succeed as I expect and would be effective for this campus dining location.

Sources

Gauntlett, D. (2002). Media, gender, and identity: An introduction. Retrieved September 27, 2016, from http://www.theory.org.uk/giddens2.htm