MSLD520 - Module 4 - Supportive Communication - Madeline Campbell


Successful work environments have been linked to utilizing open and trustworthy communication between managers and followers. Our lecture this week emphasized how supportive communication can preserve or enhance relationships. This unfortunately did not take place at Cerner, resulting in a poor work culture in which work performance was no longer a priority as seen from the provided email excerpt. Within the eight attributes of supportive communication, some of the aspects are areas that I have found myself not utilizing and others that I have been specifically working on the last 2-3 months within my office.

The first two attributes, congruence and descriptive communication, are something that I must actively work on everyday at my workplace. Matching how I act with my non-verbals can be very difficult, as like the lecture stated, we often communicate with others that we have more common interests with. Further, I can struggle to communicate descriptively about an event without pulling in various people involved. There are a handful of people within my office that I do not talk with every day, as we operate differently or have a dissimilar work-life relationship with our manager. Due to this, there are boundaries in which I try to stay in at work. However, I will smile and wave at certain co-workers as I walk past their office, but rarely engage with them/initiate a conversation. If they come into my office to tell me about their life, I often continue work on my computer while speaking with them, as we do not have that “friendly” work-life relationship. In these cases, I am struggling with congruent and descriptive communication because I am not communicating how I truly feel, and if I do, I tend to not keep the conversation objective as I tie in various relationships instead.

Next, supportive communication is problem-oriented, not people oriented. This third attribute of supportive communication has been something I have been working on for months now, but have not taken direct action to implement. Within our department, we have a new hire that I struggle with specific personality traits. This individual can and does the required work but at times may not show up to meetings, asks for extensions on deadlines, etc. I have to actively that I must work harder to find the problems aside from the individual. As Whetton and Cameron state, “Problem-oriented communication focuses on problems and solutions rather than on personal traits” (2016, p. 201). The fourth point of supportive communication is validating an individual with how we speak to one another. This point directly relates to the talk by Celeste Headlee when she discusses how we can listen to one another in a reengineered fashion (2015). I try to listen very intently to what co-workers are saying so that I can have a follow up question, or pull more information from a statement they make. Headlee states that, “we don’t often listen to understand, we listen to reply” (2015). I have found that I can often invalidate individual’s conversation, when they are simply trying to share something with me.

The fifth attribute within supportive communication is being specific and useful when relating information to an individual. An area within my work that I would like to improve upon within the next thirty days would be to give potential and admitted students specific communication. Instead of when a student inquires, “what will transfer in to Aerospace Engineering” and I reply “pre-requisites,” I would like to inform them of more specific information that will assist them throughout the process to aid them in their admission progression. The provided email excerpt does NOT display this trait, as the CEO does not provide any details on how the managers in question can improve. Rather the CEO simply demands a new result or risk losing your job. The sixth aspect of supportive communication is conjunctive communication. For me, this directly correlates to the third attribute I am working on with our new hire. Conjunctive communication involves, “asking questions based  directly on a previous statement, by waiting for a  sentence to be completed before beginning a response  (e.g., not finishing a sentence for someone else), and  by saying only three or four sentences at a time before  pausing to give the other person a chance to add input” (Whetton, et al, 2016, p. 205). I often will answer the question before the new hire has completed their sentence or continue to speak as to not be interrupted. For me, this, with patience, is something to strive towards within the next thirty days.

The seventh aspect of supportive communication regards owned communication and saying or using “I” and “me” instead of “we”. (Whetton, et al, 2016, p. 205). Within this next month of work, I can incorporate this when I speak to applicants via the phone or email. I often say “we are currently making an admission decision” or “Embry-Riddle is implementing an early decision deadline” instead of “I am currently making an admission decision with your application.” Through this, I will not be avoiding taking the responsibility for my actions and it will foster better interaction with my students (Whetton, et al, 2016, p. 205). The eighth aspect of supportive communication focused on listening and responding. A way in which I can incorporate this supportive communication is when the students transfer a phone call back to me. It currently is a very busy season within my office and I am learning new roles that I have taken on. Roughly 5-15 times per hour, the students who act as secretaries, will call me and say “I have so and so on the line asking about blank and blank, they specifically want to know blank.” Recently, when the student call me, I continue with my work and catch 25% of what they are communicating, then when they ask, “so can I transfer them to you?” I continually have to follow up with, “yes, who is calling, what do they want again?” I am not listening well, as I am making other work tasks more important than the students communicating to me. I know that I am simply being selfish with my communication and need to work to listen more intently and remove distractions during communication. As Whetton and Cameron state, “When individuals are preoccupied with meeting their own needs…they don’t listen effectively” (2016, p. 207).


References

Headlee, C. (2016, March 8). 10 ways to have a better conversation: Celeste Headlee. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/R1vskiVDwl4
Whetton, D. A. & Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing management skills, 9th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson.



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