Communication Challenges - Literature review Example

ARTICLE SUMMARY 1 COMMUNICATION The title of the article that we have chosen is Communication Challenges Facing Management Teams that related to the topic in Chapter 9 which is communication. Communication is the process that managers use to interact with subordinates, peers, supervisors, customers, suppliers, owners, the general public, etc. It is a complex process that requires constant attention so that intended meanings, understandings, and/or feelings, are sent and received. The author for this article is Eerika Hedman and Maarit Valo, Department of Communication, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. This article is established on 2015 by Leadership and Organization Development Journal. ISSUES The purpose of this article is to explore what kinds of communication challenges management teams experience and to suggest ideas for developing competent communication practices. Communication is the process that managers use to interact with subordinates, peers, supervisor, customers, suppliers and owner. The ability involves board array of activities including reading, listening, managing and interpreting information. Communication is the process in which the senders, messages, channels and receivers do not remain constant or static. LESSON LEARNED There are many types of communication challenges that the management teams experience. Firstly, Formal communication vs. informal communication Formal communication follows the chain of the commands and is recognized as official. The dimension of formal and informal communication refers to the difference between communication during and outside meetings, communication at work compared to communication in one’s free time and the content of communication. A lot of the communication challenges were related to the meetings, which MT members perceived as being more formal than the other forms of communication. In particular, the topics on the agenda were connected to formal communication, and there seemed to be a desire to add more informal communication to the meetings. Informal communication was also related to a more relaxed atmosphere, which was experienced as happening outside the meeting room and even outside the work context. One reason for experiencing the other communication forums as informal could be that “There is a less political agenda” than in the meetings, as one MT member put it. MT members explained that it is important to spend time together doing something that is not work-related, because that enables team members to get to know each other, establish relationships and develop trust. Informal communication was also connected to speaking about team-related issues, such as team development or giving and receiving feedback. These kinds of topics are not usually on the agenda for a meeting, but rather they are discussed outside that context, often during a team development day, which might be held once a year. Secondly, Face-to-face communication vs. ICT assisted communication. As the MT members represented multicultural MTs that use communication technology in their collaboration, it was emphasized that communication has to flow on many levels and in many different forums – not only in official meetings and face-to-face. Although many MT members reported that they use ICT in their communication, mostly video conferencing, e-mail and telephone, much MT communication is still dependent on face-to-face communication, especially in MT meetings. Phone and e-mail were used mainly for one-to-one communication between MT members. Video conferencing was occasionally used for MT meetings. However, in most cases the meetings were arranged in such a way that there were some MT members who were participating face-to-face in the same location while others were participating online. Interestingly, the MT members experienced the meetings with the whole team present face-to-face as both more informal and more genuine than online meetings. Those are the examples for oral and technological communication. FINDINGS The way to suggest ideas for developing competent communication practices are to avoid grapevine. Grapevine is an informal method of transmitting information depicted as the wandering of messages throughout the organization. Another ways are to give feedback that is specific rather than general, focus on feedback on behavior rather than the person. Lastly, avoid feedback using evaluative inferences about motives, intent or feeling. ARTICLE SUMMARY 2 MANAGEMENT CONTROL According to the journal that we choose which is “Performance Measure and management control in new product development” by Julie H. Hertenstein and Marjorie B. Platt, it highlight more on how they control in develop new product. The new product development (NPD) is the process transforms concepts into commercially viable products. It is a very critical for strategy implementation and should be closely linked to business strategy. ISSUES In the management control of NPD, they focused on three aspects which are position of NPD in the firm’s organizational structure. Second, new product development process and third is performance measure. The first aspect, In order for NPD to make these strategic contributions, management controls had to be structured to effectively link NPD to strategy. Locating the NPD function correctly in the organization facilitates the flow of strategic information to NPD for strategy implementation and from NPD for strategy formation. LESSON LEARNED Structuring the NPD process appropriately enables strategic goals to be used to select and guide NPD projects. This step also similar with the measuring actual performance. Finally, effective performance measures can signal strategically important goals that the NPD team must address, and measure their success in achieving these goals. As we can see the performance measure management control that they use also give the meaning of comparing actual performance with standard. From the performance measures, they can evaluate whether the new product development that they design achieve the standard performance or their goals. If the deviation from performance is unacceptable, then corrective action is needed in step to which measuring actual performance. In contrast, if the deviations are accepted, no correction action is necessary but they also can provide positive reinforcement.   Other than that, to be more specific, the second step which touch on new product development there have linked to our subject which in type of control. First is Pre-Action Control or known as Feed-forward or Preventive Control. It focuses on detecting any kind of undesirable material that serves as inputs to the transformation process. In the NPD the inputs that they used is design the development and do a research. Once they have identify those thing, they will start do the process of the development. The process is the second type of control which known as steering control or concurrent control. In this type of control, it focuses on meeting standards for product or service quality or quantity and what occurs during transformation process. The process that include in develop new product is product prototyping and technical development. After the new product are done, the production and distribution, quality testing also implemented in the steering control. Last but not least, is a post-action Control or feedback control. It focuses on discovering undesirable output and implementing corrective action. Customer satisfaction audit is the one of the feedback control that NPD use in management control. FINDINGS Given these point, we want to highlight that management control are very important not only in the new product development but also in many aspect. This is because the management control function to ensure that the strategy that we design keep continues in the future and if there have a lack in the strategy, we can correctly immediately. The effective performance is leads from the good management control. Therefore, we need to emphasize carefully the management control. ARTICLE SUMMARY 3 DECISION MAKING MANAGEMENT Based on the article written by Dr Janet Fitzell, decision making is the process through managers and leaders identify and resolve problems and capitalize on opportunities. Problem is defined as a condition that occur when some aspect of organizational performance is less than desirable. Management is consider as planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, problem solving and it is clear that decision making is an essential management skill because everyone of this management functions involve decision making of various kinds. It has been shown that managers can be required to make hundreds of decision in the course of an average week at work. The best organization is a place to start by having a clear understanding what makes for an effective management decision. It is crucial to focus and alert at the process that involved in achieving effective and right decisions. Effective decision making often involves selection and application of appropriate tools and having awareness of where each can be useful. Managers is the person who is responsible to invest time and effort in reviewing their approach to decision making. There are also in a better position to avoid some common decision making traps than manager who assume that their habitual approach is good enough and that their decision making is as effective as it can be. Effective decision making is often judged on whether the managers is a qualified and quality managers for the company or not. Effective management be measured by successful in that decision it achieves its purpose in short term or long term of the organization. Next is responsible in that decision makers have to act according to their delegated responsibilities. Third, robust because a sound process has been used to make the decision. Last is defensible, in that the rational for the decision can be explained to others. LESSON LEARNED Lesson that can we gather from this article is managers need to have clear understanding of what makes effective decision making. They need to have adequate information about the problem and decision that should be taken in order to gain effective decision making. Next lesson is look closely at the process involved in arriving at effective decision. Implement the seven process steps that should be involved in decision making which are first is identifying opportunity and diagnosing problems, second is identifying objective, third is generating alternative, fourth step is evaluating alternative, the fifth step is reaching decision, while the sixth step is choosing implementation strategies and last is monitoring and evaluating. Other than that, it is necessary to involves selection and application of appropriate tools. Use the right tools in solving the problems such as brainstorming, discussion and other method. Fourth lesson that can be gained is having awareness which decision can be useful for the organization. Choosing the right decision to be made after evaluating all the alternatives. Last or the fifth lesson is managers require to invest time and effort in reviewing their approach to make the decision. Managers play an important roles in ensuring the effectiveness of every decision making that should be made hence it is necessary for managers to invest time and giving as much effort as they can for the organization. ISSUES Issue that we faced referring this article is managers can required to make hundreds of decisions in the course of an average week at work. In a week there are many decision to be made by them by having this step or process in making decision, it can guide the managers fulfilling the right decision for the organization. FINDING According to the article, finding that we get is every managers when making a decision need to refer to strategic objectives. With that every problem can be solved in time. Other than that is making the decision according to the priority. There must be a problem that need to be settled first following the time that need to be fulfilled. Next finding based on the article is gather the information and generating options. After getting the information step can be taken and results to making a decision. The next finding is managers are looking for the current problem solving. Every problem has their solution with that managers need to know what solution or step should be taken. Other finding is focusing on the implementation and monitoring the problem solving. After choosing the decision manager need to implement each one of them and keep on monitoring so that it will stay on track. Last finding that gained from the article is decision are based on the ethics principle. Every organization has their own principle so they must not break the principle that has been determined by the organization. CONCLUSION In conclusion, all these steps is required to every organization in making the best decision. It acts as a tools and guidance for every managers. However, this process often be used especially when managers are under pressure one or more of this step is missed or compromised. With that, it turns into a decision with adverse consequences. This process steps is valid for seemingly simple decisions as they are for the most complex. We can conclude that our topic in Communication, Management Control and Decision Making is related to the article that we have discuss. In this three chapter, we have learnt that communication, management control and decision making is very important in the organization to create good communication skills, manage the control of the work efficiently and makes a good decision for particular problems. Organization success is based on strong communication skills, manageable control and good decision making because it is becoming increasingly important. 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