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AUGUST 24, 2011
LINDA A. HILL
MARK RENNELLA
Martha Rinaldi:
Should She Stay or Should She Go?
The holidays were over and it was the beginning of a new year, January 2009. Martha Rinaldi had
not yet made a decision about what she should do: stay in her current position at Potomac Waters;
ask to be reassigned to a different brand; or, accept a standing offer at Deep Dive Pizza, where she
had interned the previous summer. Things were certainly not going as she had hoped upon arriving
at Potomac Waters as an assistant product manager (PM) in the Health Drinks Division. For the past
four months she had been working on Invi, a new brand of fruit health drinks.
She gazed at the adjacent desk of her colleague, Jamie Vaughan, and wondered whether she could
continue working with him and whether Natalie Follet (her manager) would be able to help her
develop her marketing skills. An associate PM, Vaughan had been working at this position since
February of 2008. Relations had been tense with Vaughan from the first day. He had started without
formal training in marketing, as he proudly told her many times, and often voiced his resentment of
“know-it-all” young MBAs. Both Vaughan and Rinaldi reported to Natalie Follet, also a company
veteran and only the second female PM in the Health Drinks Division of Potomac Waters. Having
worked half-time at home for six months for personal reasons, Follet communicated mainly through
email. Recently, in a rare, in-person meeting, Follet criticized Rinaldi for lacking initiative. Follet
would be back working full-time at the office soon. (See Exhibit 1 for short biographies of Vaughan,
Rinaldi, and Follet.)
Despite her short time at Potomac, Rinaldi had already lived through a few tense and sometimes
vocal exchanges with Vaughan and Follet. Making matters worse, many of her tasks on the job had
been menial (copying, fixing powerpoints, etc.). She wondered if she had a career at Potomac.
Background
Rinaldi was the third in a family of four daughters raised in Iowa City. All the sisters liked sports.
Martha enjoyed soccer in particular and excelled at the midfield position. She also liked helping her
father do the bookkeeping for his hardware store and maintaining the store’s web site. After high
school, she completed an undergraduate degree in computer science.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
HBS Professor Linda A. Hill and writer Mark Rennella prepared this case solely as a basis for class discussion and not as an endorsement, a
source of primary data, or an illustration of effective or ineffective management. This case, though based on real events, is fictionalized, and any
resemblance to actual persons or entities is coincidental. There are occasional references to actual companies in the narration.
Copyright © 2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685,
write Harvard Business Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu. This publication may not be digitized,
photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School.
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4310 | Martha Rinaldi: Should She Stay or Should She Go?
A year after graduating from University of Iowa, Martha began an MBA at a top-10 business
school located in a suburb of Chicago with strengths in marketing and management information
systems. Although Rinaldi had intended to focus on IT, her exposure to the faculty at her MBA
program inspired her to switch to marketing. After completing the first year of study at her two-year
MBA program, Rinaldi landed a summer position as an assistant to the Director of Promotions at
Deep Dive Pizza, a regional restaurant chain headquartered in Chicago. In the highly fragmented
restaurant industry, the Deep Dive chain found some local notoriety though flashy advertising
featuring new products, including the “pizza of the week” as well as other meal items that were
relatively easy to mass produce, such as desserts and specialty drinks. Through combining the casual
atmosphere of a full-service family dining restaurant with regular changes in menu selections that
were more typical of high-end restaurants, Deep Dive became a hit. The only drawback of this
strategy was that its complex execution posed a great challenge, especially as the model was
introduced into neighboring regions unfamiliar with Deep Dive’s approach.
Lean and mean, Deep Dive prided itself at being careful with costs so it could lavish attention on
the customer. Martha’s supervisor often said, “The office isn’t luxurious, but it’s never dull here!”
Martha contributed some great ideas about educating new franchise owners about the core elements
of the Deep Dive brand and was also able to build bridges with new suppliers who had to adjust to
Deep Dive’s frequent new-product development. Toward the end of her internship, she also applied
her background in computer science in creating a persuasive presentation on the return on
investment on some potential major investments in computerized information systems. These
successes caught the attention of the CEO. Upon the end of her internship, Martha’s boss took the
unusual step of setting up a celebratory goodbye party, inviting the three members of the pricing and
promotions team he managed to Deep Dive’s signature restaurant in downtown Chicago. As the
team dug into the enormous “Fun Sundae” ice-cream dessert, Martha’s boss reminded Rinaldi of
what he had said the week before: a job offer with the promotions team was waiting for her next
summer.
Looking Over Two Offers
After earning an MBA in May 2008, Rinaldi looked over the two job offers she received in July.
The first was a somewhat surprising offer from Deep Dive. The CEO had taken a personal interest in
Rinaldi and proposed that she lead a new “Special Projects” team in the marketing department where
she would report directly to the vice president of marketing. Rinaldi would be asked to lead teams
with members from across Deep Dive’s business units to take advantage of opportunities for growth.
The second offer was from Potomac Waters as an assistant PM in their Health Drinks Division.
The two offers had very distinct pluses and minuses. While Deep Dive was a fun place to work, it
had only one female manager (VP of Sales). The salary at Deep Dive was more attractive than the one
offered at Potomac (a $15,000 difference), but Deep Dive was still an entrepreneurial firm and its
future seemed very much dependent on successful rapid expansion. Although Martha liked the idea
of taking on this responsibility, she wondered if she would get better training in marketing from a
bigger company with a better reputation. She also did not know Deep Dive’s VP of marketing and
was unsure of what their relationship would be. And with the recent economic crisis, Martha learned
that consumers would probably cut back on eating out, opting instead for the cheaper and potentially
healthier option of eating at home while saving on money that would be spent on gas and
transportation. Potomac Waters was a much larger and better established firm with a national
presence and headquarted in a warmer city—Washington, D.C. (Potomac’s market share in its
product categories on the East and West Coasts had grown an average of 2% annually in the previous
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three years. It was also expanding to the Midwest, where Martha had noticed Potomac entering into
the Chicago market.)
Marketing was important in the restaurant industry, but it was central to success in the beverage
industry. It was especially important now at Potomac, which was making a push for national brand
recognition during a time of international economic crisis. Luckily for Potomac, the $40 billion U.S.
beverage industry, like most consumer staples, had not done as badly as many other sectors of the
economy in the “Great Recession” and was expected to rebound to its normally modest, but reliable,
rates of growth. As Martha learned while researching her job offers, Potomac was a privately held
company whose owners believed there was an opportunity to take a significant market share away
from traditional beverage companies because of growing consumer interest in non-carbonated and
private-label beverages. From its recent entrances in new markets, it seemed that Potomac was
cherry-picking the regions of high-growth in the U.S. beverage market. Two of their three divisions,
Health Drinks and Sports Drinks—were expected to spearhead that growth (maintained by the
consumers’ steady interest in trends centering on healthy living). Revenues from the third and oldest
division—Carbonated Soft Drinks—were expected to remain steady. Although hopes were high for
the company, the hard economic times for the country (with many experienced marketers from other
industries looking for work) combined with the endemic competitiveness in the beverage industry
meant that a marketing job at Potomac would always be fast-paced and demanding.
Martha heard from a company recruiter visiting her school that Potomac had a proven record of
marketing excellence—a company that could give her thorough training in all aspects of marketing,
thus preparing her better to excel in a position like the one at Deep Dive. Although she would not
know her exact assignment and whom she would report to until her starting date, Potomac’s location
in a stronger industry than Deep Dive’s and its superior marketing department made the beverage
company more attractive to her.
When she visited Potomac in June of 2008, many of the reasons why she had become interested in
the company were confirmed through her interactions with its employees who seemed happy to
spend part of their work day sharing information and getting to know her. At a lunch with some of
the assistant PMs, she received more good feedback. A PM from Sports Drinks said that Rinaldi’s
drive, energy, and enthusiasm were valued qualities at Potomac. She also spoke briefly with Doug
Berman, the Group Product Manager for Health Drinks who came by unexpectedly to give an update
on some internal performance benchmarks they had recently begun to use (see Exhibit 2 for an
organization chart). She was impressed with his down-to-earth manner, his intelligence, and the
encouraging news: productivity was up at Health Drinks, thanks to some good team efforts.
Rinaldi learned that she would be evaluated annually using very specific performance objectives
(starting with an early performance review within the first three months) and that it was corporate
policy to encourage promotions from within the organization. She also learned that all product
managers changed assignments every 12 to 24 months to get experience about all the stages of the
product life cycle. That policy kept things interesting, but it could also get in the way of developing
close working relationships.
A few days after she informed Deep Dive that she would be taking another position, she received
a call from her old boss. He wished her well on her career but expressed real disappointment about
her choice. “On top of your good ideas, the CEO and I thought you fit well with the group here. We
think you’re making a mistake and we hope you’ll think of us in the future.”
Rinaldi felt that she had made the right decision because she had researched Potomac Waters
thoroughly. It had the stability and national stature she wanted as well as a solid reputation for
grooming and training its new hires.
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4310 | Martha Rinaldi: Should She Stay or Should She Go?
Rinaldi had been recruited by the Health Drinks Division of Potomac Waters. Potomac had
succeeded in entering into different niches in the non-alcoholic beverage market with unique
branding and flavors. For instance, Sports Drinks featured some flavors that were traditionally
associated with soft drinks, like traditional colas. But all Potomac drink divisions featured cuttingedge packaging design that shared similar visual traits and felt good in consumers’ hands.
Preceding her interviews, Rinaldi had talked to assistant PMs from the other divisions. One had
informed her that the Health Drinks Division was headed by a young executive (Doug Berman) who
seemed open to ideas and had assembled a creative staff. Another gave her a different take: while
Health Drinks was strong, the marketers there were a bit discontented because promotions in their
department had slowed down. But, in general, Potomac usually promoted its assistant product
managers to product mangers in two or three years—faster than the industry average of three to four
years.
Welcome to the Fishbowl
Following a half day of orientation by Human Resources (HR) on September 1, 2008, Martha was
taken to the third floor of the seven-story office building located in the pleasant D.C. suburb of
Arlington, Virginia. Rinaldi was struck by how quiet the office was. At the same time, she could see
everybody in their smallish cubicle-offices with two to four people grouped per cubicle. The cubicles
were normal except that they employed glass partitions. At the wall opposite the elevator entrance to
the floor was Rinaldi’s new office, affectionately called “the fishbowl” because it was the first thing
people noticed when they arrived.
After HR escorted her to her desk, she met Jamie Vaughan, an associate PM. He would be seated
next to her and would be working with her, sharing one end of a large U-shaped desk that faced the
wall. HR had informed Rinaldi that Vaughan was in his mid-30s and had moved from operations to
marketing in June of 2006. He started work on the new brand of fruit health drinks, Invi, since the
launch of its first product—“Blue Sky”—a banana-blueberry drink in February of 2008. (Follet was
assigned as PM to Invi at the same time.) “Hi,” he said quickly. “Weren’t you starting tomorrow?
Well, welcome. We’ll get a chance to talk later after I finish something.” Facing a bare desk and a
computer, Rinaldi decided to check her email where she found a message from her boss, Natalie
Follet, whose office was located upstairs on the fourth floor: “HR informed me of your arrival,” Follet
wrote. “I thought you were going to be with HR for most of the day. I don’t have anything for you to
do right now, but you can look over our marketing collateral and some recent market surveys. Talk to
Jamie after you’re done. We’ll meet tomorrow at 9:30.” As Rinaldi left the office, she recognized Doug
Berman, the Group PM she had been so impressed with during her interviews. Slowing down to
greet him, Martha was disappointed as he rushed passed her to the stairs without a word.
The next morning, Follet informed Rinaldi that she was “a little unprepared” for Rinaldi’s arrival
and that she should continue to get to know the brand in preparation for a major market survey that
would start in two or three weeks. Follet was busy but would be available for questions. In the
meantime, she told Rinaldi to learn as much as possible from Vaughan but she should remember that
she was reporting only to Follet. Follet ended the meeting with this comment: “You’re from the
famous Generation Y – good with technology, but rumored to be impatient and demanding
sometimes, which you don’t seem to be. . . . I’m still working from home 50% of the time for the near
future, so you’ll have to be good at taking instruction from me remotely. So you’ll have to be ready to
do anything and to do it pretty fast. Jamie can help you of course, but I’m the last word on important
decisions. He’s pretty busy anyway.” Rinaldi responded that she was a good team player, doing
everything from packing boxes to planning strategy at Deep Dive. “And I’ve always been a quick
study.” Before Follet could reply, she turned her attention to an incoming phone call.
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Back at the fishbowl, Vaughan asked Rinaldi about her MBA training and then informed her that
he had grown up in Chicago. “So you worked at Deep Dive last year?” he volunteered. “That place is
all marketing, isn’t it? It’s got a great reputation but very little substance when you bite into the
product. Lots of young people at the corporate level, I heard. Why didn’t you stay at Deep Dive?
Wouldn’t you have fit right in?” Martha responded: “I thought I would learn more about marketing,
here.” Vaughan continued. “Well, with launching Invi, there won’t be a lot of time for us older hands
to show you the ropes; you’ll have to prove yourself from day one. While there’s ‘no such thing as a
dumb question,’ Natalie and I prefer answers. I’m just calling it like I see it. Good luck.”
Reading over the product literature for Invi in the afternoon, Rinaldi thought it was good to be
part of a new brand that would get a lot of attention in the company. And the branding was well
done, which was proof of some smart marketers around the office. Vaughan interrupted her
thoughts: “You said you’d be happy to help in any way you can. Can you copy these?” It was 4:00
p.m. when he handed her a very large stack of papers. It was 7:00 p.m. when she finished.
The Next 60 Days
After a second day as uninspiring as the first, Rinaldi was looking forward to lunch after being
invited by an assistant PM from the Carbonated Soft Drinks Division. Informally, he informed her,
people involved with product management from all over the company would meet for lunch on
Wednesdays. She learned from another assistant PM that Rinaldi was part of a “new wave of MBAs
being recruited to Potomac. Just six months ago, the Vice President of Marketing [Julius Bautista—at
33, he was a young superstar at the company] made it a formal policy to focus on hiring MBAs and
other young high potentials for entry-level positions.” Young people were an important customer
segment for beverages—it made sense that the company would want young employees, Rinaldi
thought to herself.
Feeling more energized, Rinaldi went to Follet’s office to ask if there was something she could
help with. Before she reached the door of the office, Rinaldi noticed Vaughan seated on the desk
facing Follet. Vaughan seemed unusually close to his boss. Instead of interrupting this unusually
intimate scene, Rinaldi chose to return to her desk. Turning on her computer, she found an email
from Follet that had been sent during lunchtime: “Jamie tells me that you’ve been restless. Come see
me at 3:00. Read some more product literature in the meantime.” Although her 3:00 p.m. meeting
with Follet turned out to be a straightforward resume of Invi’s short but complex history, the abrupt
tone of the email had made Rinaldi extremely nervous.
In her second week Rinaldi began her formal introduction to Potomac Waters. For the next five
weeks she had meetings with department heads from research and development, finance, market
research, legal, and manufacturing, and all of those leaders seemed to welcome her input. But Rinaldi
returned to many of these same department heads, not for additional idea-sharing but acting as a
courier for Vaughan while gathering signatures of approval for some billboard advertising plans.
Trying to shake things up a bit, Rinaldi decided one morning to begin the day by visiting Follet’s
office to ask a question. Surprised by Rinaldi’s entrance, Follet barely glanced away from her
computer screen and told Rinaldi to “Ask Jamie, please,” impatiently. “Isn’t there still a lot more for
you to read and familiarize yourself with anyway?” Going back to the fishbowl after this
disappointment, Rinaldi wondered if she had played “the impatient young employee” role in Follet’s
eyes. She couldn’t help but feel the contrast between her boss’s lack of interest in her and the lively
conversations she had with other managers. “Why can’t Follet see my potential?” she thought to
herself. “I can’t get more than five minutes in her office and all I really get from her is short emails.”
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Rinaldi’s first interesting assignment came in late October 2008 when Vaughan and Follet asked
her to review and expand some “return on investment” (ROI) projections for marketing activities
planned for Invi in the next six months. Bautista had made a big push for applying analytics to
Potomac’s marketing, which already enjoyed a reputation for creative brilliance. Rinaldi felt she was
good at both aspects of marketing and saw how Vaughan’s number crunching complemented Follet’s
more intuitive talents of finding ways to connect with the consumer.
Follet and Vaughan asked Rinaldi for three major revisions before emailing the ROI results, as
requested, to Bautista. A couple of days later, Bautista emailed Rinaldi (cc’d to Follet and Vaughan):
“Great job—a good contribution.” Despite this praise, Vaughan and Follet said little about it and did
not follow up soon with any similar assignments. And although Follet presented the same data to the
entire Health Drinks Division two weeks later, she had not asked Rinaldi for any additional help and
did not acknowledge Rinaldi nor otherwise involve her during the presentation. During the
“question and answer” period following the presentation, Rinaldi only volunteered a few supporting
comments to Follet’s analysis.
After the presentation, Rinaldi went for a spontaneous early dinner with Anna Deutch, an
associate PM in Health Drinks who had graduated from Rindaldi’s MBA program two years before.
“That presentation by Follet was effective,” Deutch commented. “That’s the way to make an
impression with management. Those ROI numbers were a good addition.” Rinaldi volunteered that
she had done most of the work with those numbers. “I stayed in the office until 8 two nights in a row
with Vaughan and Follet to get those done—and barely a thank you for it.” Deutch warned her not to
make late hours a habit: “People think you don’t know what you’re doing if you work too late on
assignments.” Then, Deutch congratulated her for not losing her cool: “Well, that’s too bad that your
work did not get airplay. But Bautista saw it, like you said. In the long term, it’s much more
important that you don’t do too much obvious self-promotion. The focus here is on the work getting
done.”
The Coffee Clash
On December 1, 2008, Rinaldi headed out of the D.C. Metro towards her office with little
interesting on the horizon. She was nervous because she needed to make a good impression in the
first year, at least in her division, if she wanted to go anywhere in the company.
As Rinaldi entered the fourth floor, she noticed an unusual amount of activity humming around
Deutch’s desk, located next to the elevator on the third floor. Deutch looked anxious. “We are so
stretched,” Deutch said. “Half the office is out with a vendor and Doug [Berman] has this four-hour
meeting with the vice president of marketing and sales with half their staffs coming over. Our two
admins are stuck on a disabled commuter train. Can you help?” Rinaldi agreed to lend a hand. Just as
Rinaldi was finishing with distributing some new trade pamphlets in the conference room, Bautista
walked in and acknowledged her with a friendly nod.
At the end of the afternoon, however, Rinaldi received an email from Bautista that was cc’d to
Follet. “I’d like to compliment your intentions in helping out Anna this morning; however, I think
your time is better spent on something more valuable. The ROI report I saw from you a few weeks
ago was good and I’d like you to concentrate on those kinds of efforts.” Rinaldi was a bit puzzled.
Should she have said no to a colleague who asked for help? Or was Bautista giving her advice about
how best to succeed at Potomac?
The next day, Follet asked Rinaldi to her office. “It’s ok that you were helping out Deutch in a
pinch. I like her. I don’t know why Bautista just didn’t email me directly. I talked to him and
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everything is fine. Anyway, sometimes we just have to help out around here, no matter what the
situation.” Rinaldi wondered just whose directive she should follow. At this point, she’d just follow
the advice of the higher-ranking executive.
To PowerPoint or Not to PowerPoint?
December 3 turned out to be busy. While Rinaldi was working on a short deadline to review
storyboards for Invi commercials, she received an email marked urgent from Vaughan, who was
working remotely. “Can you get these PowerPoint slides into better shape for presentation I have to
do tomorrow? I’m too busy to deal with this.” Rinaldi banged out a response on her keyboard: “You
just gave me this storyboard assignment yesterday and said it was very important. This is getting
confusing!” Less than a minute later, Vaughan responded: “You new hires can’t pitch in on the less
glamorous stuff we all have to do? It’s nothing out of the ordinary. And you don’t know enough to
help with the other things I’m doing.” Fuming, Rinaldi riposted: “I’ll do it, ok? But it’s hard to do
slides and the storyboard at the same time.”
Five minutes later, Follet made a rare personal visit to the fishbowl. “Jamie needs some help. Since
when was making slides so difficult?” Follet asked. Raising her voice, Rinaldi replied: “I’m working
on that right now. But when I got his message, I was working on something else he gave me that was
also ‘important.’ I know he’s been here longer, but he can’t be so arbitrary, especially when I am busy
too. I’m happy to help, so long as I feel that Jamie is respecting my workload, too! ”
Cutting her off with a gesture that also signaled that their exchange might be noticed, Follet
whispered: “Sometimes we have too much to do and we just do it anyway. If Jamie asks you to do
something, assume it’s for a good reason. Please finish the slides.” Rinaldi later confronted Vaughan
about forwarding the email to their boss and implying that she was too proud to help with small
tasks. Although Rinaldi was grateful that Vaughan made a gracious apology, this incident remained
disturbing for her.
A few days later, Rinaldi and five other recent hires, all MBAs, met with Julius Bautista. Living up
to his reputation as a “hands-on” manager, Bautista was taking a personal interest in following how
they were doing as a way to gauge his initiative to increase the presence of employees with formal
business education.
At the end of the hour-long meeting, Bautista took Rinaldi aside. “I remember during your
orientation week you were volunteering all sorts of ideas. But you were pretty quiet today.” Rinaldi
said she was just not feeling well that day. Bautista pressed her: “Is everything going ok with Jamie
and Natalie?” She was surprised to hear his interest, but careful not to seem bitter: “Jamie is not the
best communicator, but I’m working on that. And Natalie has been very fair with me.” Bautista
seemed satisfied adding with a smile, “When you figure out communicating with Jamie, send me a
note.” Rinaldi was glad not to have revealed any problems with her manager. That would be
impolitic. Rinaldi believed that loyalty was an important quality for an employee.
Performance Evaluation
One rainy evening in early December 2008, Rinaldi was joined on the Metro by Doug Berman’s
assistant who paid close attention to office politics. “You know that Jamie and Natalie are rumored to
be having an affair?” she blurted out. Shocked by her frankness, Rinaldi was not too surprised by the
news itself: the two seemed unusually in sync. The assistant also asked if Rinaldi had received her
three-month evaluation yet.
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Rinaldi was upset that she had not heard anything about a performance review from Follet; it
seemed that she remained a low priority on Follet’s agenda. Her suspicions were confirmed after she
asked Follet for a review. “OK. If you want one we can do one,” Follet sighed. Looking stressed going
over her calendar, Follet scheduled a meeting for the next week.
The review was done over lunch at a local pub on December 12. On the plus side, Follet
complimented Rinaldi for her ability to work with people around the office and her verbal and
analytical skills. On the minus side, Follet criticized her lack of initiative and assertiveness, adding
that Rinaldi was usually quiet at meetings. Rinaldi calmly replied that she did not want to come
across as a “know-it-all” MBA and was still learning. She said little negative about Vaughan except
that his tendency to assign basic tasks to her discouraged her from taking the initiative about highervalue projects. Follet thought Rinaldi should not find it hard to get along with Jamie, but that perhaps
relations might improve with some more clearly delineated responsibilities. For her part, Rinaldi had
to admit that she had been quiet at meetings and promised to respond to Follet’s suggestions.
Leadup to a Decision Point
On Friday, December 19, Rinaldi was relieved to go out for drinks with two colleagues—both
assistant PMs from Carbonated Soft Drinks. The weekend was coming up and Rinaldi was grateful.
She told her colleagues that the preceding week had been incredible: she and Vaughan had gotten
into a shouting match after he grilled her about some calculations she had made. Rinaldi explained:
“After I said, ‘Well, you’re hard to please,’ he protested, saying, ‘you arrogant MBAs are all alike.’ He
was so loud everybody in the office dropped what they were doing to stare at us. I ended it by
walking out on him to make some copies.” Taking a deep breath, Rinaldi continued: “That guy is
something. I don’t know what his problem is.”
The associate PM explained that Vaughan had a reputation for being difficult; she added that two
or three colleagues on the same floor had complained to Follet about Vaughan’s rough treatment of
Rinaldi. “Follet tried to tell me that Jamie is a good person who’s misunderstood.” Although Follet
suggested she might try to smooth things between Rinaldi and Vaughan, Rinaldi knew that wouldn’t
happen soon enough: her future with the brand depended on working well with Vaughan now. “So,
last week, Jamie accepted my invitation to try to talk things out,” Rinaldi added. “He actually
apologized for getting so angry and added that he was feeling really frustrated about being
overlooked for a promotion.”
After this yelling incident, many of the staff rallied to support Rinaldi, at least emotionally. She
learned that Follet had a reputation of being a star performer who had not successfully made the
transition to becoming a manager. One PM who had worked under Follet complained that his
training under her had been second-rate. Although this testimony reassured Rinaldi that these
tensions with Vaughan and Follet weren’t all her fault, they made the future seem all the more murky
and alarming.
It was clear that Follet was not going to make Rinaldi’s training a priority. Maybe Rinaldi could
ask Bautista if she could be moved to work for another brand? But that would be an extraordinary
and highly visible move. Might she herself be branded as a difficult employee if she made that
request? And there was always the standing offer from Deep Dive to come back to a better-paying job
with more responsibility. Although the CEO was very disappointed that she had turned down his
first offer, a friend at Deep Dive said that Rinaldi still had a good reputation there.
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Exhibit 1
Short Biographies of Rinaldi, Vaughan, and Follet
Martha Rinaldi, Assistant Product Manager, age 27
Home Town: Iowa City, Iowa
High School: Iowa City High School, 2001
College: University of Iowa. Degree in Computer Science, 2006
Graduate School Degree: MBA, 2008.
Job History: After graduating with good grades from high school, Martha Rinaldi took a year before
college to earn money for her degree. She was the first in her family to attend college. She lived at
home, working part-time in her family’s hardware store and working another part-time job in the
admissions office of the University of Iowa. She also used her computer skills to update and make
changes occasionally to the office’s web site. Her other significant work experience was gained at
Deep Dive Pizza during her summer internship while pursuing her MBA studies.
Jamie Vaughan, Associate Product Manager, age 35
Home Town: Chicago, Illinois
High School: Lincoln Park High School, 1992
College: Loyola University, Chicago. Degree in Mathematics, 1996.
Job History: Statistician, Maryland Department of Transportation (1996-2003). Statistician, Quality
Control, Manufacturing, Potomac Waters (2003-2006). Associate Product Manager, Potomac Waters
(2006-2009).
Always adept at numbers and analysis, Jamie Vaughan graduated among the top of his class in high
school and college. His interest in moving away from his home town to explore another metropolitan
area motivated him to look for work in the area of Washington, D.C., where he became a statistician
at the Maryland Department of Transportation. Impatient with relatively low salary increases in his
government job, Vaughan found a position at Potomac Waters’ Manufacturing Division. He then
transferred to the Health Drinks Division as an Associate Product Manager, skipping the stage of
“Assistant Product Manager” because of his familiarity with the company and his skills with
statistics.
Natalie Follet, Product Manager, age 34
Home Town: New York City, New York
High School: Trinity School, New York City, 1994
College: New York University, New York. Degrees in Art History and Fine Arts, 1998
Job History: Design Associate (2000-2002) and then Special Assistant to the Creative Director (20022003) in an advertising firm in New York. Assistant Product Manager (2003-2006), then Associate
Product Manager (2006-2008), then Product Manager (2009) at Potomac Waters.
When she was younger, Follet left NYU hoping to start a career as an artist, but found little monetary
success. At the age of 26, Natalie took an entry level job as a “design associate” at an advertising
agency in New York. Her artistic talent was noticed and she eventually became a Special Assistant to
the Creative Director. Natalie Follet moved from New York to the D.C. area to accompany her
husband, who obtained a job as a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry in 2003. Because
Washington, D.C., did not have advertising firms as well-established as those in New York, Follet
was relieved to find a job as an Associate Product Manager at a respected company like Potomac
Waters.
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL | BRIEFCASES
This document is authorized for use only by Curtis Odom in 2016.
9
Exhibit 2
Assistant Product Manager
(Martha Rinaldi)
Product Manager
Associate Product Manager
(Anna Deutch)
Product Manager
Group Product Manager
Health Drinks
(Doug Berman)
Vice President
Marketing
(Julius Bautista)
Product Manager
Invi
(Natalie Follet)
Associate Product Manager
(Jamie Vaughan)
Product Manager
Potomac Waters Organization Chart for Martha Rinaldi
4310 -10-
For the exclusive use of C. Odom, 2016.
This document is authorized for use only by Curtis Odom in 2016.
3
Attitudes and Job Satisfaction
MyManagementLab
®
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applied, personalized, and offer immediate feedback.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Contrast the three components of an attitude.
2. Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior.
3. Compare the major job attitudes.
4. Identify the two approaches for measuring job satisfaction.
5. Summarize the main causes of job satisfaction.
6. Identify three outcomes of job satisfaction.
7. Identify four employee responses to job dissatisfaction.
Chapter Warm-up
If your professor has chosen to assign this, go to the Assignments section of
mymanagementlab.com to complete the chapter warm-up.
Attitudes
Attitudes
Evaluative statements
or judgments
concerning objects,
people, or events.
Attitudes are evaluative statements—either favorable or unfavorable—about objects,
people, or events. They reflect how we feel about something. When you say “I like my
job,” you are expressing your attitude about your work.
Attitudes are complex. If you ask people about their attitudes toward religion, Lady
Gaga, or an organization, you may get simple responses, but the underlying reasons are
probably complicated. To fully understand attitudes, we must consider their fundamental
properties or components.
34
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Cognition, affect, and behavior are closely related.
35
exhibit 3-1
The Components
of an Attitude
Cognitive = evaluation
My supervisor gave a promotion
to a coworker who deserved it
less than I do. My supervisor is unfair.
Affective = feeling
I dislike my supervisor!
Negative
attitude
toward
supervisor
Behavioral = action
I’m looking for other work; I’ve
complained about my supervisor
to anyone who would listen.
Typically, researchers assume attitudes have three components: cognition, affect,
and behavior.1 The statement “My pay is low” is a cognitive component of an attitude—
a description of or belief in the way things are. It sets the stage for the more critical part
of an attitude—its affective component. Affect is the emotional or feeling segment of an
attitude reflected in the statement “I am angry over how little I’m paid.” Affect can lead
to behavioral outcomes. The behavioral component of an attitude describes an intention
to behave a certain way toward someone or something—as in, “I’m going to look for
another job that pays better.”
Viewing attitudes as having three components—cognition, affect, and behavior—
helps us understand their complexity and the potential relationship between attitudes
and behavior. For example, imagine you just realized that someone treated you unfairly.
Aren’t you likely to have feelings about this, occurring virtually instantaneously along
with the realization? Thus, cognition and affect are intertwined.
Exhibit 3-1 illustrates how the three components of an attitude are related. In this
example, an employee didn’t get a promotion he thought he deserved. His attitude toward
his supervisor is illustrated as follows: The employee thought he deserved the promotion
(cognition); he strongly dislikes his supervisor (affect); and he has complained and taken
action (behavior). Although we often think cognition causes affect, which then causes
behavior, in reality these components are difficult to separate.
In organizations, attitudes are important for their behavioral component. If workers
believe, for example, that managers, auditors, and engineers are in a conspiracy to make
employees work harder for less money, we should try to understand how this attitude
formed, how it impacts job behavior, and how it might be changed.
M03_ROBB3859_14_SE_C03.indd 35
Cognitive component
The opinion or belief
segment of an attitude.
Affective component
The emotional or
feeling segment of an
attitude.
Behavioral
component
An intention to behave
in a certain way toward
someone or something.
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36
WATCH IT
If your professor has assigned this, go to the Assignments section of mymanagementlab
.com to complete the video exercise titled Gawker Media: Attitudes and Job
Satisfaction.
Attitudes And behAvior
Cognitive dissonance
Any incompatibility
between two or more
attitudes or between
behavior and attitudes.
Early research on attitudes assumed they were causally related to behavior—that is, the attitudes people hold determine what they do. However, one researcher—Leon Festinger—
argued that attitudes follow
future behavior.2
Did you ever notice how people change what they say so that it doesn’t contradict
what they do? Perhaps a friend of yours consistently argued that her apartment complex
was better than yours until another friend in your complex asked her to move in with
him; once she moved to your complex, you noticed her attitude toward her former apartment became more critical. Cases of attitude following behavior illustrate the effects of
cognitive dissonance,3 contradictions individuals might perceive between their attitudes
and their behavior.
People seek consistency among their attitudes, and between their attitudes and their
behavior.4 Any form of inconsistency is uncomfortable, and individuals will therefore
attempt to reduce it. People seek a stable state, which is a minimum of dissonance. When
there is dissonance, people will alter either the attitudes or the behavior, or they will develop a rationalization for the discrepancy. Recent research found, for instance, that the
attitudes of employees who experienced emotionally challenging work events improved
after they talked about their experiences with coworkers. Social sharing helped these
employees adjust their attitudes to behavioral expectations.5
trouble following yourself. The desire to reduce dissonance depends on three factors, including the importance of the elements creating dissonance and the degree of influence we
believe we have over those elements. The third factor is the rewards of dissonance; high
rewards accompanying high dissonance tend to reduce tension inherent in the dissonance
(dissonance is less distressing if accompanied by something good, such as a higher pay raise
than expected). Individuals are more motivated to reduce dissonance when the attitudes are
important or when they believe the dissonance is due to something they can control.
The most powerful moderators of the attitudes relationship are the importance of
the attitude, its correspondence to behavior, its accessibility, the presence of social pressures, and whether a person has direct experience with the attitude.6 Important attitudes
reflect our fundamental values, self-interest, or identification with individuals or groups
we value. These attitudes tend to show a strong relationship to our behavior. However,
discrepancies between attitudes and behaviors tend to occur when social pressures to beto remember attitudes you frequently express, and attitudes that our memories can easily
access are more likely to predict our behavior. The attitude–behavior relationship is also
likely to be much stronger if an attitude refers to something with which we have direct
personal experience.
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37
Job Attitudes
tive or negative evaluations employees hold about their work environments. Much of the
research has looked at three attitudes: job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment.7
and employee engagement.
Job satisfaction and Job involvement
When people speak of employee attitudes, they usually mean job satisfaction, a positive
feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics. A person with high
job satisfaction holds positive feelings about the work, while a person with low satisfactance, we review this attitude in detail later.
Related to job satisfaction is job involvement, the degree to which people identify
psychologically with their jobs and consider their perceived performance levels important
to their self-worth.8 Employees with high job involvement strongly identify with and really care about the kind of work they do. Another closely related concept is psychological
empowerment—employees’ beliefs regarding the degree to which they influence their
work environment, their competencies, the meaningfulness of their job, and their perceived autonomy.9
Research suggests that empowerment initiatives need to be tailored to desired behavioral outcomes. Research in Singapore found that good leaders empower their employees by fostering their self-perception of competence—through involving them in
decisions, making them feel their work is important, and giving them discretion to “do
their own thing.”10
Job satisfaction
A positive feeling about
one’s job resulting
from an evaluation of
its characteristics.
Job involvement
The degree to which
a person identifies
with a job, actively
participates in it, and
considers performance
important to their
self-worth.
Psychological
empowerment
Employees’ belief in
the degree to which
they affect their work
environment, their
competence, the
meaningfulness of
their job, and their
perceived autonomy in
their work.
organizational Commitment
An employee with organizational commitment identifies with a particular organization
and its goals and wishes to remain a member. Emotional attachment to an organization
and belief in its values is the “gold standard” for employee commitment.11
Employees who are committed will be less likely to engage in work withdrawal
even if they are dissatisfied because they have a sense of organizational loyalty or attachment.12 Even if employees are not currently happy with their work, they are willing to
make sacrifices for the organization if they are committed enough.
Perceived organizational support
Perceived organizational support (POS) is the degree to which employees believe the
organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. An excellent
Salesforce.com employees covered all his medical expenses and stayed in touch with him
throughout his recovery. No doubt stories like this are part of the reason Salesforce.com
13
was the eighth of Fortune
People perceive their organizations as supportive when rewards are deemed fair, when
employees have a voice in decisions, and when they see their supervisors as supportive.14
M03_ROBB3859_14_SE_C03.indd 37
Organizational
commitment
The degree to which
an employee identifies
with a particular
organization and its
goals and wishes to
maintain membership
in the organization.
Perceived
organizational
support (POS)
The degree to which
employees believe an
organization values
their contribution
and cares about their
well-being.
19/09/16 3:40 PM
38
is important in countries where the power distance—the degree to which people in a
country accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally—is
Power distance
A national culture
attribute that describes
the extent to which a
society accepts that
power in institutions
and organizations is
distributed unequally.
Employee
engagement
An individual’s
involvement with,
satisfaction with, and
enthusiasm for the
work he or she does.
view work as an exchange than as a moral obligation, so employees look for reasons to feel
supported by their organizations. In high power-distance countries like China, employee
and encouragement. The difference is in the level of expectation by employees.
employee engagement
Employee engagement is an individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the work he or she does. To evaluate engagement, we might ask employees
whether they have access to resources and opportunities to learn new skills, whether
they feel their work is important and meaningful, and whether interactions with coworkers and supervisors are rewarding.15 Highly engaged employees have a passion for their
work and feel a deep connection to their companies; disengaged employees have essentially checked out, putting time but not energy or attention into their work. Engagement
becomes a real concern for most organizations because so few employees—between 17
percent and 29 percent, surveys indicate—are highly engaged by their work. Employee
engagement is related to job engagement, which we discuss in detail in Chapter 7.
Engagement levels determine many measurable outcomes. Promising research
findings have earned employee engagement a following in many business organizations
and management consulting firms. However, the concept generates active debate about its
usefulness, partly because of the difficulty of identifying what creates engagement. The
two top reasons for engagement that participants gave in a recent study were: (1) having
a good manager they enjoy working for; and (2) feeling appreciated by their supervisor. However, most of their other reasons didn’t relate to the engagement construct.16
Another study in Australia found that emotional intelligence was linked to employee engagement.17
challenges and demands.18
There is some distinctiveness among attitudes, but they overlap greatly for various
reasons, including the employee’s personality. Altogether, if you know someone’s level
of job satisfaction, you know most of what you need to know about how that person sees
the organization. Let’s next dissect the concept more carefully. How do we measure job
satisfaction? How satisfied are employees with their jobs?
MeAsuring Job sAtisfACtion
shuffling papers, writing programming code, waiting on customers, or driving a truck.
Jobs require interacting with coworkers and bosses, following organizational rules and
policies, determining the power structure, meeting performance standards, living with
less-than-ideal working conditions, adapting to new technologies, and so forth. An employee’s assessment of satisfaction with the job is thus a complex summation of many
discrete elements. How, then, do we measure it?
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39
Approaches to Measurement
Two approaches are popular. The single global rating is a response to one question, such
as “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?” Respondents circle a
number between 1 and 5 on a scale from “highly satisfied” to “highly dissatisfied.” The
second method, the summation of job facets, is more sophisticated. It identifies key elements in a job, such as the type of work, skills needed, supervision, present pay, promotion opportunities, culture, and relationships with coworkers. Respondents rate these on
a standardized scale, and researchers add the ratings to create an overall job satisfaction
score.
Is one of these approaches superior? Intuitively, summing up responses to a number of job factors seems likely to achieve a more accurate evaluation of job satisfaction.
Research, however, doesn’t support the intuition.19 This is one of those rare instances in
which simplicity seems to work as well as complexity, making one method essentially as
time consuming, while the summation of job facets helps managers zero in on problems
and deal with them faster and more accurately.
Measured Job satisfaction Levels
Are most people satisfied with their jobs? Generally, yes, to the tune of 49–69 percent of
employees worldwide.20 Job satisfaction levels can remain quite consistent over time. For
1972 to 2006.21 However, economic conditions tend to influence job satisfaction rates. In
late 2007, the economic contraction precipitated a drop-off in job satisfaction; the lowest
jobs.22 Thankfully, the job satisfaction rate increased to 47.7 percent in 2014,23 but the
level was still far off the 1987 level of 61.1 percent.24 Job satisfaction rates tend to vary
in different cultures worldwide, and of course there are always competing measurements
that offer alternative viewpoints.
The facets of job satisfaction levels can vary widely. As shown in Exhibit 3-2,
people have typically been more satisfied with their jobs overall, the work itself, and
their supervisors and coworkers than they have been with their pay and promotion
opportunities.
Regarding cultural differences in job satisfaction, Exhibit 3-3 provides the results
of a global study of job satisfaction levels of workers in 15 countries, with the highest
are they simply more positive (and less self-critical)? Conversely, the lowest levels in the
study were from South Korea. Autonomy is low in South Korean culture, and businesses
tend to be rigidly hierarchical in structure. Does this make for lower job satisfaction?25 It
is difficult to discern all the factors influencing the scores, but exploring how businesses
are responding to changes brought on by globalization may give us clues.
WhAt CAuses Job sAtisfACtion?
Think about the best job you’ve ever had. What made it the best? The reasons can differ
greatly. Let’s consider some characteristics that likely influence job satisfaction, starting
with job conditions.
M03_ROBB3859_14_SE_C03.indd 39
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40
100
exhibit 3-2
Average Job
Satisfaction
Levels by Facet
90
80
Percentage
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
5.80
5.88
5.72
5.60
5.40
5.63
5.51
Promotion Supervision
5.00
Coworkers
Overall
5.46 5.45 5.44
5.30 5.27
5.20
5.24 5.22
5.18 5.16
4.89
4.80
4.76
4.60
4.40
ex
ic
o
er
la
N nd
or
w
De ay
Un nm
ite ark
d
St
at
es
Ja
pa
G
er n
m
an
Sw y
G
ed
re
at en
Br
ita
in
C
an
ad
a
Ru
ss
ia
A
C
ze ustr
al
ch
Re ia
pu
bl
ic
Fr
So an
ce
ut
h
Ko
re
a
4.20
Sw
M
Source: J. H. Westover, “The Impact
of Comparative
State-Directed
Development on
Working Conditions
and Employee Satisfaction,” Journal
of Management
& Organization 19,
no. 4 (2012),
537–554.
6.00
Pay
itz
exhibit 3-3
Average Levels
of Employee Job
Satisfaction by
Country
Work Itself
Job Conditions
Generally, interesting jobs that provide training, variety, independence, and control satisfy
most employees. Interdependence, feedback, social support, and interaction with coworkers outside the workplace are also strongly related to job satisfaction, even after accounting for characteristics of the work itself.26 As you may have guessed, managers also play
a big role in employees’ job satisfaction. Employees who feel empowered by their leaders
M03_ROBB3859_14_SE_C03.indd 40
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41
experience higher job satisfaction, according to one study of a large Hong Kong telecommunications corporation.27 Research in Israel further suggested that a manager’s attentiveness, responsiveness, and support increase the employee’s job satisfaction.28
Thus, job conditions—especially the intrinsic nature of the work itself, social interactions, and supervision—are important predictors of job satisfaction. Although each
is important, and although their relative value will vary across employees, the intrinsic
nature of the work is most important.29 In other words, you have to like what you do.
Personality
As important as job conditions are to job satisfaction, personality also plays an important
role. People who have positive core self-evaluations (CSEs; see Chapter 5 for further
discussion)—who believe in their inner worth and basic competence—are more satisfied
with their jobs than people with negative CSEs. Additionally, in the context of commitment to one’s career, CSE influences job satisfaction. People with high levels of both
CSE and career commitment may realize particularly high job satisfaction.30
Core self-evaluation
(CSE)
inner worth and basic
competence.
Pay
Pay does correlate with job satisfaction and overall happiness for many people, but the
effect can be smaller once an individual reaches a standard level of comfortable living. As
a corollary, money does motivate
us is not necessarily the same as what makes us happy.
Corporate social responsibility (Csr)
Would you be as happy to work for an organization with a stated social welfare mission as
you would for an organization without one? An organization’s commitment to corporate
social responsibility (CSR), or its self-regulated actions to benefit society or the environment beyond what is required by law, increasingly affects employee job satisfaction.
work, charitable giving, and other globally attuned philanthropy.
CSR is good for the planet and good for people. Employees whose personal values
fit with the organization’s CSR mission are often more satisfied. In fact, of 59 large and
small organizations recently surveyed, 86 percent reported they have happier employees
as a result of their CSR programs.31
The relationship between CSR and job satisfaction is particularly strong for millennials. “The next generation of employees is seeking out employers that are focused on
the triple bottom line: people, planet, and revenue,” said Susan Cooney, founder of philanthropy firm Givelocity.32 CSR allows workers to serve a higher purpose or contribute
to a mission. According to researcher Amy Wrzesniewski, people who view their work as
part of a higher purpose often realize higher job satisfaction.33 However, an organization’s
CSR efforts must be well governed and its initiatives must be sustainable for long-term
job satisfaction benefits.34
Although the link between CSR and job satisfaction is strengthening, not all employees find value in CSR.35 However, when managed well it can also significantly contribute to increased employee job satisfaction. Therefore, organizations need to address
M03_ROBB3859_14_SE_C03.indd 41
Corporate social
responsibility (CSR)
An organization’s selfregulated actions to
benefit society or the
environment beyond
what is required by
law.
19/09/16 3:40 PM
42
a few issues in order to be most effective. First, not all projects are equally meaningful
for every person’s job satisfaction, yet participation for all employees is sometimes expected. Second, some organizations require employees to contribute in a prescribed manner. Pressuring people to go “above and beyond” in ways that are not natural for them
can burn them out for future CSR projects36 and lower their job satisfaction, particularly
when CSR projects provide direct benefits to the organization (such as positive press
coverage).37 People want CSR to be genuine and authentic.
Lastly, CSR measures can seem disconnected from the employee’s actual work,38
providing no increase to job satisfaction. In sum, CSR is a needed, positive trend of accountability and serving.
outCoMes of Job sAtisfACtion
Having discussed some of the causes of job satisfaction, we now turn to some specific
outcomes.
Job Performance
As a general rule, happy workers are more likely to be productive workers. Some researchers used to believe the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance
was a myth, but a review of 300 studies suggested the correlation is quite robust.39 Individuals with higher job satisfaction perform better, and organizations with more satisfied
employees tend to be more effective than those with fewer.
organizational Citizenship behavior (oCb)
It seems logical that job satisfaction should be a major determinant of an employee’s orga40
going beyond the normal expectations of their jobs. Evidence suggests job satisfaction is
likely to engage in citizenship behavior.41
their own.42 Individuals who feel their coworkers support them are also more likely to
engage in helpful behaviors than those who have antagonistic coworker relationships.43
Personality matters, too. Individuals with certain personality traits (agreeableness and
conscientiousness, for example; see Chapter 5) are more satisfied with their work, which
44
Finally, individuals who receive positive
activities.45
Customer satisfaction
reasonable to ask whether employee satisfaction is related to positive customer outcomes.
For frontline employees who have regular customer contact, the answer is “yes.” Satisfied
employees appear to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.46
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43
so committed to finding customer service employees who are satisfied with the job that
it offers a $2,000 bribe to quit the company after training, figuring the least satisfied will
take the cash and go.47
ness” to ensure that customers are satisfied, and it works: of the company’s more than
has a direct effect on customer satisfaction.
Life satisfaction
they may be more related than you think.48 Research in Europe indicates that job satisfaction is positively correlated with life satisfaction, and our attitudes and experiences in
life spill over into our job approaches and experiences.49 Furthermore, life satisfaction
decreases when people become unemployed, according to research in Germany, and not
just because of the loss of income.50 For most individuals, work is an important part of
life, and therefore it makes sense that our overall happiness depends in no small part on
our happiness in our work (our job satisfaction).
the iMPACt of Job dissAtisfACtion
voice–loyalty–neglect framework—is helpful for understanding the consequences of dissatisfaction. The framework’s four responses differ along two dimensions: constructive/
destructive and active/passive. The responses are as follows:51
Exit. The exit response directs behavior toward leaving the organization, including
looking for a new position or resigning. To measure the effects of this response to
dissatisfaction, researchers study individual terminations and collective turnover—
the total loss to the organization of employee knowledge, skills, abilities, and other
characteristics.52
Voice. The voice response includes actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with
superiors, and undertaking union activity.
Loyalty. The loyalty response means passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve, including speaking up for the organization in the face of external
criticism and trusting the organization and its management to “do the right thing.”
Neglect. The neglect response passively allows conditions to worsen and includes
chronic absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and an increased error rate.
Exit and neglect behaviors are linked to performance variables such as productivity,
and loyalty—constructive behaviors that allow individuals to tolerate unpleasant situations or improve working conditions. As helpful as this framework is, it’s quite general.
We next address behavioral responses to job dissatisfaction.
Exit
Dissatisfaction
expressed through
behavior directed
toward leaving the
organization.
Voice
Dissatisfaction
expressed through
active and constructive
attempts to improve
conditions.
Loyalty
Dissatisfaction
expressed by passively
waiting for conditions
to improve.
Neglect
Dissatisfaction
expressed through
allowing conditions to
worsen.
Counterproductive Work behavior (CWb)
Substance abuse, stealing at work, undue socializing, gossiping, absenteeism, and tardiness are examples of behaviors that are destructive to organizations. They are indicators
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44
Counterproductive
work behavior
(CWB)
Intentional employee
behavior that is
contrary to the interests
of the organization.
of a broader syndrome called counterproductive work behavior (CWB; related terms
are deviant behavior in the workplace, or simply withdrawal behavior; see Chapter 1).53
follow negative and sometimes long-standing attitudes. Therefore, if we can identify the
work become frustrated, which lowers their performance54 and makes them more likely
55
in the wrong line of work), lack of fit with the organization (working in the wrong kind
56
-
viduals in teams with high absenteeism are more likely to be absent themselves.57
can, furthermore, be a response to abusive supervision from managers, which then spurs
further abuse, starting a vicious cycle.58
might use work time to surf the Internet or take work supplies home for personal use. In
can be quite creative, controlling only one behavior with policies and punishments leaves
the root cause untouched. Employers should seek to correct the source of the problem—
the dissatisfaction—rather than try to control the different responses.
unfairness, a way to try to restore an employee’s sense of equity exchange.59 It therefore
has complex ethical implications. For example, is someone who takes a box of markers
home from the office for his children acting unethically? Some people consider this stealto the organization before they decide. Does the person generously give extra time and
behavior as part of an attempt to “even the score.”
titudes, for instance, and identify areas for workplace improvement. If there is no vocational fit, the employee will not be fulfilled,60 so you can try to screen for that to avoid a
mismatch. Tailoring tasks to a person’s abilities and values should increase job satisfac61
Furthermore, creating strong teams, integrating supervisors with
them, providing formalized team policies, and introducing team-based incentives may
62
AbsenteeisM We find a consistent negative relationship between satisfaction and
absenteeism, but the relationship is moderate to weak.63 Generally, when numerous
alternative jobs are available, dissatisfied employees have high absence rates, but when
there are few alternatives, dissatisfied employees have the same (low) rate of absence
as satisfied employees.64
encouraging all their employees—including those who are highly satisfied—to take days
come free with no penalties.
M03_ROBB3859_14_SE_C03.indd 44
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45
turnover The relationship between job satisfaction and turnover is stronger than
between satisfaction and absenteeism.65
the best predictor of intent to leave. Turnover has a workplace environment connection too.
If the climate within an employee’s immediate workplace is one of low job satisfaction
leading to turnover, there will be a contagion effect. This suggests managers should
consider the job satisfaction (and turnover) patterns of coworkers when assigning workers
to a new area.66 Employees’ job embeddedness—connections to the job and community
that result in an increased commitment to the organization—can be closely linked to
their job satisfaction and the probability of turnover such that where job embeddedness
is high, the probability of turnover decreases, particularly in collectivist (group-centered;
see Chapter 4) cultures where membership in an organization is of high personal value.
67
Embedded employees
thus seem more satisfied with their jobs and are less likely to want to consider alternative
job prospects.
Lastly, the satisfaction–turnover relationship is affected by alternative job prospects.
If an employee accepts an unsolicited job offer, job dissatisfaction was less predictive of
turnover because the employee more likely left in response to “pull” (the lure of the other
job) than “push” (the unattractiveness of the current job). Similarly, job dissatisfaction is
more likely to translate into turnover when other employment opportunities are plentiful.
Furthermore, when employees have high “human capital” (high education, high ability),
job dissatisfaction is more likely to translate into turnover because they have, or perceive,
many available alternatives.68
Job embeddedness
The extent to which
an employee’s
connections to the
job and community
result in an increased
commitment to the
organization.
understanding the impact
Given the evidence we’ve just reviewed, it should come as no surprise that job satisfaclarge organizations into those with high morale (more than 70 percent of employees expressed overall job satisfaction) and medium or low morale (fewer than 70 percent). The
stock prices of companies in the high-morale group grew 19.4 percent, compared with
10 percent for the medium- or low-morale group. Despite these results, many managers
ployees are, so they don’t think there’s a problem when there is one. For example, in one
study of 262 large employers, 86 percent of senior managers believed their organizations
treated employees well, but only 55 percent of employees agreed; another study found
55 percent of managers, compared to only 38 percent of employees, thought morale was
good in their organization.69
Regular surveys can reduce gaps between what managers think employees feel and
what they really feel. A gap in understanding can affect the bottom line in small franchise
sites as well as in large companies. As manager of a KFC restaurant in Houston, Jonathan
McDaniel surveyed his employees every three months. Results led him to make changes,
such as giving employees greater say about which workdays they had off. McDaniel believed the process itself was valuable. “They really love giving their opinions,” he said.
“That’s the most important part of it—that they have a voice and that they’re heard.”
Surveys are no panacea, but if job attitudes are as important as we believe, organizations
need to use every reasonable method find out how they can be improved.70
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46
suMMAry
Managers should be interested in their employees’ attitudes because attitudes influence
behavior and indicate potential problems. Creating a satisfied workforce is hardly a guarantee of successful organizational performance, but evidence strongly suggests managers’
efforts to improve employee attitudes will likely result in positive outcomes, including
greater organizational effectiveness, higher customer satisfaction, and increased profits.
iMPLiCAtions for MAnAgers
remember that an employee’s job satisfaction level is the best single predictor of
behavior.
Pay attention to your employees’ job satisfaction levels as determinants of their
performance, turnover, absenteeism, and withdrawal behaviors.
Measure employee job attitudes objectively and at regular intervals in order to
determine how employees are reacting to their work.
To raise employee satisfaction, evaluate the fit between the employee’s work interests and the intrinsic parts of the job; then create work that is challenging and
interesting to the individual.
Consider the fact that high pay alone is unlikely to create a satisfying work
environment.
TRY IT!
If your professor has assigned this, go to the Assignments section of
mymanagementlab.com to complete the Simulation: Attitudes & Job
Satisfaction.
P
I
PERSONAL INVENTORY ASSESSMENTS
A
PERSONAL INVENTORY ASSESSMENTS
Core self-evaluation (Cse) scale
You probably have a general awareness of your CSE, or how you candidly view your
capabilities. This PIA can provide you with further insight.
MyManagementLab
®
Go to mymanagementlab.com for Auto-graded writing questions as well as the following
Assisted-graded writing questions:
3-1. Based on your own experiences, can you identify situations in which your job attitudes
directly influenced your behavior?
3-2. MyManagementLab Only—comprehensive writing assignment for this chapter.
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11
Communication
MyManagementLab
®
Improve Your Grade!
When you see this icon , visit mymanagementlab.com for activities that are
applied, personalized, and offer immediate feedback.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Describe the functions and process of communication.
2. Contrast downward, upward, and lateral communication through small-group networks and the grapevine.
3. Contrast oral, written, and nonverbal communication.
4. Describe how channel richness underlies the choice of communication channel.
5. Differentiate between automatic and controlled processing of persuasive
messages.
6. Identify common barriers to effective communication.
7. Discuss how to overcome potential problems of cross-cultural communication.
Chapter Warm-up
If your professor has chosen to assign this, go to the Assignments section of
mymanagementlab.com to complete the chapter warm-up.
170
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CommuniCation
Communication is powerful: no group or organization can exist without sharing meaning
among its members. In this chapter, we’ll analyze communication and ways we can make
it more effective.
Communication must include both the transfer and the understanding of meaning. Communicating is more than merely imparting meaning; that meaning must also be
understood. It is only thus that we can convey information and ideas. In perfect communication, if it existed, a thought would be transmitted so the receiver understood the same
mental picture the sender intended. Though it sounds elementary, perfect communication
is never achieved in practice. Increased understanding of the functions and processes of
communication can lead to positive changes in organizational behavior.
Communication
The transfer and the
understanding of
meaning.
Functions of Communication
Communication serves five major functions within a group or organization: management,
feedback, emotional sharing, persuasion, and information exchange.1 Almost every communication interaction that takes place in a group or organization performs one or more
of these functions, and none of the five is more important than any of the others.
Communication acts to manage member behavior in several
ways. Organizations have authority hierarchies and formal guidelines for employees that
guide communication flow. When employees follow their job descriptions or comply
with company policies, communication performs a management function. Informal
communication controls behavior too. When work groups tease or harass a member who
produces too much (and makes the rest of the members look bad), they are informally
communicating, and managing, the member’s behavior.
managing Behavior
FeedBaCk Communication creates feedback by clarifying to employees what they must
do, how well they are doing it, and how they can improve their performance. We saw this
operating in goal-setting theory in Chapter 7. Formation of goals, feedback on progress,
and reward for desired behavior all require communication and stimulate motivation.
emotional Sharing The workgroup is a primary source of social interaction for
many employees. Communication within the group is a fundamental mechanism by
which members show satisfaction and frustration. Communication, therefore, provides
for the emotional sharing of feelings and fulfillment of social needs. For example, after
a White police officer shot an unarmed Black man in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2015,
software engineer Carl Jones wanted to process his feelings through talking with his
coworkers at his corporation. As a second example, Starbucks had baristas write “Race
Together” on coffee cups to start conversations about race relations. In both cases, the
initial communications were awkward, so awkward that Starbucks pulled the campaign,
but Jones and others have forged solid relationships from their emotional sharing.2
PerSuaSion Like emotional sharing, persuasion can be good or bad depending on if,
say, a leader is trying to persuade a workgroup to commit to the organization’s corporate
social responsibility (CSR) initiatives or to, conversely, persuade the workgroup to break
the law to meet an organizational goal. These may be extreme examples, but it’s important
to remember that persuasion can benefit or harm an organization.
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inFormation exChange The final function of communication is information
exchange to facilitate decision making. Communication provides the information
individuals and groups need to make decisions by transmitting the data needed to identify
and evaluate choices.
the Communication Process
Communication
process
The steps between a
source and a receiver
that result in the transfer
and understanding of
meaning.
Formal channels
Communication
channels established
by an organization
to transmit messages
related to the
professional activities
of members.
Informal channels
Communication
channels that are
created spontaneously
and that emerge as
responses to individual
choices.
Before communication can take place it needs a purpose, a message to be conveyed between a sender and a receiver. The sender encodes the message (converts it to a symbolic
form) and passes it through a medium (channel) to the receiver, who decodes it. The result
is a transfer of meaning from one person to another.3
Exhibit 11-1 depicts this communication process. The key parts of this model
are (1) the sender, (2) encoding, (3) the message, (4) the channel, (5) decoding, (6) the
receiver, (7) noise, and (8) feedback.
The sender initiates a message by encoding a thought. The message is the actual
physical product of the sender’s encoding. When we speak, the speech is the message.
When we write, the writing is the message. When we gesture, the movements of our arms
and the expressions on our faces are the message. The channel is the medium through
which the message travels. The sender selects it, determining whether to use a formal
or informal channel. Formal channels are established by the organization and transmit
messages that are related to the professional activities of members. They traditionally follow the authority chain within the organization. Other forms of messages, such as those
that are personal or social, follow informal channels, which are spontaneous and subject
to individual choice.4 The receiver is the person(s) to whom the message is directed, who
must first translate the symbols into understandable form. This step is the decoding of
the message. Noise represents communication barriers that distort the clarity of the message, such as perceptual problems, information overload, semantic difficulties, or cultural
differences. The final link in the communication process is a feedback loop. Feedback
is the check on how successful we have been in transferring our messages as originally
intended. It determines whether understanding has been achieved.
direCtion oF CommuniCation
Communication can flow vertically or laterally, through formal small-group networks or
the informal grapevine. We subdivide the vertical dimension into downward and upward
directions.5
Sender
Message
to be
sent
Receiver
Encoding
message
Channel
Message
received
Message
decoding
Noise
Feedback
exhiBit 11-1
The Communication Process
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downward Communication
Communication that flows from one level of a group or organization to a lower level is
downward communication
job instructions, explain policies and procedures, point out problems that need attention,
and offer feedback.
In downward communication, the delivery mode and the context of the information are of high importance. We will talk more about communication methods later, but
consider the ultimate downward communication: the performance review. Alan Buckelew,
CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines says, “A review is probably the one time when you want to
be physically present.” The Samsonite CEO agrees: “A conference call cannot substitute
for face-to-face interactions.” Automated performance reviews have allowed managers to
review their subordinates without discussions, which is efficient but misses critical opportunities for growth, motivation, and relationship-building.6 In general, employees subjected
to less direct, personalized communication are less likely to understand the intentions of
the message correctly. The best communicators explain the reasons behind their downward
communications but also solicit communication from the employees they supervise.
upward Communication
Upward communication flows to a higher level in the group or organization. It’s used to
provide feedback to higher-ups, inform them of progress toward goals, and relay current
problems. Upward communication keeps managers aware of how employees feel about
their jobs, coworkers, and the organization in general. Managers also rely on upward
communication for ideas on how conditions can be improved.
munication is increasingly difficult because managers can be overwhelmed and easily
distracted. To engage in effective upward communication, try to communicate in short
summaries rather than long explanations, support your summaries with actionable items,
and prepare an agenda to make sure you use your boss’s attention well.7 And watch what
you say, especially if you are communicating something to your manager that will be
unwelcome. If you’re turning down an assignment, for example, be sure to project a “can
do” attitude while asking advice about your workload dilemma or inexperience with the
assignment.8 Your delivery can be as important as the content of your communication.
lateral Communication
When communication occurs between members of the same workgroup, members at the
same level in separate workgroups, or any other horizontally equivalent workers, we describe it as lateral communication.
Lateral communication saves time and facilitates coordination. Some lateral relationships are formally sanctioned. More often, they are informally created to short-circuit the
vertical hierarchy and expedite action. So from management’s viewpoint, lateral communications can be good or bad. Because strictly adhering to the formal vertical structure for all
communications can be inefficient, lateral communication occurring with management’s
knowledge and support can be beneficial. But dysfunctional conflict can result when formal vertical channels are breached, when members go above or around their superiors, or
when bosses find actions have been taken or decisions made without their knowledge.
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exhiBit 11-2
Three Common
Small Group
Networks
Chain
Wheel
All Channel
Formal Small-group networks
Formal organizational networks can be complicated, including hundreds of people and a
half-dozen or more hierarchical levels. We’ve condensed these networks into three common small groups of five people each (see Exhibit 11-2): chain, wheel, and all channel.
The chain rigidly follows the formal chain of command; this network approximates the communication channels you might find in a rigid three-level organization.
The wheel relies on a central figure to act as the conduit for all group communication; it
simulates the communication network you might find on a team with a strong leader. The
all-channel network permits group members to actively communicate with each other;
it’s most often characterized by self-managed teams, in which group members are free to
contribute and no one person takes on a leadership role. Many organizations today like to
consider themselves all channel, meaning that anyone can communicate with anyone (but
sometimes they shouldn’t).
As Exhibit 11-3 demonstrates, the effectiveness of each network is determined by
the dependent variable that concerns you. The structure of the wheel facilitates the emergence of a leader, the all-channel network is best if you desire high member satisfaction,
and the chain is best if accuracy is most important. Exhibit 11-3 leads us to the conclusion
that no single network will be best for all occasions.
the grapevine
Grapevine
An organization’s
informal
communication
network.
The informal communication network in a group or organization is called the grapevine.9
Although rumors and gossip transmitted through the grapevine may be informal, it’s still an
information from peers about a company has important effects on whether job applicants
join an organization,10
Networks
exhiBit 11-3
Small Group
Networks and
Effectiveness
Criteria
M11_ROBB3859_14_SE_C11.indd 174
Criteria
Chain
Wheel
All Channel
Speed
Accuracy
Emergence of a leader
Member satisfaction
Moderate
High
Moderate
Moderate
Fast
High
High
Low
Fast
Moderate
None
High
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The grapevine is an important part of any group or organization communication
network. It serves employees’ needs: small talk creates a sense of closeness and friendship among those who share information, although research suggests it often does so at
the expense of those in the outgroup.11 It also gives managers a feel for the morale of their
organization, the issues employees consider important, and employee anxieties. Evidence
indicates that managers can study the gossip driven largely by employee social networks
to learn more about how positive and negative information is flowing through the organization.12 Furthermore, managers can identify influencers (highly networked people
trusted by their coworkers13) by noting which individuals are small talkers (those who
regularly communicate about insignificant, unrelated issues). Small talkers tend to be
influencers. One study found that social talkers are so influential that they were significantly more likely to retain their jobs during layoffs.14 Thus, while the grapevine may not
be sanctioned or controlled by the organization, it can be understood and leveraged a bit.
modeS oF CommuniCation
How do group members transfer meaning among each other? They rely on oral, written,
and nonverbal communication. This much is obvious, but as we will discuss, the choice
between modes can greatly enhance or detract from the way the perceiver reacts to the
message. Certain modes are highly preferred for specific types of communication. We
will cover the latest thinking and practical application.
oral Communication
A primary means of conveying messages is oral communication. Speeches, formal oneon-one and group discussions, and the informal rumor mill or grapevine are popular
forms of oral communication.
The advantages of oral communication are speed, feedback, and exchange. Regarding speed, we can convey a verbal message and receive a response in minimal time. As
one professional put it, “Face-to-face communication on a consistent basis is still the
best way to get information to and from employees.”15 If the receiver is unsure of the
message, rapid feedback allows the sender to quickly detect and correct it. Unfortunately,
we should acknowledge that we are usually bad listeners. Researchers indicate that we
are prone to “listener burnout” in which we tune the other person out and rush to offer
16
Active listening; in which
we remove distractions, lean in, make eye contact, paraphrase, and encourage the talker
to continue17—helps us learn more and build trust if we are genuine and not judgmental.18 The exchange given through oral communication has social, cultural, and emotional
components. Cultural social exchange, in which we purposefully share exchanges that
transcend cultural boundaries, can build trust, cooperation, and agreement between individuals and teams.19
One major disadvantage of oral communication surfaces whenever a message has to
pass through a number of people: the more people, the greater the potential distortion. If
you’ve ever played “Telephone,” you know the problem. Each person who receives a whispered message in this pass-along game interprets the message in his or her own way. The
message’s content, when it reaches its destination, is often very different from the original,
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even when we think the message is simple and straightforward. Therefore, oral-communication “chains” are generally more of a liability than an effective tool in organizations.
Written Communication
Written communication includes letters, e-mail, instant messaging, organizational periodicals, and any other method that conveys written words or symbols. The advantages
depend on what written mode is used. Written business communication today is usually
conducted via letters, PowerPoint®, e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging, social media, apps, and blogs. Some of these create a digital or physical long-term record, while the
advantage of others is quick, fleeting information exchange. The disadvantages are also
specific to each written mode. We will therefore discuss the applications more in a bit.
nonverbal Communication
Every time we deliver a verbal message, we also impart an unspoken message.20 Sometimes
the nonverbal component may stand alone as a powerful message of our business communication. No discussion of communication would thus be complete without consideration of
nonverbal communication; which includes body movements, the intonations or emphasis we
give to words, facial expressions, and the physical distance between the sender and receiver.
We could argue that every body movement has meaning, and no movement is accidental (though some are unconscious). We act out our state of being with nonverbal body
language. For example, we smile to project trustworthiness, uncross our arms to appear
approachable, and stand to signal authority.21
If you read the minutes of a meeting, you wouldn’t grasp the impact of what was
said the same way as if you had been there or could see the meeting on video. Why not?
There is no record of nonverbal communication, and the emphasis given to words or
phrases (intonation) is missing. Both make the meaning clear. Intonations can change
the meaning of a message. Facial expressions also convey meaning. Facial expressions,
along with intonations, can show arrogance, aggressiveness, fear, shyness, and other
characteristics.
Physical distance also has meaning. What is considered proper spacing between
people largely depends on cultural norms. A businesslike distance in some European
countries feels intimate in many parts of North America. If someone stands closer to you
than is considered appropriate, it may indicate aggressiveness or sexual interest; if farther
away, it may signal disinterest or displeasure with what is being said.
ChoiCe oF CommuniCation Channel
Why do people choose one channel of communication over another? A model of media
richness helps explain channel selection among managers.22
Channel richness
The amount of
information that can
be transmitted during
a communication
episode.
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Channel richness
Channels differ in their capacity to convey information. Some are rich in that they can
(1) handle multiple cues simultaneously, (2) facilitate rapid feedback, and (3) be very
personal. Others are lean, in that they score low on these factors. Face-to-face conversation scores highest in channel richness because it transmits the most information per
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communication episode–multiple information cues (words, postures, facial expressions,
gestures, intonations), immediate feedback (both verbal and nonverbal), and the personal
touch of being present. Other examples of media with high channel richness (in descending order) include video conferences, telephone conversations, live speeches, and voice
mail. Impersonal written media such as formal reports and bulletins score lowest in richness as well as memos, letters, prerecorded speeches, and e-mail.23
In sum, rich channels give us the chance to observe. The unconscious aspects of
communication help us understand the full meaning of a message. When these aspects
are missing, we must look for other clues to deduce the sender’s emotions and attitudes.
Choosing Communication methods
The choice of channel depends on whether the message is routine. Routine messages tend
to be straightforward and have minimal ambiguity; channels low in richness can carry them
efficiently. Nonroutine communications are likely to be complicated and have the potential
for misunderstanding. Managers can communicate them effectively only by selecting rich
channels.
ChooSing oral CommuniCation Whenever you need to gauge the receiver’s
receptivity, oral communication is usually the better choice. The marketing plan for
a new product, for instance, may need to be worked out with clients in person, so
you can see their reactions to each idea you propose. Also consider the receiver’s
preferred mode of communication; some individuals focus on content better in
written form and others prefer discussion. For example, if your manager requests a
meeting with you, you may not want to ask for an e-mail exchange instead. The pace
of your work environment matters too. A fast-paced workplace may thrive on pop-by
meetings, while a deadline-heavy team project may progress faster with scheduled
Skype videoconferences.
Much of what we communicate face-to-face is in the delivery, so also consider
your speaking skills when choosing your communication method. Research indicates the
sound of your voice is twice as important as what you are saying. A good speaking voice,
clear and moderated, can be a help to your career; while loud, questioning, irritating, immature, falsetto, breathy, or monotone voice tones can hinder you. If your voice is problematic, your work teams can help you raise your awareness so you can make changes, or
you may benefit from the help of a voice coach.24
ChooSing Written CommuniCation Written communication is generally the most
reliable mode for complex and lengthy communications, and it can be the most efficient
method for short messages when, for instance, a two-sentence text can take the place of a
10-minute phone call. But keep in mind that written communication can be limited in its
emotional expression.
Choose written communication when you want the information to be tangible, verifiable, and “on the record.” Letters are used in business primarily for networking and
record-keeping purposes, and when signatures need to be authentic. Also, a handwritten
thank-you note is never a wrong choice for an applicant to send after an employment interview, and handwritten envelopes are often put right on the receiver’s desk unopened by
administrative staff. In general, you should respond to instant messages only when they are
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professional and initiate them only when you know they will be welcome; remember that
your conversation will not be stored for later reference. Texts are cheap to send and receive,
and the willingness to be available for quick communications from clients and managers is
conducive to good business. However, some users—and managers—view text messaging
as intrusive and distracting, so establish some protocols first. Some of the most spectacular gains in social media are in the sales arena, both business-to-public and business-tohis fastest sale ever by instantly connecting with a potential client after TweetDeck alerted
him that a CEO was tweeting his frustration about Web conferencing.25 Finally, curtail
usage of blogs, posting, and commenting; both options are more public than you may
ChooSing nonverBal CommuniCation It’s important to be alert to nonverbal
aspects of communication; look for these cues as well as the literal meaning of a sender’s
words. You should particularly be aware of contradictions between the messages. For
example, someone who frequently glances at her wristwatch is giving the message that
she would prefer to terminate the conversation no matter what she actually says. We
misinform others when we express one message verbally, such as trust, but nonverbally
communicate a contradictory message that reads, “I don’t have confidence in you.”
information Security
Security is a huge concern for nearly all organizations with private or proprietary information about clients, customers, and employees. Organizations worry about the security
of the electronic information they need to protect such as hospital patient data, physical
information they still keep in file cabinets, and information they entrust their employees
with knowing. Most companies actively monitor employee Internet use and e-mail records, and some even use video surveillance and record phone conversations. Necessary
though they may be, such practices can seem invasive to employees. An organization can
relieve employee concerns by engaging them in the creation of information-security policies and giving them some control over how their personal information is used.26
PerSuaSive CommuniCation
We’ve discussed a number of methods for communication up to this point. Now we turn
our attention to one of the functions of communication—persuasion—and the features
that might make messages more or less persuasive to an audience.
automatic and Controlled Processing
Automatic processing
A relatively superficial
consideration
of evidence and
information making
use of heuristics.
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To understand the process of persuasion, it is useful to consider two different ways we
process information.27 Think about the last time you bought a can of soda. Did you carefully research brands, or did you reach for the can that had the most appealing advertising? If we’re honest, we’ll admit glitzy ads and catchy slogans have an influence on our
choices as consumers. We often rely on automatic processing, a relatively superficial
consideration of evidence and information, making use of heuristics like those we discussed in Chapter 6. Automatic processing takes little time and low effort, so it makes
sense to use it for processing persuasive messages related to topics you don’t care much
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about. The disadvantage is that it lets us be easily fooled by a variety of tricks, like a cute
jingle or glamorous photo.
Now consider the last time you chose a place to live. You probably sourced experts
who knew something about the area, gathered information about prices, and considered
the costs and benefits of renting versus buying. You were engaging in more effortful
controlled processing, a detailed consideration of evidence and information, relying on
facts, figures, and logic. Controlled processing requires effort and energy, and it’s harder
to fool someone who has taken the time and effort to engage in it. So what makes someone engage in either shallow or deep processing? Let’s explore how we might determine
what types of processing an audience will use.
intereSt level One of the best predictors of whether people will use an automatic
Controlled processing
A detailed
consideration
of evidence and
information relying
on facts, figures, and
logic.
or controlled process for reacting to a persuasive message is their level of interest in it.28
Interest levels reflect the impact a decision is going to have on your life. When people are
very interested in the outcome of a decision, they’re more likely to process information
carefully. That’s probably why people look for so much more information when deciding
about something important (like where to live) than something relatively unimportant
(like which soda to drink).
Prior knoWledge People who are ...
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