And Face-to-Face Communication Was Just Right!

This week’s assignment provides an interesting experiment designed to create an awareness of subtleties in differing forms of communication.  We are exposed to the same message delivered through three different modalities: textual, audio, and audio/visual.  The textual modality is presented in the form of an e-mail, and so our focus is on meaning based upon word choice and sentence structure as well as the message conveyed.  The audio modality is presented in the form of a voicemail.  Now the focus shifts slightly and we generally utilize vocal tone and inflection in the conveyance of the message.  The last modality is presented through the use of a video message.  Here we have the additional cues of face and hand gestures as well as any ambience presented through the background or business setting.

Before discussing the pros and cons of the different modalities used for communication, it perhaps is important first to mention the purpose for communication.  The derivation of the word “communication” reveals much about the hidden factors that are involved in the art of communication.  The word literally means the “act of building together.”  And so the purpose of communication therefore involves a mutual cooperative and collaborative intent to create.  We should always remember that besides the message, communication implies that we must operate from the perspective of shared or common ground and the value of developing a strong working relationship with others.

Obviously, the form of communication that provides more cues to support a cooperative and collaborative atmosphere is probably going to be deemed the most effective.  The restraints of maintaining a professional work ethics or professional “tone of voice” in our communication may limit some of us because generating that cooperative and collaborative climate involves using a “personable” tone in the delivery of the message.  Aspects of that “personable” tone are presented through vocal inflections and tempo (audio cues) and through body language (visual cues).   Our facial and hand gestures, or simply a smile verses “straight-face,” or the modulations of the voice are examples of visual and aural cues that we rely upon to provide the added dimension of “personable” communication.

As we experienced the three modes of communication for this week’s assignment, we received more information from the audio/video form of communication.  The speaker’s smile and the tendency to pause slightly as if to find the right word conveys a quality of genuineness; the other modalities, especially the audio recording, are more deliberate, planned and rehearsed and so lose the component of being “personable”.  This quality can be employed in the strictly textual or strictly audio media by enlarging the message – a practice not exactly applauded as effective workplace communication.

Certainly, starting with the recipient’s name is a good technique for “personable” communication.  The young female communicator also tried to show some connection with the recipient by acknowledging that the day certainly had been a very busy one.  It also offered a polite justification for both the failure to have sent the report already and the need, therefore, for this message to be sent.  The communicator also showed an attempt at connecting with the recipient by offering two ways in which the information might be provided.  Providing options and allowing the recipient to choose helps the recipient feel that he has some control of the situation.  It can be viewed as a “face-saving” measure perhaps.  This need not be a message from superior to inferior, but one of collective problem-solving.

In developing any type of cooperative/collaborative relationship, it’s important to avoid directly blaming the recipient or even implying that blame is being attached to the request for the needed data.  As I listened to the voicemail message, the tone seemed a bit accusatory: “I might miss my own deadline if I don’t get your report.”  Besides expressing an individual (I, my, me) message instead of suggesting a collaborative spirit, note how often the word “report” was used in such a short message.  Instead of using synonyms in order to vary the word choice, repetition of the word “report” suggested a pressure that the recipient’s omission was unduly placing on the communicator.  A burden was created because of the delay in sending the information.  That both blames but also puts pressure on the recipient.

The audio message seemed clearly rehearsed which detracts from a “personable” approach.  In the audio/video message the communicator paused or lifted the voice suggesting the message was being made unrehearsed, thus suggesting the message is intended to express a sense of genuineness.  I noted also that in the audio/video form, the communicator was providing a “cause and effect” explanation.  This was given not to compound blame but to offer a reason behind the request.  If people understand where another person is coming from, they are more inclined to appreciate the difficult position the person may be in and therefore provide more than a minimum effort at helping to resolve the issue.  The situation is converted from potential blame to one of mutual problem-solving.

Of the three modes of communication, the face-to-face allows a communicator to convey more easily and clearly the subtleties behind a message as well as the message itself.  The voicemail is superior to the e-mail because it allows a communicator to convey tone.  And the face-to-face is superior to the voicemail because it allows the communicator to convey additional cues that add the “personable” element to a message – smile and hand gestures.  Face-to-face allows the communicator to provide “quality time” with the recipient.  So, if given the chance, it’s more effective communication (building together) to walk down the hallway and speak with a person directly rather than putting it in an e-mail.  We all know that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar; so the extra time you invest in talking directly with a co-worker is time devoted toward developing a positive working relationship.  It builds trust and respect, and fosters the all-important culture of collaboration and mutual cooperation.     

"Post Mortem" for a Lightweight

This week’s topic concerns a look at what went wrong with a project undertaken in the past.  It is termed a “Post Mortem” in the field of project management and is a useful analysis after-the-fact in order to learn from the commissions or omissions that occurred in developing a product for a client.  My reservation and caveat to readers is that the projects that teachers undertake aren’t “organized” in the manner or with the depth of management that compares with the caliber or type of management performed in instructional design projects.

     We may recall reading in our primary text that there are basically three types of organizations used with projects requiring the level of management sought for this week’s discussion – central, functional, and matrix (Portny et al, 2008).  As a teacher I’m engaged in management involving the finding or producing content, pacing and scheduling, and assessing performance.  The project, however, is more of a one-person operation; the management skills mentioned previously are evident but don’t carry the same impact as a project involving multi-departmental operations or organizations with an interdependent hierarchy.

     The activities that perhaps compare only marginally with the level of management of a multi-dimensional project as we’ll experience in our management course are usually in the form of committee work.  With that distinction being understood, and perhaps limiting my ability to see a project in the same way, I’ll mention a research group that was formed at a former school.  The principal was very much interested in teachers following “best practices” and especially in conducting mini-research projects to validate some of these best practices.

     The group I was in specifically was formed to investigate reading practices for high schools.  The group consisted of 7 teachers who would meet during the lunch period to discuss considerations in setting up a mini-experiment.  Working from the book Teaching What Matters Most, we decided to establish a classroom experiment utilizing what we named Rigorous Monday.  Each Monday for 4 weeks in a row we’d devote time in our classes to putting the students through four reading techniques related to improving comprehension.  We’d monitor each technique and report our results after the 4-week time frame for the experiment. 

     We reviewed and finally selected four pieces of reading material to use in the experiment.  The articles were varied and not specific to any teacher’s subject area.  The idea was to utilize readings outside of the subject areas.  We did not develop a specific order for the articles and so we could not report our results until the end of the 4-week time frame.

      When we finally did convene to discuss our respective results, the information proved to be only anecdotal with no statistical data to support the conclusions.  Unfortunately, teachers more than other professionals tend to draw conclusions based on general observations without any type of data to support those conclusions.  Consequently, the findings of the experiment tend to be broad generalizations.  Can this effectively be termed a good example of research?

     Perhaps we should have concretized our procedures by putting them in writing before beginning and made sure that everyone understood and could agree to follow the written explanation of our procedures.

      Perhaps we should have insisted that we each used the same reading material each week instead of allowing the members of the research group to sequence the articles to their own preference.  Requiring everyone to use one sequence for the reading materials would have allowed us to meet each week to bring our findings and discuss as we went along through the experiment.

     Perhaps we should have agreed upon a written survey to be used after exposure to each reading strategy.  In that way we’d be able to gather concrete data on the students’ reaction to the technique used.  Also it would have allowed for greater consistency in the data among the seven of us who conducted the experiment.

     Perhaps a longer period of time should have been allowed to prepare and/or review the report before submitting it to the principal.  Six teachers were satisfied with the anecdotal approach as a viable method for experimentation and research.  I wasn’t satisfied and voiced diplomatically my disappointment.  Consequently I prepared a separate report using the data from the survey I utilized.

     As projects go, the results seemed to have been sufficient for the principal.  We heard nothing back from either the main report showing the groups findings or my report.  One might say that the dominant weakness in the functioning of the group was communication and accountability.  Because all information until the final report was oral rather than written, and because the frequency of communication on the research experiment was limited, there was too much opportunity for each teacher to run the experiment his/her own way.  Allen and Hardin in their article “Developing Instructional Technology Products Using Effective Project Management Practices” the importance of communication (2008).  “Communicating effectively is probably the greatest challenge that people encounter during any project so it is imperative that instructional designers model and establish good communication techniques and patterns at the onset of a project” (2008, 79).

     Perhaps we should have had a mock practice of each reading technique before allowing teachers to take the task to the classroom.  Perhaps the procedures needed to have been written with more detail.  We didn’t seem to have a “meeting of the mind” even though we did read and discuss the appropriate chapters from Teaching What Matters Most.  However, it can be said that teachers are famous for “fabricating” what they may not really understand – (b.s).

     Often the success of an undertaking is as much the relationship of the individuals in an endeavor as it is unique talents, or money, or political support.  The seven of us knew and respected each other having worked together at the school for a number of years.  Our commitment to the endeavor, however, perhaps was not established.  If we had developed the relationship to include a true commitment to verifying the reading techniques as best practices, we might have done more.  In a short article from Project Smart Michael Young states, “Ideally you develop a strong working relationship with a client….  You become a partner with the client” (Young, 2011).  Perhaps our interest in this research experiment was more a matter of appeasing the principal and providing a modicum of effort.  Perhaps we should have performed the experiment for ourselves, making each other our partner and the client.  This is where the true value of collaboration comes into play.  It’s not just the sharing of information, but it’s also developing that relationship. 

 References:

Allen, S., and Hardin, P. C.  (2008).  Developing instructional technology products using effective
project management practices.  Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 19(2), 72-97. 

Portny, S.E., Mantel, S.J., Meredith, J.R., Shafer, S.M. and Sutton, M.M.  (2008).  Project
management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects.  Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.

Strong, R.W., Silver, H.F., and Perini, M.J.  (2001).  Teaching what matters most: Standards and
strategies for raising student achievement.  Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.

Young, M.  (2011).  Stakeholder Management: Building relationships in project management. 
Retrieved from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/stakeholder-management.html