Ob Key Words Chap 7 And Chap 8

Front 1

brainstorming

Back 1

A freewheeling, face-to-face meeting where team members aren’t allowed to criticize, but are encouraged to speak freely, generate as many ideas as possible, and build on the ideas of others.

Front 2

brooks law

Back 2

also called the “mythical manmonth”, this principle says that adding more people to a late software project only makes it later.

Front 3

constructive conflict

Back 3

-- (also known as task or cognitive conflict) occurs when people focus their discussion on the issue while maintaining respectfulness for people having other points of view.

Front 4

electronic brainstorming

Back 4

-- a recent form of brainstorming that relies on networked computers to submit and share creative ideas.

Front 5

evaluation apprehension

Back 5

– Occurs when individuals are reluctant to mention ideas that seem silly because they believe (often correctly) that other team members are silently evaluating them

Front 6

groupthink

Back 6

- the tendency of highly cohesive groups to value consensus at the price of decision quality.

Front 7

nominal group technique

Back 7

a variation of traditional brainstorming that tries to combine the benefits of team decision making without the problems mentioned earlier.

Front 8

norms

Back 8

-- the informal rules and shared expectations that groups establish to regulate the behavior of their members

Front 9

process losses

Back 9

resources (including time and energy) expended toward team development and maintenance rather than the task.

Front 10

production blocking

Back 10

A time constraint in team decision making due to the procedural requirement that only one person may speak at a time.

Front 11

role

Back 11

-- a set of behaviors that people are expected to perform because they hold certain positions in a team and organization.

Front 12

self directed teams (SDT's)

Back 12

-- Cross-functional work groups organized around work processes, that complete an entire piece of work requiring several interdependent tasks, and that have substantial autonomy over the execution of those tasks

Front 13

social loafing

Back 13

occurs when people exert less effort (and usually perform at a lower level) when working in groups than when working alone.

Front 14

task interdependence

Back 14

the extent that team members must share materials, information, or expertise in order to perform their jobs.

Front 15

team cohesion

Back 15

-- the degree of attraction people feel toward the team and their motivation to remain members.

Front 16

teams

Back 16

groups of two or more people who interact and influence each other, are mutually accountable for achieving common goals associated with organizational objectives, and perceive themselves as a social entity within an organization.

Front 17

trust

Back 17

- a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based on positive expectations of the intent or behavior of another person.

Front 18

virtual teams

Back 18

teams whose members operate across space, time, and organizational boundaries and are linked through information technologies to achieve organizational tasks

Front 19

collusion 1

Back 19

. a secret agreement, especially for fraudulent or treacherous purposes;

Front 20

conspiracy 2

Back 20

a secret understanding between two or more persons to gain something illegally, to defraud another of his or her rights, or to appear as adversaries though in agreement (dictionary.com)

Front 21

dissemble 1

Back 21

1. to give a false or misleading appearance to; conceal the truth or real nature of 2. to put on the appearance of; feign (dictionary.com)

Front 22

game the system

Back 22

To use the rules and procedures meant to protect a system in order to instead manipulate the system for a desired outcome.

Front 23

loophole

Back 23

A method of escape, especially an ambiguity or exception in a rule that can be exploited in order to avoid its effect.

Front 24

restriction of output

Back 24

the trade union policy of interference with the processes and guidance of production with a view to standardizing the volume of employment and the rate of remuneration of the wage workers.

Front 25

throw a game

Back 25

to lose a game on purpose

Front 26

work-to-rule

Back 26

: an industrial action in which employees do no more than the minimum required by the rules of their contract, and follow safety or other regulations to the letter in order to cause a slowdown rather than to serve their purpose

Front 27

communication defined

Back 27

- the process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people. Transmitting the sender’s intended meaning (not just symbols) is the essence of good communication

Front 28

the importance of communication

Back 28

clarify expectations and
coordinate work activities
organizational learning and
decision making
employee well being

Front 29

communication: organizational learning and decision making

Back 29

1. Acquiring information from external environment and experimentation
2. Sharing that information with people who can best use it to perform their jobs
3. Minimizing “silos of knowledge”

Front 30

communication: employee well-being

Back 30

1. Fulfills the drive to bond
2. Validates the individual’s worth and identity
3. Communicating with others is partially the means through which individuals define themselves (maintain their social identity)

Front 31

a model of communication: the model

Back 31

1. Sender forms a message and encodes it into words, gestures, voice intonations, and other symbols or signs

2. Encoded message is transmitted to the intended receiver through one or more communication channels (media)

3. Receiver senses the incoming message and decodes it into something meaningful

4. Sender looks for evidence that the other person received and understood the transmitted message

5. Feedback repeats the communication process

6. Communication is not a free-flowing conduit…

Front 32

6. Communication is not a free-flowing conduit…

Back 32

a. The transmission of meaning from one person to another is hampered by noise
b. Noise – the psychological, social, and structural barriers that distort and obscure the sender’s intended message

Front 33

improving communication through coding and decoding

Back 33

1. Carry the same “codebook” (dictionary of symbols, language, gestures, idioms, etc)
a. More accurate and more efficient communication
b. Less need for redundancy

2. Similar mental models (internal representations of the external word) about the context of the information - requires less communication

3. Familiarity with the message topic – develop the most efficient scripts to describe the subject

4. Proficiency with the communication channel

Front 34

communication channels

Back 34

verbal communication
computer mediated communication
nonverbal communication

Front 35

how email has altered communication

Back 35

a. Now preferred medium for coordinating work – quickly written, edited, and transmitted
b. Information can be appended and easily conveyed to many people
c. Asynchronous, so no need to coordinate a communication session
d. Allows users to filter, store, sort, and search messages more quickly than paper-based
e. Preferred medium for coordinating work and sending well-defined info for decision making
f. Increases communication volume and significantly alters communication flow
g. Reduces face-to-face and telephone communication
h. Increases communication with people further up the hierarchy
i. Hides age, race, and other features, thus reducing stereotyping biases, YET
j. Tends to increase reliance on stereotypes when we are aware of personal characteristics

Front 36

problems with email

Back 36

a. Poor medium for communicating emotions (limited media richness)
b. Reduces politeness and respect – e.g. sending messages before emotions subside (flaming)
c. Poor medium for ambiguous, complex, novel situations
d. Contributes to information overload

Front 37

social network communication

Back 37

a. Clusters people around themes or events
b. Avatar sites (e.g. IBM’s Second Life) add a degree of nonverbal communication
c. Instant messaging - real-time communities through clustered communication
d. Wikis - collaborative web spaces that allow co-authoring and editing

Front 38

nonverbal communication

Back 38

– any part of communication that does NOT use words
1. Actions, facial gestures, voice intonation, physical distance, silence, etc.
2. Transmits most information in face-to-face meetings
3. Nonverbal cues signal subtle information
4. Less rule bound than verbal communication
5. More ambiguous and susceptible to misinterpretation
6. Many facial expressions (e.g. smiling) are hardwired and universal – reliable across cultures
7. Automatic and unconscious

Front 39

social influence

Back 39

1. Organization and team norms about preferred communication channel
2. Individual preferences for specific communication channels
3. Symbolic meaning of the communication channel

Front 40

media richness

Back 40

the medium’s data-carrying capacity; the volume and variety of information that can be transmitted during a specific time

1.high richness
2.face to face media communication is the most media rich communication medium
3.lowest for lean media (e.g. reports, flyers)

Front 41

high richness (media)

Back 41

a. Able to convey multiple cues (such as both verbal and nonverbal information)
b. Allows timely feedback from receiver to sender
c. Allows the sender to customize the message to the receiver (adjust message and style)
d. Makes use of complex symbols (e.g. words and phrases with multiple meanings)

Front 42

contingencies of media richness

Back 42

a. Nonroutine situations - parties have little common experience (e.g. emergencies)
b. Ambiguous situations- need to resolve multiple and conflicting interpretations

Front 43

evaluating media richness theory

Back 43

– three factors that override or blur the medium’s richness:
1. Ability to multi-communicate
2. more vied proficiency levels
3.social distractions of rich channels

Front 44

evaluating media richness theory
ability to multi-communicate

Back 44

a. Emerging technologies allow employees to use two or more channels at the same time
b. Possible due to reduced sensory demand for most computer-mediated communication

Front 45

evaluating media richness theory
More varied proficiency levels

Back 45

some people can “push” more information than others

Front 46

evaluating media richness theory
Social distractions of rich channels -

Back 46

status and other social factors may distract people from efficiently processing the message content

Front 47

communication barriers (noise)

Back 47

perceptions
filtering
language

Front 48

communication barriers (noise)
perceptions

Back 48

a. Selective attention
b. Difficulty empathizing with receiver

Front 49

communication barriers (noise)
filtering

Back 49

a. May involve deleting or delaying negative information
b. Intent may be to create a good impression to superiors

Front 50

communication barriers (noise)
language

Back 50

a. Both language itself and “codebook”
b. Jargon - words with specialized meaning to specific people
1) Benefits - increases communication efficiency, improves team dynamics, shapes organizational culture
2) Problem - receiver might not understand jargon
c. Ambiguity
1) Symbol has multiple meanings and receiver takes wrong interpretation
2) May be used deliberately by sender to obscure bad news

Front 51

Information Overload –

Back 51

– occurs when the volume of information received exceeds the person’s capacity to get through it

1)information processing capacity
2)information load
3)consequences of overload
4)managing information over load

Front 52

information processing capacity

Back 52

- amount of info a person is capable of processing in a fixed time

Front 53

information load

Back 53

amount of info that must be processed per unit of time

Front 54

consequences of overload

Back 54

- stress, lost information, poorer decisions

Front 55

managing information overload
increase information processing capacity

Back 55

1) Learn to read faster
2) Scan through documents more efficiently
3) Remove distractions
4) Time management
5) Temporarily work longer hours

Front 56

managing information overload
reduce information load

Back 56

1) Buffering - others screen person’s messages
2) Omitting - overlook some information
3) Summarizing – read summaries rather than full reports

Front 57

cross cultural communication

Back 57

A. Verbal differences - language

B. Nonverbal differences
C. Gender Communication Differences

Front 58

cross cultural communication

Back 58

A. Verbal differences - language

B. Nonverbal differences
C. Gender Communication Differences

Front 59

B. Nonverbal differences

Back 59

1. Voice intonation
2. Interpreting nonverbal meaning
3. Importance of verbal versus nonverbal
4. Silence and conversational overlaps
5. Gestures

Front 60

1. Male communication

Back 60

a. Men tend to view conversations as negotiations of relative status and power
b. Assert power by directly giving advice to others and using combative language
c. Tend to dominate the talk time in conversations with women
d. Tend to interrupt more and adjust their speaking style less than women
e. “Report talk” - primary function of conversation is impersonal & efficient information exchange

Front 61

2. Female communication

Back 61

a. More “rapport talk” - communicate for relationship building (although may use “report talk” as well, especially when conversing with men)
b. Less likely to assert status
1) Make indirect requests
2) Apologize more often
3) Seek advice from others more quickly than men
c. More sensitive to nonverbal cues

Front 62

improving interpersonal communication
-getting your message across

Back 62

1. Empathize - think about how receiver will decode message

2. Repeat the message
a. State message in a different way
b. “Tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you’ve told them”

3. Use timing effectively - find a time when receiver not distracted

4. Be descriptive
a. Focus on the problem, not on the person
b. Suggest things the listener can do to improve

Front 63

improving interpersonal communication
-active listening

Back 63

1. Sensing
a. Postpone evaluation -- avoids screening out information
b. Avoid interruptions -- give speaker opportunity to complete the message
c. Maintain interest -- assume something of value in conversation

2. Evaluating (includes understanding, evaluating, and remembering the message)
a. Empathize -- see message from speaker’s perspective
b. Organize information when getting ahead of speaker

3. Responding
a. Show interest -- use eye contact and send back channel signals (e.g. “I see”)
b. Clarify the message—rephrase speaker’s ideas

Front 64

improving communication throughout the hierarchy

Back 64

workspace design
wikis, blogs, e-zines
direct communication with top management

Front 65

workspace design

Back 65

1. Clustering people in teams
2. Open office arrangements
3. Increases communication
4. Potentially increases employee stress due to the loss of privacy and personal space
5. Challenge is to balance privacy with opportunities for social interaction

Front 66

wikis

Back 66

a. Collaborative web spaces in which anyone can write, edit, or remove material
b. Democratic, collaborative social networking spaces that rapidly document new knowledge
c. Good for project management, to-do’s, status reports, issues log
d. No need to collate reports from everyone for an update
e. Accuracy depends on quality of participants

Front 67

blogs

Back 67

a. “Inward-facing” (for employees’ eyes only)Wikis -- collaborative document creation

Front 68

e-zines

Back 68

a. Rapid distribution of company news
b. Yet skepticism regarding information that has been screened and packaged by management

Front 69

direct communication with top management

Back 69

1. Management by walking around (MBWA)
2. Town hall meetings
3. Roundtable forums
4. Benefits
a. Potentially minimize filtering
b. Help executives acquire a deeper meaning and quicker understanding of internal problems
c. Employees might have more empathy for decisions made further up the hierarchy

Front 70

communicating through the grapevine

Back 70

(an unstructured and informal network founded on social relationships rather than organizational charts or job descriptions)

Front 71

grapevine characteristics

Back 71

1. Transmits information rapidly in all directions
2. Follows a cluster chain pattern
3. More active in homogeneous groups
4. Transmits some degree of truth
5. Distorts information by deleting fine details and exaggerating key points
6. Changes due to internet
a. Email becoming the main grapevine medium
b. Social networks are now global
c. Public blogs and forums extends gossip to everyone

Front 72

grapevine benefits

Back 72

a. Fills in missing information when it is not available through formal channels
b. Main conduit through which org stories and other symbols of culture are communicated
c. Relieves anxiety
d. Associated with drive to bond (quashing the grapevine undermines natural drive for social interaction)

Front 73

grapevine limitations

Back 73

a. Distortions might escalate anxiety
b. Perceived lack of concern for employees when company info is slower than grapevine

Front 74

what to do with the grapevine?

Back 74

a. Listen to it as a signal of employee anxiety
b. Then correct the cause of this anxiety
c. The grapevine is a competitor to corporate leaders, who should attempt to win the challenge to inform employees before they receive the news through the grapevine

Front 75

communication

Back 75

-- the process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people.

Front 76

grapevine

Back 76

-- an unstructured and informal network founded on social relationships rather than organizational charts or job descriptions

Front 77

information overload

Back 77

-- occurs when the volume of information received exceeds the person’s capacity to get through it.

Front 78

management by walking around (MBWA)

Back 78

– A communication practice in which executives get out of their offices and learn from others in the organization through face-to-face dialogue.

Front 79

media richness

Back 79

-- the medium’s data-carrying capacity, that is, the volume and variety of information that can be transmitted during a specific time

Front 80

wikies

Back 80

collaborative web spaces in which anyone in a group can write, edit, or remove material from the Web site