Communication Issues in KJVM AMI FM Radio - Report Example

Communication issues in KJVM AMI FM Radio Introduction In organisations operating in any business sector including in entertainment service sectors, actualization of effective communication ‘channels’ is the key because communication forms an integral part of optimal working environment. In organisations, there will be hierarchical structures so that the management (including leaders) and the employees will be physically as well as mentally ‘separated’. This separation particularly mental separation could be bridged mainly through communication channels. However, if there is nil or minimal or faulty mental, verbal as well as non-verbal communication between the management and the employees, it could cause major issues like the ones that happened in the KJVM AMI Radio station. In the organisation, a key employee named Jim Dawson was shown the door due to alleged underperformance. However, when one views from Dawson’s perspective, it is evident that he has been “phased out” of the organisation due to the “vested interests” of the management. At the same time, when one closely looks into case, it becomes clear that mainly due to problematic or even unethical communication issues, the relationship between Dawson and his employer KJVM deteriorated, leading to the current situation. 2. Discussion and Analysis 2. 1. Issues of leadership communication To actualize optimal communication channels inside an organisation, leaders have to take the initiative. Leaders can develop corporate culture and human capability by patiently building trust and emotional commitment to the company mainly through communication. (Beer and Nohria, 2000). Leader has to patiently and constructively hear employees’ grievances, suggestions, feedbacks, etc., and also has to communicate all the key messages, motivating words or even instructions to the intended employee in a nice, decent and positive way. This is in line with the Carmazzi’s theory of Environmental Leader, which states that if the leaders follow the above mentioned effective two-way communication model, they can communicate their or organisational vision to the employees strongly, so the employees can adopt the vision as their own. (“Theories of Leadership”, n. d). However, this two-way communication mainly malfunctioned in the KJVM with its President LaDaire Junior not able to aptly communicate with Dawson and also missed constructively listening to him. Initially, Dawson and Junior had a friendly relationship. For example, Junior and Dawson often took morning and afternoon coffee break together at a local doughnut shop, where they communicated as well as discussed many work-related issues. As part of motivating leadership communication, Junior often told Dawson, “You are doing a great job, and you can work for KJVM as long as you want.” However, this close relationship suffered initial break when Junior due to his work commitments, or if viewed from another perspective, intentionally avoided Dawson’s offer of taking coffee break together. Although, it may be a fact that Junior had busy work commitments, as he become more involved as president of the station, the way he communicated his inability to join for coffee breaks seems to be deficient. That is, Junior’s reply to Dawson’s offer that, “Im not going to have coffee and doughnuts with you anymore, Im too busy”, reflected his unfriendly and even avoiding mindset. Even if he had replied that he can join for coffee breaks, when time permits, it could have been positive communication and could have positively impacted Dawson’s motivation. However, his blunt and unfriendly form of leadership communication set negative vibes in their relationship, and this same form of deficient leadership communication also contributed to Dawson’s exit. Although, as Drucker (cited in Haines, 2011, pg.122) stated, leaders owe it to the organisation and to their fellow workers not to tolerate non performing individuals in important jobs, it is important that those employees or for that matter any employees are removed from the organisation in an ethical and decent way. Firstly, when Dawson was demoted and restricted, he approached Junior with his grievances but in contravention to effective communication traits, Junior replied to him without even looking up from his work that his grievances cannot be considered. If Junior had constructively communicated to Dawson his shortfalls and given him the motivation to correct his mistakes, it would have been a different story. On the same lines, Dawson, after getting terminated and while on the way out of the building, approached Junior and recollected Junior’s earlier commitment, “You told me I would have a job here as long as I wanted.” For which, Junior flatly replied, “I’m not going to discuss this with you! Please leave the building.” Thus, on both these occasions, Junior exhibited faulty leadership communication. At least, Junior could have considered the fact that Dawson is an experienced employee who has been working in the station for more than 25 years, and could have clearly, decently and ethically communicated to him the reasons for his termination. 2. 2 Conflict and conflict management In organisations, conflicts that arise because of communication issues have to be managed through effective conflict management methods. As mentioned above, good two-way communication constitutes good conflict management method because it helps both the employer as well as employee understand each other, which in way will solve the conflicts. “Good two-way communication can help to build the psychological contract, in which employees feel valued by their employer, and the employer values (and is seen to value) employees’ contributions” (“Employee communication”, 2014). However, this good two-way communication did not happen in the KJVM radio station, with the employer particularly the leaders, Junior and General Manager Eric Wilks not considering Dawson’s grievances aptly, and instead further de-motivated him, which in a way led to the continuation of the conflict. The conflict first emerged when Dawson was replaced by Miker Perrot as the sales manager of the station. It was Junior, who gave Wilks the power to remove Dawson as sales manager, and appoint Perrot, who was in his late 30s, did not have major sales experience and was also a personal friend of Wilks, thus leading to a conflicting situation. As a faulty conflict management process, Wilks created and offered Dawson the title of Regional Sales Director and also promised to allocate special projects, so he can have a better designation and also earn aptly. This conflict management step was faulty because the new designation had no significance, and was just another name for a Sales Representative, the position at which Dawson started at the station more than 25 years ago. Adding insult to injury, Dawson had to report to Perrot, who had no managerial experience. In addition, the promise of working on special sales projects with Wilks never materialized, despite Dawson approaching Wilks several times. Although, Dawson continued in this job to support his family, even masking the hurt, it seems Wilks had given a sort of false promise and that does not constitute apt conflict management, and instead it is in line with the Face-Negotiation theory. This theory is based on face management, which describes how people manage conflict negotiation in order to maintain “face”. (Littlejohn & Foss, 2010). With Wilks doing it mainly to save his “face” and position, and not constructively solve the conflict, it lead to further conflicts with Dawson getting further de-motivated and resulting in his eventual exit. 2. 3 Issues of communication ethics Ethics is a key component of communication, with both the leaders as well as the employees needing to incorporate ethical behaviour while communicating with each other. That is, all communication will be ineffective if the receiver feels that the communicator is presenting a biased report for his/her own benefit, and also using unethical means to impede communications. (Frewer and Miles, 2003). That is, in an office environment, apart from direct verbal communications, communications will also be done through technological devices. Although, these devices are used to optimize communication, it also gives minor scope for unethical and even fraudulent activities by the employer. (Shockley-Zalabak, 2008). On those lines, Wilks and Perrot also restrained Dawsons communication activities in the office. They did that by monitoring as well as restricting Dawson’s telephone calls, incoming and outgoing correspondence, inter-office memos, and even meeting input. Perrot also went to the extent of taking telephone and other interoffice memos that contained leads on new accounts directly out of Dawsons mailbox and either gave those leads to other sales representatives or checked them out himself. Growing suspicious, Dawson questioned the receptionist, why he was not receiving incoming phone calls, to which receptionist pointed out how he is the only one in the office, whose calls are barred. All these actions by Wilks and Perrot clearly constitute unethical communication as they did these behind Dawson’s back mainly to minimize his productivity and thereby wreck his career. This unethical behaviour was also visible in the routine sales meetings, where Dawson was not allowed to offer input without prior consent from Wilks and Perrot. Then, when Dawson discontinued contributing to the meeting, he was criticized and also chastised for “not contributing to the meeting.” Thus, it is clear that through unethical means, Wilks and Perrot impeded communication with or from Dawson, thereby pushing him to accept the termination order. 2. 4 Issues of organisational change and changes in values and priorities Organisational change is a key part of organisational functioning, as organisation need to adopt change management strategies to correct its deficient processes, and also to improve the already working current process. However, in line with the Cooper model, when organisation does that, they need to take extra efforts to “acclimatize” the employees to the changes, by optimally communicating about all the intricacies of organisation change. (Scott, 2002). This is particularly applicable to experienced employees, who will be working in the same setup for many years. Considering this perspective, it appears that the KJVM radio station did not aid Dawson or communicate with him during the organisational change. That is, when Junior took charge, he implemented new management philosophy as part of organisational change, and when Dawson could not fit into those changes, he was pushed out. Without giving him a chance to adapt to the new changes, he was terminated. The main accusation levelled against Dawson for firing him was that he practiced outdated sales techniques, which is in contravention to the new changes. However, both Wilks and Perrot did not understand the point that Dawson was showing good results by using those techniques only. Furthermore, he was accused of not contributing to the sales meeting. However, as mentioned above, Dawson was not given adequate opportunities to give his inputs. Although, Perrot gave him a list of “specific ways you must improve your performance to meet station standards,” when viewed from Dawson’s perspective, both Perrot and Wilks did not positively communicate it and also did not provide an optimal working environment to follow and implement those ways. (Maule, 2008). Thus, it is can be assumed that although, Junior and other leaders implemented organisational change for the good of the organisation, they may have missed acclimatizing Dawson. 2.5 The game of office politics Office politics has become a common phenomenon in the current competitive business environment, with both the leaders as well as the employees becoming part of it. Although, in the recent times, office politics are positively used by the employees to reap benefits, on the whole, it could be deceptively and detrimentally used by the leaders and the employees because it predominantly uses non-organisational issues in a negative way. “Office Politics takes a toll on organisations - often resulting in lower productivity, employee stress, excess sick leave and higher staff turnover.” (James, 2009, pg.2). On the same lines, when one focuses on office politics in the KJVM radio station, it is clear that Dawson’s exit could be attributed to ‘backdoor’ deceptions and bad intentions by Junior, Wilks and Perrot. That is, Dawson learned from his former co-workers that Wilks and Perrot had shared with some employees that both had a plan to get rid of Dawson for being with the company for too long, for being old, having too much control over accounts, are making too much money, etc. Although, all these above mentioned aspects of Dawson’s work does not appear to be negative, the way it was negatively viewed by Wilks and Perrot reveals their bad intention, and importantly brings out the problematic aspect of office politics. As part of negative office politics and dubious communication, Wilks and Perrot were alleged to have put restrictions on Dawson’s work activities to decrease his production and thereby create reasons to fire him. Certain co-workers of Dawson knew these plans of Wilks and Perrot, but did not communicate it or complain about it, as they hoped with the phasing out of Dawson, they could be benefited. However, when they understood that they could also be targeted like Dawson, they talked openly about. Thus, in line with negative office politics, Dawson was forced to move out the organisation. 3. Conclusion 3.1 KJVM AMI FM Radios President LaDaire Junior exhibited deficient communication traits when Dawson approached him with grievances and also when he left the station, and that badly impacted Dawson, leading to his exit 3. 2. The arising conflict involving Dawson was not effectively managed by Junior, Wilks and Perrot, thereby leading to accentuation of the conflict 3. 3 Through unethical means, Wilks and Perrot blocked communication options of Dawson and also impeded communication from him, thereby pushing him to accept their termination. 3. 4 Leaders of KJVM Radio could not aptly support Dawson to adapt during the organisational change. 3. 5 Negative office politics on the part of Wilks and Perrot further de-motivated Dawson, thereby moving him out of the organisation and importantly forcing him to file a legal suit. References Beer, M. & Nohria. N. (2000). Cracking the Code of Change. Harvard Business Review. 133- 141. “Employee Communication.” (2014). CIPD. Retrieved from: http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/empreltns/comconslt/empcomm.htm?IsSrchRes= 1 Haines, S. (2011). Managing Product Management: Empowering Your Organization to Produce Competitive Products and Brands. London: McGraw Hill Professional. 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