Patterns of miscommunication in organisations

Introduction

The hierarchical structure of many workplaces tends to constrain or even stifle open exchange of ideas and information. This is particularly apparent in communication between employees who are at different levels in a hierarchy: people are generally reluctant to speak their minds in front of their managers, even when assured that it is perfectly OK to do so.   There is good reason for this: managers often “talk the talk” about being open to other points of view but contradict their words subsequently (see my article entitled, the paradox of the learning organization, for an example of this).

In this post I draw on this paper by Max Visser to describe some of the tactics or patterns of miscommunication which managers employ to sideline, devalue or even completely dismiss employee viewpoints.

Background

Those who toil in the lower echelons of an organisation’s hierarchy can easily sense the gap between managerial talk and intent.  One setting in which this gap becomes particularly evident is in group meetings, where a manager’s words may say, “speak freely” but his body language or responses may append an unspoken “be aware of the consequences”   clause.

As I have discussed in this post, communication is just as much about context (e.g. manager-subordinate relationship within an organisational setting) as it is about content.  This point of view is central to the interactional view of communication that originated in the work of Gregory Bateson and Paul Watzlawick.  According to the interactional view, communication operates at two levels: the spoken or written meaning (content) and the situation/relationship (context). Among other things, this view focuses on the ways in which the content of a message – such as “speak freely” – may be rendered ambiguous by signals that appear to contradict it.  In the remainder of this post we’ll look at a few ways in which managers do this via verbal communication. We’ll also take a brief look at the different ways in which employees respond to such behaviour.

Patterns of miscommunication

The best way to describe these patterns is through an example. Consider the following situation:

An employee presents a business case for a new CRM system to his manager. In the presentation, the employee describes the rationale for implementing a new system and then evaluates a few products based on agreed financial, technical and other criteria. Finally, he recommends a particular product, System X, based on the evaluation and then seeks feedback from his manager.

The manager, who does not want to commit to a course of action may choose one of the following strategies to devalue the employee’s work:

Tangentialisation

In this case the manager makes a statement that acknowledges the employee’s message but ignores its  content and intent by saying something like:

“So how long have you been working on this?”

By going off on a tangent, the manager  avoids giving a relevant response.

Disqualification

There are four types of disqualification

Evasion

This occurs when a manager avoids giving a response by changing the topic.  For example, the manager might glance at his watch and saying:

“Oh is that the time?  I have to go, I’m late for a meeting with my boss.”

The difference between tangentialisation and evasion is that in the latter, the manager does not even acknowledge the message.

Sleight of hand

Here the manager appears to acknowledge the message,  but then switches the topic. An example of this would be a response along the lines of:

“Yes, you enough data for a Phd thesis here [laughs]. I think we’re drowning in data.“

The point here is that the manager initiates a discussion about a side issue – the volume of  information presented in the business case rather  than its relevance or veracity. Moreover this is done in an apparently light-hearted, yet somewhat demeaning way. Thus although the manager avoids giving direct feedback, he still makes it clear  he does not think that the employee’s work is up to scratch.

Status disqualification

Here the manager switches the focus from the message to the messenger. Usually status disqualification is accompanied by insinuations regarding the messenger’s competence. A typical example of this would be a comment like:

“It’s clear you have not done these kinds of presentations before!”

Without saying it explicitly, the manager is implying that the employee has not done a good job and therefore no further discussion is necessary.

Redundant question

This is where the manager lobs the ball back in the employee’s court by asking a question that implicitly challenges the employee’s conclusions. An example would be:

“[smiles knowingly] I see, but does your data justify your choice of System X?”

Such a question signals the manager is not convinced, but without explicit disagreement. The onus is now on the employee to justify his conclusions.

Mystification

Here the manager changes the context of the discussion altogether by saying something like:

“Let me tell you something about CRM systems.”

Here the manager changes the frame of the discussion – it is now about educating the employee rather than evaluating the product. Of course, in doing so he also insinuates that the employee’s analysis is not worthy of a response.

Employee responses to managerial miscommunication

When faced with any of the above tactics, the employee can respond in one of the following ways:

1. Meta-communication: Here the employee understands the manager’s tactics and attempts to point out the inconsistency and double speak in the manager’s response.  This is a risky course of action because the manager may view it as a direct challenge to his or her authority. However, if done right, the manager may actually become aware of the incongruence of his/her response and change behaviour accordingly.
2. Evasion: Here the employee withdraws from the conversation by ignoring the manager’s message altogether.  One way to do this is to offer no response at all, but this might not be possible as the manager may well insist on a response.
3. Acceptance: In this case the employee accepts the content of the manager’s response, but ignores the non-verbal signals (derogatory tone, looking at watch etc.).  In doing so, the employee effectively accepts the manager’s criticisms.
4. Countering: Here the employee counters the manager’s message by  using one of the tactics of the previous section. This generally leads to a verbal escalation as the manager will view such a response as a direct challenge to his authority and thus respond in kind.

Because of the nature of the manager-employee relationship and the fear of challenging authority, I would hazard a guess that majority of employees would respond by acceptance or (more infrequently) by evasion. In an ideal organisation, of course, they would respond by meta-communicating.

Conclusion

In this post I have described some common patterns of miscommunication between managers and the managed in organisation-land.  The common element in all the patterns is that the manager acknowledges the message at one level but responds in such a way as to leave the employee confused about how the response should be interpreted. In effect, the miscommunicating manager avoids giving a response.

The interactional view of communication tells us that context and relationship are more important than the content of a message because what is not said is often more significant than what is. The patterns listed above make this amply clear:  managers who miscommunicate are asserting their positional authority rather than saying anything of substance or value.

An ABSERD incident – a service desk satire

The expenses application crashed just as Tina had finished entering the last line. She wasn’t duly alarmed; this had happened to her a couple of times before, but Nathan in IT was able to sort it out without her having to reenter her expenses.

She dialled his number, he answered in a couple of rings. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, she described the problem.

To her surprise, he replied, “I’m sorry Tina, I can’t help you. You will have to call the service desk.”

“The service desk?”  She asked, “What’s that?”

“We have streamlined our IT service procedures to comply with the ABSERD standard –  which stands for  Absolutely Brilliant SERvice Desks. It is an ABSERD requirement that all service calls must be routed through a centralised service desk.”  explained Nate. “The procedures and the numbers you need to call were in the email that was sent out to everyone last week.”

“Yes, I read it, but I didn’t think the ABSERD procedures applied to something like the expenses app.,” said Tina, somewhat bemused.

“I’m afraid it applies to all services that IT offers,” said Nate.

“But isn’t the service desk located elsewhere? Will they even know what the expenses app is let alone how to fix it?”

“Ummm…they’ll fix it if they can and escalate it to the next level if they can’t,” replied Nate. “The ABSERD processes are detailed in the email,” he explained again helpfully.

“You know what the problem is.  Tell me honestly: do you think they’ll be able to fix it?”

“Probably not,” admitted Nate.

“So they’ll escalate it. How long will that take?”

“The ABSERD service level agreement specifies that all non-critical issues will be responded to within   48 hours. I’m afraid the expenses app is classified as non-critical.”

“So that’s 48 hours to fix an issue that you could sort out in minutes,” stated Tina in a matter of fact tone.

“Ummm…no, it’s 48 hours to respond.  That’s the time frame in which they will fix the issue if they can or escalate it if they can’t fix it. As I mentioned, in this case they’ll probably have to escalate” clarified Nate.

“You mean they’ll take 48 hours to figure out they can’t do it. Now, that is truly absurd!”   Tina was seriously annoyed now.

“Well, the service desk deals with calls from the entire organisation. They have to prioritise them somehow and this is the fairest way to do it,” said Nate defensively. “Moreover, the service level agreement specifies 48 hours, but there’s a good chance you’ll get a response within a day,” he added in an attempt to placate her.

“And who will they escalate the call to after 48 (or 24) hours if they can’t fix it?” asked Tina exasperatedly.

“Ummm….that would be me,” said Nate sheepishly.

“I’m sorry, but I’m totally lost now. By your own admission, you’ll probably be the one to fix this problem. So why can’t you just do it for me?”

“I’d love to, Tina” said Nate, “but I can’t.  Jim will have my hide if he knows that I have bypassed the ABSERD process. I’m sorry, you’re just going to have to call or email the service desk. I can’t do anything about it”

“Why are we suddenly following this ABSERD process anyway? What’s the aim of it all?” asked Tina.

“Well, our aim is to improve the quality of our service. The ABSERD standard is a best practice for IT service providers…,” he trailed off, realising that he sounded like a commercial for ABSERDity.

“You do agree that it actually increases the service time for me. You could have fixed the issue for me in the time we’ve had this conversation but I’m going to have to wait at least 24 hours. I fail to see what has “improved” here.”

“Look, this is the new process. I’m sorry can’t do anything about it,” said Nate lamely.

“OK, I’ll log the call.” she said resignedly.

“I’m sorry, Tina. I really am.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said in a gentler tone, “but I’m probably going to miss the deadline for getting my expenses in this month.”

“Tell you what,” said Nate, as the obvious solution dawned on him, “I’ll fix the problem now… but please log the call just in case someone checks.”

“Are you sure you can do that?” asked Tina. “It would be nice to get reimbursed this month, but I do not want you to get into trouble.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem as long as you don’t tell anyone about it…I wouldn’t want to make it known that I bypass the ABSERD procedures as a matter of course.”

“My lips are sealed,” said Tina. “Thanks Nate, I really appreciate your help with this.”

“No worries Tina. I’ll call you when it’s done,” he said as he ended the call.

The paradox of the learning organisation

Introduction

The term learning organisation  refers to an organisation that continually modifies itself in response to changes in its environment.   Ever since Peter Senge coined the term in his book, The Fifth Discipline, assorted consultants and academics have been telling us that a learning organisation is an ideal worth striving for.  The reality, however,  is that most organisations that undertake the journey actually end up in a place far removed  from this ideal. Among other things, the journey may expose managerial hypocrisies that contradict the very notion of a learning organisation.  In this post, I elaborate on the paradoxes of learning organisations, drawing on an excellent and very readable paper by Paul Tosey entitled, The Hunting of the Learning Organisation: A Paradoxical Journey.

(Note:  I should point out that the term learning organisation should be distinguished from organisational learning: the latter refers to processes of learning whereas the former is about an ideal type of organisation. See this paper for more on the distinction.)

The journey metaphor

Consultants and other experts are quick to point out that the path to a learning organisation is a journey towards an ideal that can never be reached.  Quoting from this paper, Tosey writes, “we would talk about the fact that, in some ways, the learning organization represented all of our collective best wishes for Utopia in the workplace.” As another example, Peter Senge writes of it being, “a journey in search of the experience of being a member of `a great team.”  Elsewhere, Senge  suggests that the learning organisation is a vision that is essentially unattainable.

The metaphor of a journey seems an apt one at first, but there are a couple of problems with it. Firstly, the causal connection between initiatives that purport to get one to the goal and actual improvements in an organisation’s capacity to learn  is tenuous and impossible to establish.  This suggests the journey is one without a map. Secondly, the process of learning about learning within the organisation – how it occurs, and how it is perceived by different stakeholders – can expose organisational hypocrisies and double-speak that may otherwise have remained hidden.  Thus instead of progressing towards the the ideal one may end up moving away from it.  Tosey explores these  paradoxes by comparing the journey of a learning organisation to  the one described in Lewis Carroll’s  poem, The Hunting of The Snark.

Hunting the Snark (and the learning organisation)

Carroll’s poem tells the story of ten characters who set of in search of a fabulous creature called a  Snark.  After many trials and tribulations, they end up finding out that the Snark is something else:  a not-so-pleasant creature called a Boojum. Tosey comments that the quest described in the poem is a superb metaphor for the journey towards a learning organisation. As he states:

Initially, when reflecting on personal experience of organizational events… I was struck by the potential of the dream-like voyage of fancy on which Carroll’s characters embarked as an allegory of the quest for the learning organization. Pure allegory has limitations. Through writing and developing the article I came to view the poem more as a paradigm of the consequences of human desire for, and efforts at, progress through the striving for ideals. In other words the poem expresses something about our `hunting’. In this respect it may represent a mythological theme,a profound metaphor more than a mere cautionary moral tale.

There are many interesting parallels between the hunt for the Snark and the journey towards a learning organisation. Here are a few:

The expedition to find the Snark is led by a character called the Bellman who asserts: “What I tell you three times is true.” This is akin to the assurances (pleas?) from experts who tell us (several times over) that it is possible to transform our organisations into ones that continually learn.

The journey itself is directionless because the Bellman’s map is useless. In Carroll’s words:

Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank:
(So the crew would protest) “that he’s bought us the best—
A perfect and absolute blank!

Finally, the Snark is never found. In its stead, the crew find a scary creature called  a Boojum that has the power to make one disappear. Quoting from the poem:

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away—
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

The journey towards a learning organisation often reveals the Boojum-like dark side of organisations.  One common example of this is when the process of learning surfaces questions that are uncomfortable for those in power. Tosey relates the  following tale  which may be familiar to some readers,

…a multinational company intending to develop itself as a learning organization ran programmes to encourage managers to challenge received wisdom and to take an inquiring approach. Later, one participant attended an awayday, where the managing director of his division circulated among staff over dinner. The participant raised a question about the approach the MD had taken on a particular project; with hindsight, had that been the best strategy? `That was the way I did it’, said the MD. `But do you think there was a better way?’, asked the participant. `I don’t think you heard me’, replied the MD. `That was the way I did it’. `That I heard’, continued the participant, `but might there have been a better way?’. The MD fixed his gaze on the participants’ lapel badge, then looked him in the eye, saying coldly, `I will remember your name’, before walking away.

One could argue that a certain kind of learning – that of how the organisation learns – occurred here:  the employee learnt that certain questions were out of bounds. I think it is safe to say, though, that this was not the kind of learning that was intended by those who initiated the program.

In the preface to the poem, Carroll notes that the Bellman there is a rule  –  Rule 42 – which states, “No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm,” to which the Bellman (the leader) added, “and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one.” This rendered communication between the helmsman and the crew impossible. In such periods the ship was not steered. The parallels between this and organisational life are clear: there is rarely open communication between the those steering the organisational ship and rank and file employees. Indeed, Tosey reformulates Rule 42 in organisational terms as, “the organization shall not speak to the supervision, and the  supervision shall not speak to the organization.” This, he tells us, interrupts the feedback loop between individual experience and the organisations which renders learning impossible.

(Note:  I can’t help but wonder if Douglas Adams’ famous  answer to the life universe and everything was inspired by Carroll’s rule 42…)

In the poem,  the ship sometimes sailed backwards when Rule 42 was in operation. Tosey draws a parallel between “sailing backwards” and unexpected or unintended consequence of organisational rules.  He argues that organisational actions can result in learning even if those actions were originally intended to achieve something else. The employee in the story above learnt something about the organisational hierarchy and how it worked.

Finally, it is a feature of Rule-42-like rules that they cannot be named. The employee in the story above could not  have pointed out that the manager was acting in a manner that was inconsistent with the intent of the programme – at least not without putting his own position at risk. Perhaps that in itself is a kind of learning, though of a rather sad kind.

Conclusion

Experts and consultants have told us many times over that the journey towards a learning organisation is one worth making….and as the as the Bellman in Carroll’s poem says: “What I tell you three times is true.” Nevertheless, the reality is that instances in which learning actually occurs tend to be more a consequence of accident than plan, and tend to be transient than lasting. Finally, and perhaps most important, the Snark may turn out to Boojum:  people may end up learning truths that the organisation would rather remained hidden.   And therein lies the paradox of the  learning organisation.