Page 265 - Business Principles and Management

Unit 3

10.3 Organizational Communication

Goals Terms
• Describe different ways to resolve • conflict • compromise strategy
communication conflicts. • avoidance strategy • win/lose strategy
• Describe the problems that
can occur with cross-cultural
communication.
• Identify ways to improve com-
munication in organizations.

anagers deal with a variety of communication problems. Some problems
that challenge the communication skills of managers involve resolving
Mconflicts and handling cross-cultural communication effectively.

Communication Conflicts

At times, people disagree with each other. Most job-related disagreements are
likely to be temporary and easy to settle. Disagreements become a concern to a
business when they lead to conflict. Conflict is interference by one person with
the achievement of another person’s goals. Conflicts usually occur between two
people, but they may also occur between an individual and a group or between
groups. Because conflicts are sometimes an obstacle to job performance, man-
agers must deal with conflicts.

DESIRABLE CONFLICT

A small amount of conflict is sometimes beneficial, because it may challenge
employees and stimulate new ideas. For example, the advertising manager may
decide to budget as little as possible to advertise a particular product, whereas
the sales manager may have decided to try to boost sales for that particular
product through increased advertising. At this point, conflict exists because
the goals set by each manager differ. However, this type of conflict can lead
to a healthy discussion of how much to spend on advertising and how best to
advertise to produce the highest sales at the lowest advertising cost. The result
can lead to the achievement of a goal that is best for the business.
When employees discuss and resolve their conflicting goals, the organization
can benefit. However, when conflicting goals are not resolved, long-term problems
often result. If the sales and advertising managers went ahead with their individual
plans, money would be wasted and sales would be lost.

UNDESIRABLE CONFLICT

Whereas some conflict in organizations may be healthy, too much conflict can
be harmful. Undesirable conflict results when the actions of any person or group

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