Most individuals erroneously believe communication to be an easy task. To get a better handle on the struggles of communication, it is important to break down the phenomenon into its basic components. Communication is the process of creating and sending an idea (known as encoding) with the intention of a recipient understanding and forming their own ideas based on this sent idea (which is known as decoding). Encoding and decoding may sound basic enough, but it is vulnerable to misinterpretation because of egocentric tendencies inherent within people. For example, I know what intention and meaning I have when I say something and thereby this makes me bias towards believing my verbal packaging is excellent. Nevertheless, individuals decoding messages have their own egocentric biases wherein they would misconstrue message mean because it doesn’t align with what their personal beliefs and mechanisms of understanding (Penn, 2017). Not to over simplify the phenomenon, but children often misunderstand communication because they have an incomplete understanding of the relevant details surrounding a message. In one psychological study, for instance, children misunderstood directions and messages if it conflicted with their own personal understanding of the details (Vogl, 2016).
As a call center manager, I’m tasked with communicating with several departments and staff members in order to coordinate business efforts. Notwithstanding message content communicated, constituents will automatically attach a certain degree of information just based off on my position as a manager. According to Sniderman, Fenton, and Searle, some individuals will automatically be wary of anything managers say to them out of fear of being, for lack of better words, in “trouble” (2016). Such hesitation may be indicative to my own decoding perception biases or an indictment on my authoritarian tendencies, but it is worth noting that they attach those meanings and others based on position title. Attaching meaning based on position title is something that can transcend all organizational levels. Consider that peers, for instance, are more than likely to be more comfortable around each other. Different department personnel are more than likely going to communicate more freely within their department too (Sniderman et al., 2016).
Communication between staff is at risk due to egocentric tendencies, especially with written messages. In my office, there are hundreds of emails sent between staff members. Several of my staff members are more sensitive to written communication because they feel that the messages are curt or intentionally shor. However, I have to remind them that they should only read messages at face value instead of looking too into them. Communication vulnerability is further compounded when considering there are interoffice instant messenger chats occurring. Even slight moments of delay can be misinterpreted as intentional and offend some staff. In any event, it’s clear that written communication within my office has potential for misunderstanding.
Since I’m the customer service manager, it is clear that my staff and I have communication with the outside world as well. Egocentric tendencies also cause frequent misinterpretations between company representatives and outside customers. One of the more pronounced examples is found with customers who do not speak English. When a customer does not speak English, representatives utilize an outsourced translator service. So not only are the egocentric items between representatives and customers impacting communication decoding, but now there is also a third party making translations based on his/her own biases.
In any event, communication may seem easy, but egocentric tendencies make it more difficult. With just my own experience within my company it was evident that communication has the potential to quickly become misconstrued. With communication with the outside world, customers and third parties bring additional layers of miscommunication risk. In order to mitigate the risks of miscommunication, it is important to retain standards of communication that are uniformly applied, but this is difficult to do between companies, cultures, and other countries, so having a cultural subject matter expert available will hopefully help this (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014).
References
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences (9th
ed.). Oxford: Routledge.
Penn State. (2017). “Global Communication.” Retrieved from
https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1867265/modules
Sniderman, P., Fenton, M., & Searle, R. (2016). Effects of managerial communication
as moderated by LMX and trait NA. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 31(6), 1074-1090
Vogl, S. (2015). Children’s verbal, interactive and cognitive skills and implications for
interviews. Quality and Quantity, 49(1), 319-338.