Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Business Communication Lecture 5 Week 3 Section 1 David LIN

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Self-concept

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 What is self-concept?  Self-concept is your perception of yourself. It is what you believe your personality, looks, beliefs, attributes, talents as well as your faults and weaknesses to be.  Your image of who you are is your self-concept and is composed of your feelings and thoughts about your strengths and weaknesses, your abilities and limitations. (DeVito et al., 2000, p. 79)

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Who are you?  We will usually answer the question, ‘Who am I?’ using these classifications: our gender our age our family relationships or roles our marital status our occupation our nationality our culture

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 How does self-concept develop?  Reflected image  Comparison with others  Comparison against our own standards

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 The process of perception as applied to self-concept  Developing a self-concept follows the four-stage process of: stimulus selection organisation inference

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Self-esteem  Self-esteem is the value you put on yourself.  The goals you set influence your self-esteem.  Pride in one’s group and support from that group can increase self-esteem.  Culture also influences goals.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 What is the value of self-esteem in communication and organisations?  Good self-esteem has often been seen as a prerequisite to success.  Contrary to popular belief, many successful people may not have high self-esteem but are striving to gain it.  However, achieving goals generally leads to higher self- esteem and good self-esteem is necessary to be a good communicator.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 What is self-awareness?  Self-awareness is an awareness of how others see us.  This may not be the same as our self-concept.  If the messages reflected back from people do not match our self-concept, we can do one of three things: ignore or distort the messages from others, change our behaviour so that others see us differently, or change our self-concept to match the reflected image.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Improving self-awareness  Techniques for improving self-awareness include: paying attention to feedback self-disclosing considering your Johari Window

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 The Johari Window

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator  The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator suggests that there are four main dimensions of personality types: Introvert/extrovert. Introverts are more inward-looking; extroverts are more oriented towards others. Sensing/intuitive. Sensing types use their senses to gather information; intuitive types are more concerned with relationships. Thinking/feeling. Thinking types use logic and careful thought in making decisions; feeling types trust their emotions and go with what ‘feels right’. Judging/perceiving. Judging types need closure; they want to be as sure as possible. Perceiving types will take a chance on a variety of possibilities.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Applying self-awareness at work  Once you have become self-aware, you can change your behaviour. Identify the problem. Find the triggers. Change the situation or response. Create a new communication behaviour or pattern. Practise using the new response until a new pattern is formed.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Keep your self-esteem high at work Seek out positive and energetic people. Look for projects that will be successful. Accept that not everyone will like you. Avoid self-fulfilling prophecies. Be self-affirming. Use positive self-talk. Focus on possibilities and potential, not on your shortcomings or limitations.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Key ideas  Self-concept is who we think we are.  Self-esteem is what we feel about who we think we are.  Self-awareness is knowing how others see us. This is important in communication as unless we know how others see us, we can’t change our behaviour to be more effective.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Summary  Our self-concept and the associated ideas of self-esteem and self- awareness can enhance our ability to work in organisations.  Work can also become a means of strengthening or improving our own self-esteem and self-concept.  Intrapersonal communication can: enhance self-esteem increase self-awareness increase self-control.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Summary (cont.)  Individuals with strong self-concepts, self-esteem, self-awareness and self-control are valuable to an organisation because of: improved problem-solving and analytical abilities reduced stress ability to manage interpersonal conflict.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Culture and communication

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Culture and communication  ‘Culture is communication and communication is culture.’ Hall (cited in Adler and Elmhorst, 1999, p. 40)  ‘Culture refers to the relatively specialised lifestyle of a group of people consisting of their values, beliefs, artefacts, ways of behaving and ways of communicating. A culture also includes all that members of a social group have produced and developed – their language, modes of thinking, art, laws and religion.’ (DeVito et al., 2000, p. 99)

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Key concepts about culture  Culture is more than geography and a common language.  Culture is passed down from generation to generation.  Societies may be: mono-cultural bi-cultural multicultural.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Key concepts about culture (cont.)  Culture is not accurately contained in generalisations.  Culture affects behaviour and communication.  Culture is learned.  Culture is a set of shared interpretations.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Key concepts about culture (cont.)  Culture involves beliefs, values and norms.  Culture provides ethical guidelines for behaviour.  Culture is more than nationality.  Understanding culture is important for intercultural communication.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Treaty of Waitangi  History Signed on 6 February, 1840 at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands by 43 chiefs, Te Tiriti o Waitangi was then taken around the country and another 500 signatures were gathered from 39 places throughout Aotearoa / New Zealand. The English version was signed by 39 chiefs only, in Waikato and the Manukau.  Maori and English versions differ greatly.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Co-cultures and subcultures  Co-cultures In New Zealand, we identify Maori, Pakeha, Samoan, Tongan, Fijian, Chinese, and Indian as some of our main cultural groupings or co-cultures.  Subcultures New Zealand life has many different subcultures (or smaller groupings within the broad frame of New Zealand culture).

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Gender differences in communication  Women use the affinity or liking dimension of communication. Men listen for and take note of control, status and achievement.  Women use more eye contact than men when listening. Men will sit side by side and look away more, but are still listening.  Women talk more about relationships: men about factual events. This is often shortened to ‘rapport versus report’ but in fact both styles can build relationships.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Gender differences in communication (cont.)  Men use good-natured teasing or argument to bring up points. This can discourage some women.  Women are more indirect in giving orders: men are more direct.  Men generally communicate more in public or group situations like meetings.  Women use more qualifiers and disclaimers than men, e.g. ‘It might be’ or ‘It seems to me that …’

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Gender differences in communication (cont.)  Women read non-verbal communication better than men, e.g. they can tell when people are lying more easily.  Men are more likely to believe that they are superior to their peers both physically and in personality. Women are more likely to believe that their personality is better.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Gender differences in communication (cont.)  Women use more politeness than men.  Women are more likely to seek areas of agreement than men.  Women initiate more touching behaviour than men, even opposite-sex touching.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Culture, biology and the individual  Biology makes us physically different.  Culture derives from our family background, our experiences when growing up and our identification with certain groups in society.  Culture creates and defines how we behave, what we think is ‘right’ and our attitudes, beliefs and values.  ‘Culture is how we are raised to view and practise life.’ (Simons, 1999).

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Becoming aware of values and beliefs  Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that our culture is the ‘right’ way to do things.  Cultural relativism accepts that each culture has its own ways of behaving, communicating and relating to others.  What is right or appropriate in one culture may be considered wrong or inappropriate in another culture.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 How is culture learned?  Culture is learned through: enculturation, or being brought up within a particular culture and way of life, and acculturation, or learning to adjust to another culture and way of life.  If cultures are similar, the process of adjustment and acculturation is easier.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Major theories of cultural difference and their application to workplace communication  High-context and low-context cultures  Individual and collective orientation  Leadership and culture  Power distances  Uncertainty reduction

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Intercultural and cross-cultural communication  Intercultural communication operates at the interpersonal, informal level between individuals.  Cross-cultural communication operates at a different level, e.g. between governments or businesses.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Intercultural misunderstandings These are often based on:  different cultural norms and expectations in conflict management strategies status recognition ways of showing respect direct and indirectness politeness, etc.  different beliefs and value systems in achievement (individual) co-operation (collective)  not recognising or acknowledging difference.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Barriers to intercultural communication  These can include: talking to, about or past each other rather than with each other being condescending or patronising rejecting help or offers of friendship taking offence confronting others isolating oneself saying what is expected rather than what is meant as in being politically correct or insincere.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Culture-specific versus culture-general approaches  A culture-specific approach involves learning as much as you can about a particular culture.  A culture-general approach would seek to link knowledge about culture with communication theory and establish key principles.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Ethics and culture Ethical challenges which are based on cultural difference may be approached through:  avoiding doing business with these companies  accommodating the difference and accepting other ways of doing things  forcing or insisting on doing business according to your own ethical guidelines  educating – persuading others to accept your principles  negotiating – compromising where each gives up something to find an agreed position  collaboration – problem solving to create a new solution together.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Summary  Culture can be summed up informally as ‘the way we do things around here’. ‘Aotearoa New Zealand culture can only be fully understood by reference to Maori culture and the Treaty of Waitangi.  Culture develops over time and it can be very difficult to learn about another culture which is different from our own.

Communication: Organisation and Innovation Lecturer’s Guide © Pearson Education New Zealand 2005 Summary (continued)  We learn about our own culture by experiencing cultural difference.  Gender acts as a significant subculture and there are many theories about culture and its role in society and business.  Understanding the principles underpinning cross-cultural and intercultural communication allows us to communicate better in business and life.