Managerial Communication and the Brain

Dirk Remley

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781631579363
• eBook ISBN: 9781631579370
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

This book takes a neuroscientific approach to explaining elements of effective managerial and leadership communication in a concise way. These include communicating with various audiences and in a variety of situations managers and leaders face regularly. The book includes an easy-to-use guide to help the reader apply this understanding of neuroscience to principles of rhetoric toward developing effective messages. Several specific examples, including detailed explanations of them, illustrate applications. Drawn from real situations, activities and cases, also, encourage practice and facilitate immediate application to situations the reader may be experiencing. Encouraging principles of lean processes, especially lean communication, the book will benefit any in a position of leadership no matter the size of the team or organization, or the professional setting—business, health care, technology, manufacturing and others. It will also benefit those training for such positions—graduate business and management students and those in leadership development programs.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In any organization, management—from bottom to top—is concerned with efficiency. In business writing courses, a desired outcome of the course is that students learn to phrase messages concisely; indeed, conciseness is one of the concepts of business writing that is paramount to the nature of business communication. Assignments in such courses frequently include a word or page limit to encourage students to practice skills related to clarity and conciseness. In business, a desired outcome is profit; one of the primary measures of performance is net profit in a given period. In manufacturing, a valued outcome is that production takes less than a certain amount of time without quality being compromised. In most offices, a goal is to perform tasks using a certain amount of effort and in a given period of time.

Let’s consider a situation in which you are the manager of an employee who has conveyed concern about his performance review, which indicated a lack of efficiency as a main issue. Though there is evidence that the employee’s work could have been done more efficiently without compromising quality, the employee explains that he would not have felt comfortable using the more efficient approach and that his approach is better. In challenging you to explain why you had mentioned the efficiency issue on the report, the employee acknowledges that he knew there was another way to do the jobs but understands that good leaders “break the rules” to get the best results possible. Indeed, in an effort to show their leadership potential, this employee acknowledges that he “often” break the rules, even if it means violating instructions given by management.

While you could respond merely with the statement that he violated the explicitly stated standard of efficiency and leave it at that, you do not. Clearly, the employee aspires to a position of leadership and has some experience with leadership development. The employee would not respond favorably to that blunt message; in this case, “respond favorably” means that the employee would have respected the response and learned from it. Instead, you acknowledge what the employee learned in his own leadership training experience (breaking rules) as well as what you learned in your own management and leadership training: be careful in breaking rules, don’t set out to break the rules all the time, and don’t break a rule directly connected to the desired outcome. Further, you implicitly use some elements of neuroscience that you understand could elicit a more favorable response.

Though your response is relatively long, the employee responds favorably. He acknowledges his appreciation for the detailed response and, also, acknowledges his appreciation for the links you made to leadership concepts. By the end of this chapter, you will understand several reasons why the message was successful. By the end of the book, you will understand how to apply the neuroscientific concepts involved in a variety of situations.

Topics and Goals of This Book

Communication is a primary tool of management and leadership, affecting every part of business. While management and leadership involve several different attributes to distinguish one from the other, as Jacob Morgan notes, “managers must be leaders.”¹ Ideas are conveyed through communication to an audience; and the audience assesses how to respond to the idea, based on how it is communicated. The audience is the center of the message; not the end. Managers at all levels of an organization need to think carefully about how to phrase a message in order to get the best desired response. The higher up one goes in management—to executive levels and other leadership positions—the more challenging these messages become, because they often deal with elements of changing behaviors or structure and affect many people.

Whether presented in written or oral form, a proposal that does not motivate the audience to the desired action will not be accepted. A message informing an audience of an accounting or financial issue will not be understood if the sender does not consider the audience’s background with accounting and finance. A directive related to changing a policy or procedure will not be well received if it does not address the audience’s concerns and fears about change. Training material that does not address the audience’s learning style and cognitive needs will not be effective.

An understanding of things that affect an audience’s perception of a message and understanding of it will enable the communicator to convey the message most effectively. This point is not new to anyone who manages others. Anyone educated in principles of management has learned that management is more a social science and art form than anything else. Management involves leadership of varying degrees, and leadership involves managing people; a manager at any level is trying to help the people she leads do their jobs well by keeping them motivated and helping them understand their job expectations. Even communication between managers at different levels requires similar dynamics of audience analysis in order to be effective.

Peter Drucker called management a liberal art because management at any level involves being able to think critically about a situation or context, analyze options available to solve a problem with that situation, and communicate decisions effectively.² Aristotle labeled rhetoric as an art rather than a science; however, he also pointed out that rhetoric is affected by the audience’s biological makeup.³ Indeed, social sciences are part of liberal arts, and social interactions affect biological development. Interestingly, articles have appeared in The Harvard Business Review that reinforce this blending between art and science relative to communication.^{4, 5} Scholarship in cognitive neuroscience is helping people in various decision making and leadership positions understand why the way certain messages are presented causes a certain response from an audience. That is why it is important to consider neuroscientific attributes that are involved in various messages, particularly messages common to managers and leaders: persuasive messages, informational messages, and instructional messages. The goal of this book is to help you understand these attributes and develop effective messages that can be conveyed either in writing or orally.

This book includes information about various forms of managerial and leadership-related communication, especially written communication such as correspondence and short reports. While it includes some principles of oral communication, there are subtle differences between a written proposal and one presented orally; in many cases, a proposal may be delivered using both—a written report and an oral presentation. Consequently, this book includes many of the same kinds of business writing topics covered in most business writing textbooks or handbooks. However, this book differs from those in that it emphasizes neuroscientific concepts to explain approaches to responding to particular managerial or leadership-related communication situations.

While other textbooks or handbooks provide tips on how to make a message effective, applying reader (or “you”) perspective, for example, I show how an understanding of certain concepts of neuroscience can help improve a message’s effectiveness and get desired results. As with many textbooks, this book emphasizes the relationship of audience and purpose within a message. However, the neuroscientific approach helps to explain why certain messages work better than others relative to audience and purpose. How do I know that this understanding can accomplish desired results? I have used my own application of the concepts in various management or leadership situations resulting in desired outcomes. A number of these are included in this book as examples and cases. Most of them address what Hamm labeled “The Five Messages Leaders Must Manage” in a May 2006 Harvard Business Review article.⁶

Hamm identifies five particular messages, or situations, requiring careful approaches to addressing them, which I extend to the general nature of the situation. Some of my extensions are very close to, if not the same as, Hamm’s original characterization of his terms. I list each of Hamm’s terms, a general description of it, and my extension:

• Organizational Hierarchy—organizational restructuring (communication about change),

• Financial results—how one defines “results” and communicates about results (communication about performance),

• Your Job—how the leader represents his or her role to him or herself and others (communicating parameters of your job),

• Time Management—communicating one’s perception of efficient use of time (how to use time efficiently), and

• Corporate Culture—clearly defining the organization’s values and how to meet them toward understanding links between individual success and organizational success (identifying organizational goals and ways individuals can meet them successfully, creating a clear understanding of culture).

Throughout the book, we will consider scholarship in rhetoric, neuroscience, and managerial communication. I describe applications of theory to practice and link certain practices to theory. As such, this book combines scholarly theory with proven application. A background in the theories that drive effective practice is important to understand why a given practice works and to facilitate transference of the practical skill to similar situations. Most of the theoretical review is integrated into the first few chapters, with each subsequent chapter integrating less theory and more practical application. All chapters include examples of the application of related skills. Several include activities to provide you with practice. This chapter also provides some basic information about concepts of rhetoric and neuroscience relevant to managerial communication.

Chapter 2 covers concepts and their relationship to principles of communication and rhetoric that you may already understand. However, those who are already familiar with these concepts will benefit as well from the explanations. I provide an overview of some principles of the different forms of business writing covered in those other textbooks and handbooks, linking neuroscience to those principles. Because of the concise approach to this book, I do not detail those concepts as they may be covered in other textbooks. You may view more information and examples of the various kinds of communication by searching websites using the concept as a search term. The book avoids technical, scientific jargon; so, you do not need an advanced understanding of rhetoric or neuroscience to benefit from this book.

Chapters 3 through eight cover specific examples of messages I have used in different situations, mostly in leadership situations—corresponding from a leadership position or to leadership. For 4 years I have coordinated the business writing course required of all undergraduate business majors at my institution. This coordination includes mentoring and directing six to seven teachers in any given semester. As such, I lead this group, which usually changes from semester to semester. My role as coordinator also has involved acting as a liaison between the Department of English and the College of Business, communicating with leadership of that college and reporting to leadership in my department; I have communicated with different levels of leadership. I have had several opportunities in these settings to practice what is discussed in this book. However, a couple of the examples fall outside of that context, yet involve communicating with leadership. I have applied these concepts in communications with company leadership in my position as a customer, for example. You also will see the concepts applied in business-to-business settings.

Each chapter includes a scenario for you to consider and decide how you might approach it. This activity hopefully will encourage critical thinking about the concepts and how to use them to create an effective message in response to a problem posed in a given situation.

I cannot guarantee the success of your own application of the concepts to your situation; a message that moves one person may not move another. Much depends on the audience’s disposition. Again, while science is involved, much makes communication an art form.

Why Is It Important to Consider Neuroscience within Managerial and Leadership Communication?

People are affected by their cultural upbringing, and this influence is manifested in one’s neurons. Neurons are part of your brain; they help facilitate connections between parts of the brain involved in perception, cognition, and decision making. Your fears, values, and perceptions of the world evolve through social interactions that affect biological phenomena associated with neurons. Indeed, the social experience affects the biological development.

The purpose of a message and its audience are intertwined. A message must consider the audience’s disposition to be most effective. This is echoed not only in scholarship related to rhetoric but in leadership and executive-oriented articles as well, as observed with the several references to articles published in business-related journals including the Harvard Business Review. The smaller the audience, the more able one is to meet that task. However, if a large group of people is involved as an audience and you can ascertain that the people in that group share common attributes such as values or experiences, a message should make an appeal to those common elements.

This book focuses on messages addressed to relatively small audiences—not much more than a handful of people. Consequently, it allows for a better understanding of the audience’s disposition than at...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Abstract
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Basic Principles of Managerial Writing: Links to Neuroscience
• Chapter 3 Correspondence and Proposals
• Chapter 4 Elements of Formal Reports
• Chapter 5 Correspondence: Communicating to Leadership Externally
• Chapter 6 Correspondence: Communicating Information to New Employees
• Chapter 7 Communicating Change to Your Team
• Chapter 8 Instructional Messages: Training Manuals and Instructions
• Chapter 9 Oral Presentations and In-Person Meetings
• Chapter 10 Wrapping It Up with Principles and Caveats
• Glossary
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Other Titles in Our Corporate Communication Collection
• Backcover