Communication is key towards the success of any organization venture or project that requires a team or multiple teams. However, getting communication ‘right’ can be extreamly difficult and it has lead to the downfall of many large organizations. An article in the Harvard Business Review called The Silent Killer of Big Companies identifies five large organizations in five different industries that failed because of ineffective communication. For example, the article uses Nokia to show how their downfall in the phone industry was mainly caused because communications of ideas was restricted by management meaning new ideas such as the development of the smartphone were left in imagination and never made into tangible ideas.

The article explains that the downfall of Nokia and the other five companies were not because they had ineffective financial management or product management or operational management nor marketing management but because the leaders of Nokia failed to embrace new ideas and shut of any communication and dialogue concerning new ideas. This relates to selective perception as the leaders were only hearing ideas that catered for their needs and ideas.

Additionally, a major problem that lead to ineffective communication within these five companies were that their direction of communication was downward meaning that ideas from the boss and executives would flow down the chain of command in the company. However, a company like Apple who uses a upward direction of communication in that the leaders allow the flow of ideas to also come from their employees made the idea of a smartphone into reality.

The article goes on to make a point that leaders that effectively manage the flow of ideas build communications methods to build trust in their employees through promoting dialogue instead of  monologue. The leaders who best do this is by building their communication through the values of the company and they align their communication with the organizations strategy.

In my opinion, I think there are multiple layers in effective communication and its not just on building communication channels that allow for dialogue. Building of trust is the most important aspect of effective communication. Building transparency through a value driven approach will automatically make employees and co workers feel like they can implement and share ideas and that the rest of the organization will respect their ideas. An example of this is allowing a mid level employee to head a branch that is in his neighborhood as he has extensive understanding of the behaviour of that area rather then giving it to a senior level job. The management should trust that he or she can effectively run the branch but that only comes when the organization is driven by values and the senior management understand the reasoning of using the mid level employee as they understand the common goal of the organization. In my opinion companies where leadership work on building norms and practices that adhere to their values and use that as the framework to build a communication strategy are the ones that build trust and allow for the effective flow of ideas and information.

Article Link: – https://hbr.org/2012/10/the-silent-killer-of-big-companies

Picture Link: – http://aib.edu.au/blog/5-steps-towards-effective-communication/

According to a study published in the Harvard Business Review called “Pushing Employee’s to go the Extra Mile can be Counterproductive”  suggests that moral licensing through pushing employees to far can cause counterproductive behaviour in an organization. The research team conducted two studies, one in China where they surveyed a range of organizations who were persuading their employees to go above and beyond their requirements and one in the US where they surveyed organizations that were externally motivating their employees to go the extra mile.

The study in China revealed that initially pushing employees to go beyond their requirements lead to behaviour of ‘good citizenship’. However, in the long run it led to irregular behaviour where workers were making fun of their team workers or co workers and taking office equipment without permission. The study in the US showed that the effect of pushing employees the extra mile led to deviant behaviour inside and outside work such as cursing at a stranger or at a co worker.

The researchers believe the theory of ‘moral licensing’ can explain these rather counterintuitive outcomes in behaviour. The theory suggests that doing something good gives us a license to do bad things later. It’s like having a bank account where good acts build up credit that can be used when a bad act in committed to convince that we balanced the equation and we are still good people. In both studies observations of employees who were motivated by extrinsic factors led them to develop a phycological entitlement by going the extra mile. This entitlement acts like the moral license to engage in deviant behavior,  basically “Compliance leads to Deviance”.

The researchers believe to avoid the negative effects of moral licensing is to create an organizational environment that values and pushes for intrinsic behavior of good citizenship. In my opinion I think intrinsic motivation is more effective at motivating your employees because  if people want to do work instead of have to it will lead to trust being formed within the organization and would yield more productivity. I also believe that majority of leaders understand it but the reason why extrinsic factors are appealing are because of the short term gain in productivity and its implementation is much easier. Organizations who have been sustainable over the long run are those who have built trust amongst their employees and motivating people to work through intrinsic motivation. This build employee loyalty and leads to the person wanting to work because they want to not because they have to increasing productivity.

Article Link: – https://hbr.org/2016/09/pushing-employees-to-go-the-extra-mile-can-be-counterproductive

Picture comes from the article.