Taking Vacation Time

Last Post of 2008.  My Office Buzz will resume January 5th.
We all need a vacation.  Study after study shows that Americans don’t use their vacation days, and those same studies note the potential health and well-being costs of being overworked.  I know what you are saying–I’ve got too much stuff on my plate to take a [...]

Other Findings from my Class

The other finding that my organizational communication class really identified was that job satisfaction decreased and burnout increased the further away employees were from the mission of the nonprofit.  One organization had a central headquarters that managed things and several sites where the actual helping work of the nonprofit was carried out.  Groups looking at this organization said [...]

How Important is Communication in your Workplace?

How important is communication to your organization?  Very important.  I appreciated this post about the consequences of poor communication.  Take steps today to assess your organization’s communication and shore up weaknesses.
 
One of the classes that I taught this semester was a class on conducting such assessments.  Students were assigned groups in which they conducted communication [...]

Positive Attitudes

Unfortunately, the page to which this post linked has been disabled.  Nevertheless, the importance of a positive attitude at work remains.

Even when things are going badly, try to have a good attitude. Expect the best until you’re proven wrong. As this post indicates, it helps in a number of intangible ways. You have the choice [...]

Demanding an Excuse?

Accounts are the reasons that we give for our actions when someone asks us to explain what we did.  Accounts could be excuses or justifications.  Accounts could also be humble apologies or refusals to give explanations.  When someone does something and you feel like they need to give an account for their actions, what kind [...]

The Power of Positive Wording

I really appreciated this insight on the importance of using positive words rather than negative words.  Sometimes we don’t think about the words we use until someone misinterprets us.  Word choice is important, and positive words tend to serve better in many contexts.

Excuses that Work

We don’t want to be people that make excuses, yet mistakes happen all the time.  Sometimes, excuses are important ways to avoid blame for mistakes that aren’t your fault.  Excuses assign the blame to something or someone else (versus justifications that say ‘yeah, it’s my fault but here’s why it wasn’t really that bad of [...]

One Up, One Down, One Across and Employees

For employees, systems theorists have noted that those employees who express one-up communication have supervisors that understand them more so than other types of communication.  What that means is that if you are trying to take control of conversations, your supervisor is more likely to understand your concerns.  Fairhurst et al. found that supervisors thought [...]

One Up, One Down, One Across and Managers

One way that systems theory has been applied is looking at what’s called, One-Up, One-Down, and One-Across communication (Fairhurst et al., 1987).  One-up communication is trying to take control of the conversation.  One-down communication is giving up control.  One-down communication is trying to keep the conversation going without taking or giving up control.  Systems theory [...]