Essay Sample on Troubleshooting Communication

Introduction

Effective communication is usually quite imperative in ensuring set goals are attained when engaging people in the course of action. The communication approach should take into consideration long-run focus, be based on a participatory model and also proactive to the targeted audience. Although a sound and creative solution to a problem may be presented to an audience, its presentation should be followed by a comprehensive persuasion to the target audience to facilitate a change process or offer a solution.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

An instance where an individual failed to persuade the target audience was when the CEO Marissa Mayer of Yahoo Inc. introduced a ban on telecommuting. The ban presented a backlash which threatened to be quite detrimental to the progress of the company. The major resistance was from the working mothers who raised a concern that Mayer's move would take away the flexibility to which they worked (Nisen, 2013). In this time, the employees embraced telecommuting as an essential working arrangement which allowed them to take care of their children as well as advance their careers.

The first major mistake made was that the memo was accidentally leaked before she used appropriate channels to pass the information to the employees. It was leaked to a technology blogger who is a breach of the confidentiality of such information. Secondly, in the memo, she used authoritative language which most of the workers did not conform to because they believed it was a tyrannical approach to leadership. She presented two options to those who worked from home of either to work from the offices daily or consider themselves off out of the jobs.

Another mistake was based on her belief and attitude that telecommuting compromises quality and that they should work side-by-side. Moreover, this approach sparked some propaganda that she was interested in trimming the unproductive individuals without the costs linked to the layoffs (Nisen, 2013). She also failed to quickly tackle the bad perception of the workers once they reacted with firm uproar. The propaganda which was extensively spread earned the company a bad reputation, and it caused the campaign approach to fail ultimately.

According to Ruggiero (2015) when focusing on creativity, active thought and communication process, comprehensive thinking and pragmatic problem-solving should be based on workable strategies which should be easy to convey and learn. Marissa ought to have advocated for better communication which focuses on a holistic approach where persuasion is utilized extensively to convince the workers of the benefits of a change process. As such, it is vital to assess notions and question long-held presumptions and prejudices to help workers look at the proposed change more critically (Ruggiero, 2015).

An approach that might have succeeded in her situation was to convene a crucial meeting on the day all the employees are at the office. In the meeting, deliberations would be put forth to discuss the benefits of workers who work side by side in an enabling environment. It is an imperative approach to explain every detail of reasons why the change is the only option to enhance the productivity of the company.

Secondly, during the meeting, an authoritative language should not be used as a means of convincing the employees rather charismatic leadership should be utilized to propel the big idea and details relating to its implementation. For the employees who might seem to be unproductive, the campaign should encourage substantial training to equip them with pertinent skillsets.

Reference

Ruggiero, V., R. (2015). The art of thinking: A guide to critical and creative thought (11th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

Nisen, M. (2013). It sounds like yahoo was truly awful at managing its remote employees. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-managing-remote-employees-2013-2?IR=T.