Corporate communication problems – A study to find obstacles and chances

Acknowledgements

Without the help of some people this work would not have been possible. I am very grateful to everyone and would like to thank you all very much.

First and foremost I’d like to thank my thesis supervisor Dipl. Kffr. Birte Raske, who encouraged me to choose this topic for my Master’s Thesis and helped me getting started and gave me valuable feedback at many stages of my work. Furthermore I’d like to thank her that she gave me hours of her spare time, which must not always have been easy.

Second I’d like to thank the managing director of my employer, Dr. Oliver Lederle, who gave his consent that I could conduct my study with his employees during work hours. Without this, my study would not have been possible.

Third I’d like to thank my coworkers for giving me their valuable time and for answering my questions in an honest and constructive manner.

Finally I’d like to thank the staff at the FOM Berlin for providing me with excellent feedback and guidance to get all the formal aspects of my work done.

I

  List of Contents  

  List of Contents  I

  List of Figures  II

1  Introduction  1

1.1  Objectives and Observations  2

1.2  Research Background  2

1.3  Scope and Structure  2

1.4  Focus and Limitations  5

2  Existing approaches to improve communication and cooperation  6

2.1  Interdisciplinary education approaches  6

2.2  Agile Software Development  7

2.3  The learning organization  8

2.4  Thesis from existing approaches  10

3  Theories on the causes of communication problems  11

3.1  Communication theory  11

3.2  Models of conflicts in communication  14

3.3  Personality and Values in communication  17

3.4  Motives  19

3.4.1  McClelland Achievement-Power Affiliation theory  20

3.4.2  Muslow’s Hierarchy of Needs  22

3.4.3  Summary of motivation theories  24

3.4.4  Motivation priorities of professionals  25

3.5  Competence at work  28

3.5.1  Definition of competencies  29

3.5.2  Competencies of non technical staff  33

3.5.3  Competencies of technical staff  35

3.5.4  Key differences in competencies between technical and non-technical staff  

   37

3.6  Key findings of previous research  38

4  Study on finding communication obstacles and chances  40

4.1  Tentative Hypotheses  41

4.2  Block A Interviewee Background  42

4.3  Block B Competencies  45

4.4  Block C Motivation  51

4.5  Block D opinions on corporate communication and cooperation  59

5  Conclusion and further research  67

Appendix A  Interview guideline  71

  Bibliography  72

II

  List of Figures  

  Figure 1 Structure of thesis  

  Figure 2 Sender - Receiver model by Shannon Weaver  

  Figure 3 levels of conflicts  

  Figure 4 Central and Surface competencies  

  Figure 5 Muslow hierarchy of needs pyramid  

  Figure 6 Comparison of Motivators for Programmer Analysts vs. Managers and the  

  general population.  

  Figure 7 Competency Causal Flow Model  

  Figure 8 Competencies of Sales People  

  Figure 9 Generic competency models for technical professionals  

  Figure 10 main areas of differences between technical and non-technical staff  

  Figure 11 dominant competencies in professionals  

  Figure 12 competencies found in the IT department interviewees  

  Figure 13 competencies found in the non-technical interviewees  

  Figure 14 combined view on competencies  

  Figure 15 Motivations of IT participants  

  Figure 16 Motivations of non-IT participants  

  Figure 17 weighted priority of selected motivators  

  Figure 18 perceived positive communication modifiers in the reviewed environment  

  Figure 19 perceived negative communication modifiers in the reviewed environment.  

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1 Introduction

This study has been motivated by the author’s perception of the problems experienced in his professional career in the IT industry.

Quite often IT projects seem not to have the expected outcome. However to the experience of the author this is not due to the skills of the participants (technical and non-technical). Moreover bilateral communication problems seem to prevent a full understanding of each others problems.

Prof. Dr. Wendt from HPI Institute says that “From practical software development statements emerge, which say that the serious problems are of a non-technical kind. A basic problem seems to be that communication between [project] participants does not work.” 1

Further aspects of this problem can be found in Melzer (1989), Caroll (1988). This can lead to misunderstandings what value an IT department contributes. In a Microsoft conducted study only 10 percent of IT investments were seen profitable by non technical management although in reality up to 41 percent were profitable ² . The problem seems to be understood by IT managers as in a survey in 2003 “nearly three-quarters of the respondents said they have had to cut their budgets by more than 15% over the past two years and they think more effective communication with senior management about the value IT generates could have reduced those cutbacks by half.” ³ In projects the real problem to be solved is filtered by hierarchical levels, differences in education and different meanings of specific topics ⁴ .

Even if technical and non-technical project participants think they understand each other, in reality they don’t ⁵ . These problems result in unnecessary work for all project participants and cost a lot of money. IBM estimates show that 40 to 70 percent of total time spent in IT projects is used for communication ⁶ .

¹ Wendt, Gröne, 2003, (HPI), Potsdam, p.3, authors translation

² Weill, MIS Quarterly Executive, Year. 3, Nr. 1, p. 53-68

³ „Internal IT Marketing is scarce, survey finds.“, Computerworld 24-Feb-2003

⁴ the same term e.g. ‘customer’ can mean completely different things for a programmer and a marketing employee.

⁵ http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/, 30-May-2005

⁶ Lutz Hoffmann, IBM Berlin 20-May-2005

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This work tries to find the reasons for these communication problems and underlying root causes. Based on these findings recommendations and fields of further research will be developed.

1.1 Objectives and Observations

The main objectives are to find both chances and obstacles in corporate communication with the special case of the communication with the IT department. It was the observation of the author that in environments where interpersonal relations where good between the IT department and the other departments, the level of cooperation and support seemed much higher than in an environment where many aspects of cooperation were formalized but interpersonal relations where not optimal.

1.2 Research Background

At the beginning of this work was the observation of the author, that sometimes even professionally managed IT projects fail to reach their objectives ⁷ and at the same time environments which seemed chaotic could produce good results.

After the more obvious reasons like skills of the participants, tight resources etc. were ruled out, the focus fell on non-tentative reasons like the soft skills of the project participants.

The author was aware of some approaches to improve cooperation ⁸ which sometimes seemed to work, and sometimes did not ⁹ .

1.3 Scope and Structure

The thesis will start with an explanation to the reader what the topic of research is, what method was chosen for research and what the focus and limitations of this work are.

⁷ see beginning of this chapter

⁸ see chapter 4

⁹ in the subjective perception of the author.

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Next a review of existing approaches to improve cooperation with the IT department (chapter 2) will follow. After that literature research (chapter 3), and the empirical study (chapter 4) will be presented.

The final part (chapter 5) will try to summarize the findings of the above mentioned chapters to build some tentative generalization of the findings and will also give ideas for further research.

4

Figure 1 Structure of thesis

5

1.4 Focus and Limitations

Due to the author’s background and experience the main focus of this thesis lies on the communication problems the IT department has with other departments, and also the communication problems that other departments have with the IT department.

The focus does not lie on communication on the level of physical assets, where communication problems occur less often, but rather on the level of personal communication, where communication fails most often ¹⁰ .

On the level of physical assets a common solution can be found in conflicts. Gamber says: “On the level of physical assets external points of conflict are concerned. For example goals which can be negotiated even though views or opinions might differ.” 11

On the level of personal communication however quite often prejudices, animosities or differences in inner values have a negative impact on communication.

The focus of the discussion of previous research will lie on chosen theoretical works which illustrate communication and the basics for communication failure in general with some specialized studies in a corporate environment.

Already existing approaches to improve corporate communication and cooperation between the IT department and other departments are reviewed and compared to the findings from literature. The choices of the existing approaches were made to fit in the discussion of existing research regarding communication problems.

The empirical study will be limited to scope due to time and resources. Only ten people will be interviewed, and the scope of the questions will fit the choice of existing research discussed.

¹⁰ Gamber, 1992, p.26

¹¹ Gamber, 1992, p.26

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2 Existing approaches to improve communication and

cooperation

As described in the introduction, the communication problems between the reviewed groups are not of recent origin. Numerous attempts have been made in the past to improve the situation. Chosen approaches to improve cooperation with the IT department are described in this chapter.

2.1 Interdisciplinary education approaches

The differences in education between technical and non-technical staff can be improved by ‘interface disciplines’ like the German study topic ‘Wirtschaftsinformatiker’ (English terms: Information Systems (IS), Management Information Systems (MIS), Business Information Systems (BIS) or Information Systems (&) Management (ISM)). This interface science was first introduced in 1970 in Germany at the University of Erlangen ¹² as an extension to existing economic studies and originates from management economics. A definition from Wikipedia ¹³ :

“Business information systems is an interface discipline from information science and economic sciences especially management economics. More part disciplines are engineering sciences, communication sciences, operations research and psychology. More close relations exist to industrial engineering, material economics, production planning and controlling and logistics.”

The goal of this education is to enable the student to understand the specifics of technical and non-technical co-workers and to act as an interface between the two. No reference could be found in literature by the author that skill deficiencies were responsible for problems in IT related projects. Neither did the primary research in chapter 4 show any such tendency. A lot of references for problems in communication could be found however ¹⁴ .

¹² http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirtschaftsinformatik - 13.07.2005 - History

¹³ http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirtschaftsinformatik - 13.07.2005

¹⁴ also see references made in chapter 3.4.4.

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From this it can be deducted that a concentration on the area of technical and economic skills does not provide a complete solution, and that it is possible that the problems described lie on the level of interpersonal communication as described in the introduction.

Late tendencies in education seem to address this problem as modern lists of topics for interdisciplinary educations also include lectures on psychology and communication theories ¹⁵ .

2.2 Agile Software Development

The agile software development approach originated in 2001 from a group of protagonists of several known software development approaches (Extreme Programming, SCRUM, DSDM, Adaptive Software Development, Crystal, Feature-Driven Development, Pragmatic Programming and others) ¹⁶ .

They identified the key problem of goal driven software development in “the baggage of Dilbertesque corporations” ¹⁷ . With that a strict hierarchy with formal processes is

meant, which often hinders the successful completion of software development projects. The key statements of this common understanding are ¹⁸ :

“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan”

These four axioms require a strong service oriented posture of the IT professional and high interpersonal skills. The axioms of this solution approach are therefore interpreted

¹⁵ Mertens 2004

¹⁶ http://agilemanifesto.org/ - 13.06.2005

¹⁷ http://agilemanifesto.org/ - 13.06.2005

¹⁸ http://agilemanifesto.org/ - 13.06.2005

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as to support the thesis that cooperation problems with the IT department have to be solved on the level of interpersonal cooperation.

2.3 The learning organization

In 1990 Peter M. Senge published a book, which he called ‘the fifth discipline’ ¹⁹ . In this book he propagates that for companies the organizational form of the future is the ‘learning organization’ ²⁰ .

Senge defined the learning organization as “human beings cooperating in dynamical systems” ²¹ .

As this definition implies Senge lays emphasis on improving the cooperation of the people of an organization, thereby trying to solve some of the communication problems described in earlier chapters.

Senge proposes core disciplines for the learning organization. The core disciplines of a learning organization he sees are ²² :

Systems thinking - the ability to not only see what is directly observable, but •

also to see root causes and effects.

Personal mastery - “Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying •

and deepening your personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively.” 23 Mental models - “Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, •

generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.” 24

Building shared vision - The creation of a common goal for the company. Senge •

gives the example of Polaroid which had ‘Instant photography’ as a shared vision of the whole company.

¹⁹ Senge, 1990

²⁰ Senge, 1990, p.5

²¹ Senge, 1990, p.15

²² Senge, 1990, p.6-9

²³ Senge, 1990, p.7

²⁴ Senge, 1990, p.8

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Team learning - The free exchange of information and knowledge and the •

learning as a team. Senge describes it as the output of the team being more than the sum of its individual parts ²⁵ .

What makes models for the learning organization a novel approach is that the solving of communication problems is seen as part of the ‘big picture’. The overall goal can be described as the organization building a living, learning organism ²⁶ with every part willingly contributing something to the overall output.

Senge emphasizes on the discipline of systems thinking and gives elaborate examples how an organization can ‘learn’ this discipline ²⁷ .

When conducted in a thorough manner, the creation of an atmosphere of ‘looking over the plate’ can indeed improve some of the communication problems mentioned in previous chapters.

What this formal approach cannot solve however is the cultural aspect of corporations which can doom any attempts to create open mindedness in an organization. Petty bickering and an atmosphere of mistrust can stuck employees on the lower levels of Muslow’s motivation model.

The prerequisite for Senge’s model to work seen by the author is that all concerned employees first have to be on the growth levels of Muslow’s model ²⁸ to start to overcome lower motives.

However Raske and Dierkes found in a study, that the two types of organizations they found ²⁹ (hierarchical organizations, decentralized organizations) both are able to learn. In a classical hierarchical organization ³⁰ with well defined competencies ³¹ and its patriachaical authority system, the model of Senge is more difficult to implement, as Senge propagates that every participant of a process should try to understand the whole

²⁵ Senge, 1990, p.9-10

²⁶ Wonacott, 2000, p.1

²⁷ Senge, 1990, chapters 4 - 8

²⁸ see chapter

Muslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, level of Esteem

²⁹ Raske, Dierkes, 1991, p.140

³⁰ Raske, Dierkes, 1991, p.144, description of hierarchical corporation’s strength and weaknesses

³¹ not to be confused with the definition of Spencer, competencies in this context means what each employee is expected to do in a hierarchical organization.

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process and feel responsible. This kind of ‘involvement in other’s affairs’ is discouraged in hierarchical corporations.

Senge’s model can work better in an open environment like a decentralized organization ³² , where it can help to improve cooperation.

2.4 Thesis from existing approaches

Despite the fact that interdisciplinary education approaches have been introduced over 30 years ago in Germany, cooperation problems with the IT department still exist and projects still seem to fail to skill unrelated problems. The AGIL software development approach solely focuses on interpersonal skills and people oriented targets in its axioms.

Senge proposes a ‘personal mastery’ in his organizational approach of the learning organization.

All these strongly hint towards a problem beyond the level of skills and hierarchy in corporations. The next chapter will shed some light on the basis of communication and conflicts in communication to find applicable reasons for cooperation problems. It is also a working hypothesis that differences are not helpful for communication; for that reason the differences between the conflict parties are also discussed.

³² Raske, Dierkes, 1991, p.146, description of decentralized corporation’s strength and weaknesses

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3 Theories on the causes of communication problems

This chapter will discuss the basis of communication and communication conflicts. First an overview of theoretical models how communication works and by what communication is influenced will be shown. After that an overview of people’s values and personalities will be given. Following that important motivation models and their relevance for communication will be discussed. After that personal competencies of different professions will be described. Finally a summary will be given of differences between technical and non-technical staff and implications for communication.

The first block will give an overview how communication is seen by different sciences. As the problem is centered on communication between people, the second block of theory will concern the values and personality layers of people and how they influence communication.

Communication seldom takes place for its own sake. Therefore the third part will review motives of people using popular theories from literature. Following these general topics, which apply to every person regardless of education background or profession, will be a paragraph regarding the differences in motivation priorities between technical and non-technical staff. The last part will review personal competencies ³³ of technical and non-technical staff and their differences. The final part will sum up the key differences found.

3.1 Communication theory

This chapter will give an overview what picture of communication can be found in literature and what influencing factors are for communication.

First a view on communication models is being taken from the viewpoint of different fields of research. After that possible reasons for communication failure are given.

³³ for now the definition ‘traits, skills’ can suffice. For a detailed definition see chapter 3.5.1.

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The situation of two individuals communicating with each other has been looked upon many times in different contexts.

The following paragraphs will look at communication theory from a viewpoint of linguists, psychologists and management literature. Although physiological aspects can also influence communication, they are not reviewed as communication problems due to physiological barriers ³⁴ are special cases and not regarded in this work.

Menz ³⁵ finds several types of metaphors of communication concepts in linguist literature for the English linguist culture he gives Reddy (1979) and Lakoff & Johnson (1980) as examples. German examples are Brünner (1987), Fiehler (1990) and Krippendorf (1994). The main direction he sees is “Communication as transmission of information” ³⁶ . It compares communication to the transport of goods. Content is transported from A to B. Menz sees a prerequisite for this type of model because it implies that every container (e.g. words, sentences) has an inherent meaning which is always the same. He sees that as questionable ³⁷ . He draws a connection of this information transmission to the classical Taylorism ³⁸ . A widely used model for this theory is the version of Shannon&Weaver ³⁹ , which can be seen in Figure 2. A message with a meaning is encoded using an existing store of characters and sent to the receiver. The receiver decodes the message using his own store of meaning and characters. In transit to the receiver message disruption can occur which changes the meaning for the receiver.

³⁴ deafness, blindness, mental illnesses like turret syndrome,paranoia etc.

³⁵ Menz, 2002, Verlag für Gesprächsforschung, p. 134 - 154

36 Lakoff, & Johnson, 1980, Brünner, Gisela, 1987, p. 100 - 119

37 Menz, 2002, Verlag für Gesprächsforschung, p. 138

³⁸ Taylor, 1911, Weber 1918/1972, Fayol 1949

³⁹ Shannon & Weaver, 1949