emotion, balance, tech

Like MJ and others, I find emotion labor one of the more interesting concepts in organizational communication. In a culture where "the customer is always right," front line organization members (such as flight attendants, servers, and grocery clerks) are expected to be cheerful and happy even when customers are not. The must-be-happy organizational norm can negatively impact the organization member (in the form of stress) and the organization (important information may not make its way up the hierarchy due to the "always happy" mandate). That doesn't mean organization members should emote at will. Self-monitoring and politeness are still critical for effective organizational (and societal) functioning.

NuNu blogged about work/life balance, another topic discussed in this week's readings. For NuNu, it was a work/life/school balance, which finally meant taking a break from the work part (although school is definitely work). I enjoy my work and generally work 7 days/week. But I also try to make sure I get a 1-2 hour walk in with River (our dog) every day. And I try not to work after dinner (not always successful there). But as I mentioned in an earlier post (and others have mentioned as well), new communication technologies have blurred the line between home and work, with work in many respects invading the home.

Fábio mentioned an organization that used the internet for a team's work tasks as well as social networks. Several years ago I met a VP in Motorola who said that his global team conducted all the work with new media (cell, web chat, net meetings, and the like) but would meet twice a year just for socializing. In person time was all about building relationships; online time was (mostly) work (still some interpersonal communication, but primarily task oriented). That is the direction many organizations are going. Global teams coordinate using new media; in person meetings are for tasks that can only be done face-to-face and for the social aspects of teamwork.

I'm working on a small group communication textbook that grew out of my frustration with current texts that treat new media as an add on for groups. So there are chapters such as "Technology and Groups" and "Virtual Groups." Blogging about the web lecture for this week, MPA Student said, "Looking at how technology influences our lives is hard to even see, since it has become such an accepted daily occurrence to use cell phones, email, facebook, myspace, ipods, etc." The use of new media is seamless--just like the landline telephone, organization members don't think twice about IMing, emailing, and net conferencing. MPA does express concern about the lack of nonverbal communication, referring to a professor who mentioned that the majority of communication is nonverbal. Actually, that professor is wrong--no empirical evidence to support that. There is some research suggesting the majority of emotional communication is nonverbal. But verbal communication still dominates our interactions. In addition, we typically "translate" nonverbal messages into verbal ones. For example, when someone smiles, you might think, "She's happy," or "He likes me."

Plenty of concepts and theories to blog about this week--and we're just halfway through!

--Professor Cyborg