Quotes About Communication

What is the role of the supervisor in a one-on-one? He should facilitate the subordinate's expression of what's going on and what's bothering him. The supervisor is there to learn and to coach.

because of the ease with which Japanese office workers communicate, they have, in fact, been slow to embrace electronic mail.

How is this done? By applying Grove's Principle of Didactic Management, "Ask one more question!" When the supervisor thinks the subordinate has said all he wants to about a subject, he should ask another question.

I'd like to suggest some mechanical hints for effective one-on-one meetings. First, both the supervisor and subordinate should have a copy of the outline and both should take notes on it, which serves a number of purposes

A real time-saver is using a "hold" file where both the supervisor and subordinate accumulate important but not altogether urgent issues for discussion at the next meeting.

The "delegator" and "delegatee" must share a common information base and a common set of operational ideas or notions on how to go about solving problems, a

In other words, one of the manager's key tasks is to settle six important questions in advance: •  What decision needs to be made? •  When does it have to be made? • Who will decide? •  Who will need to be consulted prior to making the decision? •  Who will ratify or veto the decision? •  Who will need to be informed of the decision?

The two basic managerial roles produce two basic kinds of meetings. In the first kind of meeting, called a process-oriented meeting, knowledge is shared and information is exchanged. Such meetings take place on a regularly scheduled basis. The purpose of the second kind of meeting is to solve a specific problem. Meetings of this sort, called mission-oriented, frequently produce a decision. They are ad hoc affairs, not scheduled long in advance, because they usually can't be.

Keep in mind that a meeting called to make a specific decision is hard to keep moving if more than six or seven people attend. Eight people should be the absolute cutoff.

Of course, you can't spend all of your time listening to random inputs. But you should be open to them. As you keep doing it, you will develop a feel for whose views are apt to contain gems of information and a sense of who will take advantage of your openness to clutter you with noise. Over time, then, you can adjust your receptivity accordingly.

What is the role of the supervisor in the staff meeting—a leader, observer, expediter, questioner, decision-maker? The answer, of course, is all of them. Please

The biggest problem with most reviews is that we don't usually define what it is we want from our subordinates, and, as noted earlier, if we don't know what we want, we are surely not going to get it.

We all have a hard time saying things that are critical, whether we're talking to a superior employee or a marginal one. We must keep in mind, however, that no matter how stellar a person's performance level is, there is always room for improvement. Don't hesitate to use the 20/20 hindsight provided by the review to show anyone, even an ace, how he might have done better.

Thus I will assert again that a meeting is nothing less than the medium through which managerial work is performed. That means we should not be fighting their very existence, but rather using the time spent in them as efficiently as possible.

Everyone must decide for himself what is professional and appropriate here. A test might be to imagine yourself delivering a tough performance review to your friend. Do you cringe at the thought? If so, don't make friends at work. If your stomach remains unaffected, you are likely to be someone whose personal relationships will strengthen work relationships.

We now discover that management is not just a team game, it is a game in which we have to fashion a team of teams, where the various individual teams exist in some suitable and mutually supportive relationship with each other.

Reports are more a medium of self-discipline than a way to communicate information. Writing the report is important; reading it often is not.

The day is coming, and it ain't going to be long, when you ain't even gonna have to leave your living room. No more schools, nor more bodegas, no more tabernacles, no more cinneplexes. You're going to snuggle up to your fiber optics baby and bliss out.

I was certain about this: In the best new language, there would be no words for me or you. Those words have caused all the trouble started by the old languages. In any new language, there should only be we.

after midnight Just words. No more pictures. No charts or plays or poems. Now it's just about the words.

I guess that's a sign of growing up: When your dad shuts up but you can hear him anyway.

Again, for the record, let me restate: you can't be rude to a coffee grinder and only an idiot would thank it for pulverizing beans. But you could, and probably should, unplug it if it doesn't shut up.

The same words that make the horrible things come also tell the quieter things about love.

But when I was quiet...that made words too. The same words that make horrible things come also tell the quieter things about love.