Increasing Communication Between Employees: The Johari Window, Moderating Discussion, and Rhetoric Model

Abstract

This paper discovers what kind of problem came due to a lack of communication. The goal of this paper is to increase communication between employees. So, they appoint me as a communication expert to solve their company’s communication problem. When I discovered the problem, I suggest a solution with help of different communication models like: The Johari Window, Moderating Discussion, and Rhetoric model. If communication problems came up in the plant, due to that plant manufacturing productivity and efficiency decrease. So healthy communication between employees most important factor to run a manufacturing plant smoothly.

Introduction

What is communication? How much important is communication in plants?

Exchanging information by reading, writing, or using some other medium that’s called Communication. Effective communication is a very important factor for the development of an organization or manufacturing plant. It is something which helps the manager to perform the basic task and functions of management like planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling. Communication directly or indirectly affects the efficiency and productivity of the manufacturing plant. Good communication increases indoor and outdoor relationships, it’s given clarity to understand perfect and true massage, etc.

I am elected as a communication expert to solve the company’s communication problem. So, I am suggesting a solution of their communication problem with help of different communication models.

Precor is founded by industrial designer David Smith in 1980 as a Precision Corporation. Precor headquarter is located in Washington state, USA. Precor sets the standard for quality, innovation, and performance in the exercise equipment industry. Precor recognizes as a worldwide industry leader, which is providing state-of-the-art fitness equipment to health clubs, gyms, hotels, spas, and private homes all over the world. In 1985, Precor launched treadmills, rowers, and cycles with an electronic ergometer. Precor introduces the first Elliptical Fitness Cross-trainer to the world in 1995. Then in 2007, Precor launches the revolutionary Adaptive Motion Trainer (AMT), a breakthrough piece of cardio equipment that constantly and fluidly adapts to your stride length and motion.

As per as trends, estimation, and forecast, the Europe Fitness Equipment market value is projected to reach $3.9 billion by 2024. They are one of the leading vendors in the global fitness equipment market. So now, Precor wants to establish a market in Europe. They open a new manufacturing facility in Germany. Some of the employees are from the USA and others are from European countries. So, they have cultural diversity in the plant and there is a leak of communication between management and employees, employees and employees. Due to this plant isn’t running well and plant efficiency going down.

Problem Discussion

One day I found on the factory floor, that the production line had a problem (kind of they needed more raw material, had a quality problem or one of their machines had broken down), and the employee has two choices for that. The first one, they could go to the supervisor’s desk and tell over the public address system (which some people don’t like). In the second one, they could wander around the plant looking for an appropriate person. While this situation, person looking for help (all motion waste), the production line didn’t go well due to poor communication between two departments or two different personalities.

Suggestion for Problem:

Here in the first problem, there is a lack of communication, self-awareness, interpretational relationships, group dynamics, and team dynamics. So, I would like to solve this problem with help of The Johari Window.

About the Johari Window

In 1955, American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham published in the Proceedings of the Western Training Laboratory in Group Development by UCLA Extension Office. It is one of the few models that have an emphasis on “soft skills” such as behavior, cooperation, empathy, intergroup development, and interpersonal development. It’s a great model to use because of its simplicity and it can be applied in a variety of situations and environments. This model is based on four grid formats, where each quadrant represents a current state of play. The four quadrants as per as fig. 1. Let’ 's see how the Johari window works with an individual within a team for our situation. In this method, there are two factors at work within the Johari window. The first factor is what you know about yourself. The second factor relates to what other people know about you.

1. Public: - what is known by the person about him/herself and known by others also. Individuals can build trust between themselves by disclosing information to others and learning about others from the information they, in turn, disclose about themselves.
2. Blind: - what are others know about him/herself, but he/she don’t know about that. With the help of feedback from others, you can become aware of some of your positive and negative traits as perceived by others and overcome some of the personal issues that may be inhibiting your personal or group dynamics within the team.
3. Private: - what does a person know about him/herself that others don’t know. There are also aspects about yourself that you are aware of but might not want others to know.
4. Unknown: - the person and the others both don’t know about him/herself.

The area of four quadrants should be changed if you tell someone an aspect of your life that you had previously kept hidden. For example, maybe you are not comfortable contributing in large group discussions and you disclose it with your team. Then your public area increase, and your private area decrease. Another way to increase your public quadrant by asking for feedback from people. When feedback is given honestly to you then it reduces your blind quadrant. How to use the Johari window

1. I will explain the Johari window model to the team. Then give them a printout of Johari window with only positive adjectives to increase positivity between them.
2. Let them start to think about how they open everyone’s public area.
3. Start with a small group to share everyone’s answers and feedback. The more team going to open up and disclose thoughts, feelings, ambitions, and goals, the more trust is built between them.
4. Encourage them to give feedback to each other not only for increasing blind quadrant but also good for personal growth.
5. To increase team development and understanding between them focus on feedback, shared discovery, self-discovery, and self-disclosure.
6. Positive and constructive feedback is a great method to develop your good communication skill, so spending time on it is worth it.

The Johari window model can help us to see our own behavior, and thoughts and due to that we can change our behavior, thoughts, thinking process at a certain level. It directly or indirectly improves our communication skills. That is very helpful during work.

In a multicultural manufacturing plant, this model is very helpful to increase communication between different departments and levels. In a multicultural environment, some people are open and accepting approach about feedback and some people do not. Also, people can take personally about feedback and they show offense about that. So it’s very important to think about feedback themselves without taking it personally.

By following this method, employees of the company share more information, and communication between them increases. They discuss more themselves and work between each other. By doing this, trust and deep relationships build up more. As the people know about each other company’s productivity increase. They cooperate during work and trust between them increases. Then, they can work more efficiently.

Problem 2

The manufacturing facility recently started so many employees are fresh. When I’m visiting the factory floor, one senior supervisor told to new employee “This machine costs $1.5 million. Don’t screw it up and try to make good parts only.” After some time, I went to the new employee and talk with him. He said, “Supervisor give me training for about 5 minutes for this machine and told me how to make good parts, now he thinks I know everything about how to make good parts.”

As per as I heard the conversation between the supervisor and the new employee, and I think there is a communication problem. Some employees didn’t know each other so they didn’t interact with each other very well. New employees didn’t feel conferrable about that. I would like to give a suggestion for this problem and it is Moderating method. I am going as a moderator between the new employee and their team or their supervisor.

Moderation is a method of working in a team or small group and that is supported by a moderator. The moderators should be more dependent on his/her knowledge of the subject to lead and direct others along toward specific issues and let them try to discuss or debate on that topic. With the following moderation guidelines, I aim to provide you with a simple and comprehensible tool with the help of which you may get the following results in your teamwork, cooperation group, and business meetings:

• Participants achieve a higher degree of cooperation.
• The notorious chatterbox or self-entertainers are disciplined.
• Enough time is spared for important problems.
• The problem-solving power of working groups is systematically heightened.
• The participants' motivation, creativity and contentment with their work is increased.
• Ice-breaker activity, event or game that is used for comfortably interact with each other and working together smoothly.

Ice-breaking activity is an effective way of starting training sessions or team-building events. So, the ice-breaking method can be the moderator’s best friend. There is many ice-breaking games and events that increase communication, information, knowledge, etc. This is most useful when a company recruits many fresh and new people. How to use the Moderation model:

As a moderator, I’m going to solve communication problems with the Ice-breaking method. This interactive session is used to help people to get to know each other, and feel comfortable during this process.

In this event, you must have to make a group. So first, let them connect and make comfortable in a group of strangers. It’s a great way to pull people in and engage actively during upcoming events.

The main idea is that all participants are asked to share two true and one lie facts about themselves and the audience have to guess which one the lie is. I prefer to start this game with new employees. It’s a great way to take the pressure off and make the introduction fun and due to this members also know about the new employees. To involve all participants quickly, use a live poll so everyone can take part of this. After the 2 minutes time limit comment on the results or prompt people to share the story behind each answer.

In this game, all participants individually participate. One person starts with one word and then the next person has to say one word which the first letter is must be the last later of the previous word. One who can not speak is out of the game and the game starts again. This game improves their spontaneous speaking and thinking abilities. It’s very helpful during some emergency assignments or to find a problem solution.

In this game, everyone has to make a list of favorite things like five favorite cities, color, food, games, etc. Then told to everyone. This helps people to know about everyone's interest and if someone have a common interest then increase their mutual understanding during the work and team-building process.

During the coffee break, people have to know 2 to 3 new stories from a different people. Some people are much talkative and have the mastery to increase their network but some people little bit shy to talk to different people and start conversations with strange people. After the break gives them one ball and pass to the next person during music on. When the music stops, he/she has to say about that story. This game increases communication skill with strangers and give them the confidence to talk with strangers.

All you need is to generate a list of funny or light-hearted questions that anyone can comfortably answer it in a fun way like: if you were a fruit, which would you be? If you were in a chocolate or ice-cream world where everything is made from chocolate or ice cream, what did you do first thing? Then give them a copy of these kinds of questions list and after some time ask them their answers. This game checks their ability of innovative ideas and thoughts. The discussion of their ideas helps others to think about new or out of the way to increase their creativity.

Mostly everyone likes to play with snowball and snowball fight always reminds your childhood memories or funny moments. Here we are paly with a paper ball. Here we provide one paper which has some questions like: how you feel today, what they learn today, what is your feedback about this event and they have to answer some of these questions in 2 to 3 words. Then crumple your paper and through it to the speaker (me). I pick up some of your paper balls and read them out. The variety of answers should raise plenty of laughs.

In my view, moderation of events, and meeting, always focus on keeping the communication and information flow clear and accessible to all through all time. In this sense, the moderator is a kind of information manager during that time. The moderator helps to increase the communication process during that event and he/she also helps participants to improve their own communication skills. It’s very helpful during their work time also.

The ice braking method is very helpful for company employees. It’s increased their communication, self-confidence, and information about their teammates. When a company required a new for a specific project or assignment then it’s easy to build a new team. They know more about each other so their teamwork increase, and time management, and mutual understanding are better now. Overall it’s very helpful for the company to increase its productivity and efficiency.

Problem 3

Last year, they failed to introduce a new product to their customer and gym equipment market. They have a good technical and management team, but they didn’t get success to fulfil customer requirements at the time, just because communication between different departments didn’t go very well. They all are good in their department but when they have to work together their efficiency decrease. Due to failure last year, they didn’t get a contract from their costumer and their reputation also going down. They don’t know what kind of marketing or product development strategy used to solve this.

I suggest the Rhetoric model can solve this problem. Here a lack of communication and understanding between company departments. Rhetoric is a technique of using language more efficiently and effectively in speaking and writing. Rhetoric has three modes of usage: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. This three-mode help to convince their customer.

The study and uses of writing, speaking and visualizing rhetoric refers. 2500 years ago, rhetoric refer for communication and argument essential to public, political, and legal life in Ancient Greece. Rhetoric is defined by the famous ancient philosopher Aristotle. The aim of rhetorical is to achieve writer or speaker hopes to clarify difficulties, to inform, to convince, to peruse. Rhetoric has three modes: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

The persuader convinces the audience via authority or credibility.

This is the way to convince the audience with help of emotion.

With help of reason, facts, and figures convince the audience.

Last year they faced failure to introduce a new product in the market because the company’s different department managers and technicians didn’t discuss properly about products. Marketing department working hard to promote a new product to the market. They have all information about products so decide on product price also. They are referring to that price to introduce new products to the market and customers. But due to a lack of communication, they forgot to consider some basic parameters like size, weight, etc. When they were planning to deliver that product, they found some huge mistakes. They forgot to consider its dimensions and weight. The previous model is smaller and lighter then new model. The new model was bigger and quite heavy to carry. They thought they can deliver as per as customer demand but due to some mistake they didn’t fulfill the order delivery time to time.

At that time, they had two options one is they charge extra to customers for delivery and the second is they haired more delivery trucks to deliver their products. If they choose option one, then customers have to pay more then they decided during marketing. If they choose second, then the company profit going down and they were going high lose. So, decided if the customer is in hundred kilometers radius, then they got free delivery and if they not in range then customer has to pay delivery charge extra.

In this solution, they save the company to going in big losses, but at the same time company loses their customer satisfaction and trust on them. So now, before they are going to introduce a new product to the market, they like to consider all the factors which should affect the success of the product and company.

The company has to change their marketing strategy, so they can get back company reputation and trust. I suggest that during developing a new product consider all factors, and possibilities and make new strategy with help of logos. They give all the correct information to the marketing department, so they can work on it and decide the new strategy to convince their customers. The marketing department and Accountant department communicate each other to decide the perfect price which is good for costumer and also for the company, so company going in profit once again.

The marketing department needs a strategy which helps them to fulfill their goal. The ethos and Pathos methods are going to help them to make a new strategy. They can use Logos too to consider facts and figures.

It can be developed by choosing that kind of marketing strategy is appropriate for the customers and making yourself sound fair or unbiased, introducing your expertise, accomplishments, or pedigree, and by using correct syntax and phrases.

In marketing strategy, it is developed by using meaningful language, emotional tons, emotional evoking examples, stories of emotional events, and implied meanings.

Developing a marketing statement which has advanced, theoretical or abstract language, citing facts (very important), using historical and literal analogies, and by constructing a logical argument

Conclusion

As a communication expert, I want to say, “Communication is the most important factor in any organization or company.” Due to a lack of communication, many problems come. As I mentioned above, due to a communication problem company’s productivity and efficiency decrease. So, we must have to consider communication as an important factor.

Bibliography

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