Opinion of the class

I thought this class was amazing. I loved the structure of the work and the implementation of the homework. Going back and forth between the book and the readings was a very good idea because the textbooks do become monotonous and this was able to draw the class away from that while still continuing with the learning of the material. I also really enjoyed the blog posting as our main homework assignment. I first of all like the idea of the blog because you can turn it in and be done with it whenever you are finished even if that is at 2 in the morning. It also doesn't require printing of any paper and remember to bring it to class or any such hassle. I also really preferred the blog because we baiscally wrote one paper a week (little less) and this was managable and conducive to learning the information. As I said I really enjoyed this class and am excited to have you as a professor again next semester! Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Organizational Communication Applied

A nationally recognized organization would seem to have little to improve upon but this is often times not the case. The Saint Mary’s College golf team is a nationally recognized golf team. They have gone to the national championship four years in a row representing our school at the highest level of the NCAA organization possible, but still have yet to win a national title. One may attribute these facts to the skills and abilities of the members of the golf team but it is often times a deeper reasoning where the problem lies.

The Saint Mary’s College golf team is currently made up of nine female golfers and a head coach. The organizational communication being used by the head coach, the leader, of the team is communication as an information transfer. Information is sent from the coach to the players typically through the channel of email. Unfortunately this method of communication makes too many assumptions that do not hold true especially when it comes to working with a group of 9 women. Feelings and emotions are not transferred in the words of those emails and this is difficult for women to work with. The receivers in this case, women, extract thoughts and feelings from the words and these may be incorrect assumptions. Here we discover we have already uncovered many downfalls of the organization. The management practices, gender communication and overall communication are all at question here in this organization.

Using the current method of organizational communication over simplifies communication. Treating communication as a pipeline system where information is spewed and expected to end up in the right location with the correct understanding is very unrealistic. The coach (sender) sees the players (receivers) as a passive receptor uninvolved with you meaning of the message. The results and consequences of the communication often directly affect the players making this mode of communication faulty. Using this type of communication does not account for the differences in interpretation between speaker and listener. In laymen’s terms, the women of the golf team are unable to ask questions of the coach are expected to always understand and properly interpret what is to be transferred in messages. We are treated as if we have no interest in the decisions that are made and the results that come from those decisions and this is simply not the case.

Modifying a working and mostly successful organization is often risky and difficult and requires extensive studies and research. In this situation the best possible approach to communication would be the use communication as a transactional process. This would be most successful because of the women on the team and their requirements for understanding the messages being sent from their coach. The idea that you cannot not communicate is one that is portrayed in this organizational communication process and it is an important one. You should no be able to tell the difference between who is sending and who is receiving a message because the communication should be continuous. One man managing a team of nine women is a difficult task and he has worked to the best of his abilities to succeed but information transfer is the wrong approach to use to communication. Using communication as a transactional process requires face to face communication for best results because non-verbal feedback is readily available. These non-verbal messages accompany the verbal and can fill in the gaps and questions the team members may have about the message being sent.

One approach to conquering this communication challenge would be to replace the one who is failing to communicate properly but that is not the answer in this situation. The coach is so successful and good at what he does Saint Mary’s would be at a disadvantage to lose this leader. Instead the answer is cooperation and coordination. Recently the athletic department has brought on an assistant golf coach to work with the current coach. The assistant golf coach is a women with a degree in communications. This strategy was an excellent decision by administration because it is the balance that allows the team to have the best of both worlds. The golf team is able to keep the coach with the wealth of golf knowledge and success and incorporate someone with strong communication skills and enough golf skills to understand everything that is happening.


This new implementation of management practices, improved gender communication, and the new approach to overall communication can and has begun to make leaps and bounds forward for the organization. The Saint Mary’s College golf team currently has the skills, abilities and knowledge to be a high caliber team in the NCAA and this is shown by the national recognition but these changes and new implementations could take the golf team to the next step. The organization would become more cohesive and unified if they were better able to communicate from the top down and that is exactly the opportunity the administration gave to team when they hired the assistant coach. Golf skills don’t make a golf team, players make a great golf team.

Gendered Careers and Gender Performances

Gender definitions are far reaching and often difficult to overcome. Before children are even born the question is asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?” What does it even matter? There is nothing you can do to change it, hopefully you won’t love it any less depending on the answer. We ask because the answer determines what clothes we will buy for the baby or what sports we will teach them and even how we communicate with them. Though these actions may seem sexist, they are preparatory in nature for what life to come. Gender highly defines who you are and what you are allowed to do in many aspects of life.

Through the context of history we are able to see the importance of gender and the role it has played in the life of humans since the beginning of our existence. The idea and terminology of hunters and gatherers was given exclusively to men in there ability to provide for their families. When ancient tribes would live and survive as groups it was the men who found and killed the food and the women who cooked and prepared it for the rest of the tribe. It is easy to see how the actions of each gender have been conditioned over time to fit the expectations of society. There are other restrictions applied to genders by nature that also aide in defining a gender role. Females are the only sex able to become pregnant. The hormones human glands naturally secrete create certain appearances and tendency that are filed under a strictly male or strictly female category. The scripts are already written, as humans we are supposed to comply and read the one that belongs to us, to overcome this notion would require jumping hurdles hundreds of years high.

We have been given our genders, though not by choice, and based on these genders we act out certain performances. These roles are acted out through communication, costuming, and other elements of microforming on a daily basis. When communicating, men tend to use report talk while women use rapport talk. Men give the facts tell their demands and make everything straight and to the point. Women tend to use more opinionated passive ways of stating what needs to be accomplished. Women will often also use questions rather than statements. A woman might ask, “Would you mind being here by eight in the morning tomorrow?” where as a man may state “Be here at eight.” These demands or instructions often vary widely depending on whether they are coming from a male or a female.

Constructive criticism is something that also must be conveyed and understood in the workplace and this too can be interpreted very differently depending on which sex the message is coming from. Where John Doe may say, “Your performance has been very poor this quarter and if I don’t see an improvement I will be forced to take action.” Jane Doe may remark, “You really could be doing better and trying harder. Please make an effort so I don’t have to take further action.” There are times though where constructive criticism coming from the same gender may be helpful if you work best with negative reinforcement it is possible that John Doe’s statement may motivate you more. The same applies to the converse.

Gender roles are also acted out through the clothing we choose to wear and the clothing which is deemed appropriate for us to wear. What is difficult about women and clothing in the workplace is there are basically two extremes with nothing in the middle considered acceptable. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is one of the few organizations remaining that still provides clothing for its employees and a great example of one extreme. There is a catalog employees must choose from basically with the only option being size. The FBI and their required uniform is a great example of how one extreme of the organizational world requires women to look as much like men as possible. All efforts are made for women to blend in with the men; it is as if we are not even there. Women are told their shirts can’t be too tight so there should be no sign that we have breasts. There are often certain rules and allowances for what can be done to the hair as well.

Another of the remaining organizations providing uniform represents the opposite extreme of organizational costuming: flight attendants. This and other gendered organizations allow for skirts and signs of femininity because they are selling an experience. These fields of work typically require full makeup, styled hair and particular shoes as well. Both extremes, in my opinion, reveal that the workplace is a male dominated sector. If the women must be considered equivalent with the man she is required to blend in and lose her feminine appearance. If the women is there for the mans entertainment or service she is required to show her legs, walk in heels and put on a face.

It is these gendered organizations which concern us most. In the early years of the 21st century we should be at a point in humanity where women and men are considered equal in the workplace and overall in life. Unfortunately we have just proven that this is quite far from the truth. There are male and female dominated careers. Certain careers are considered unacceptable for women to be involved in and the same is true for the converse. Careers which are deemed appropriate for women include being a mother to her children, nurse, waitress, flight attendant, receptionist and cheerleader. These careers show our softer more feminine side and require little to no responsibility. Typically women in these roles fall under the supervision of others and are rarely found supervising others. These informal roles for women allow them to be integrated into the workforce while still maintaining their femininity and taking care of their domestic responsibilities.

If these career fields are considered to be female dominated that leaves every other field to be dominated by men. OF course this is not completely, wholly and always true but the portrait is painted. Men are said to excel in sports, technology, management, and many other similar career fields. These jobs typically leave men with much responsibility and high amounts of power. Supervision is a must and often there is no direct supervisor to his position.

It is to be expected that the next question to follow is “to what extent?” Though there are examples of careers that are dominated by each gender there are plenty of examples of career fields that are approximately equal in gender participation. This statement is very true and in fact the gender career equality is increasing but it is highly unlikely the playing field will ever completely level. Historically, men worked and women did not. Men either hunted or found food or worked to make money to pay for food and women typically stayed home. In the middle of the twentieth century, during World War II women began to enter the workforce but the careers were very unbalanced. We have been and are currently working towards bridging the gendered career gap and this can be seen through the examples given earlier. These are no longer as concrete as they once would have been. Men are now often found as flight attendants, cheerleaders, nurses, Mr. Mommies and this is all without questioning the sexuality of the man. Though we are getting closer we may never fully close the gap due to natural elements that would require thousands of years of evolution. Ironic isn’t it: almost every aspect of our life is effected by whether we are male or female and we don’t even get to decide for ourselves.

Elements of Organizational Culture

Some will tell you it’s the brilliant minds, others are sure it is the hearts of the women but the answer is really everything in between. What is actually being described is the perception of our environment, or our cultural elements. The culture of Saint Mary’s is vastly different from any institution, which is to be expected due to the nature of an all women’s, but there are many attributes that affect the culture of the institution. Elements included in defining an organizations culture are: ceremonies, rituals, artifacts, stories, all of which can be found in the history o the Saint Mary’s College organization. Though there are many facets of Saint Mary’s College, including the students, the faculty, the staff and the administration, we will merely look at the cultural elements a Saint Mary’s student experiences which alone are insurmountable.

Within Augusta hall on our campus you will find artifact upon artifact compiling the history that forms modern day Saint Mary’s College. There are many pictures of past important people attending significant events. There are articles of clothing from influential people of Saint Mary’s past and there is even a table where Mother Theresa once sat and broke bread with Sister Madeleva. All of these items have a certain memory and event attached to them making them artifacts of the college. This top floor of Augusta Hall is a place where the students of the institution of Saint Mary’s College can go and feel the reality the college’s history.

Another piece of organizational culture is held in the stories and the language of telling stories and stories being passed along. At Saint Mary’s College, as is true for most organizations, there are many ways in which stories are transferred over time. I believe the most common way stories at Saint Mary’s are conveyed is from other students who share stories of Saint Mary’s past and present every day. Who knows what the source is or how the student came about this information but we typically accept it to be true. Other common ways stories are shared here at Saint Mary’s often happen before you are officially accepted as a student. When participating in admissions activities stories are shared to help convey the idea of life in this community. Other ways stories are shared are from the professors and administration, if they attended school here or if they simply have heard the stories themselves from somewhere else. Another common though possibly overlooked way of stories being passed along is from mother to daughter. Here at Saint Mary’s we have a lot of legacy students who’s mothers or aunts or grandmothers also went to Saint Mary’s and stories can be passed this way as well. Although all of these ideas are being passed on from different sources all are elements of the organizational culture.

In addition to artifacts and stories there are ceremonies that happen on some routine basis (annually) that add to the elements of organizational culture. When first arriving on campus in August, first year students typically go through a process known as orientation which is a type of ceremony of ceremonies to help students transition from high school to college. To make the transition final there is a ceremony called lighting the candle that officially ends orientation. All of the new students light a candle signifying the beginning of their college careers. There are also religious ceremonies our college practices being that we are a catholic institution. There is opening mass which is also a part of orientation and baccalaureate mass which happens before graduation. Graduation is also a ceremony. The procession of the students in front of their loved ones celebrating the time they have had and the fact that it is over.

Defining an organizations culture often unintentionally reinforces organizational values; this is often the case with organization rituals. According to our textbook authors Eisenberg, Goodall and Trethewey, “Rituals ‘dramatize’ a culture’s basic values and can range in scope from personal, day-to-day routines for accomplishing tasks to annual organization-wide celebrations”. At Saint Mary’s college an organization-wide ritual would be when we honor those who have performed well with the dean’s list title. We also perform day-to-day rituals here at Saint Mary’s College. In many classes we pray before we begin the day’s lesson or we hand in homework before getting started. Though the rituals vary greatly from one organization to another as stated by our authors we can learn much about the organization and where they place there values based on simply daily routines.

Though many people believe culture affects the intangible possessions of an organization by influencing values, attitudes and behaviors it also has material consequences. In the case of an institution such as Saint Mary’s College the elements of our individual culture affect which women choose to attend our college or which professional educators choose to work at our college which in turn effects the education and the experience women at this institution are receiving. The organizational culture can also have a monetary impact. If the culture is not appealing and tuition levels lower there is less of an income for our community to better itself with. It is true the culture affects the heart and the soul of an organization but it can also affect the flesh and the blood.