Michelle Harrington-Chapter comments

Chapter 2
The concept I found most interesting in this chapter was the concept of strategic ambiguity. I had never heard of this before but it makes a lot of sense. When I first started reading about it, I could only think of ways this would be used to conceal information, but the examples showed how strategic ambiguity can actually be positive. I also liked the examples of how creativity and constraint must be balanced in any communication, even on an individual level. The chapter mainly introduces the four perspectives on organizational communication. I agreed mostly with the positives and negatives of each perspective. For the transactional process, one thing I thought of was how sometimes a person attempting to send and receive at the same time, they are not truly listening to what is being received. Another interesting point in the chapter was the idea that the context can sometimes shape the context of future communication situations.

Chapter 3
This chapter discusses historical communication theories. The classical management approach is still prevalent in the business world. The human relations approach and human resources approach are very similar and I don’t really understand the difference. I really like McGregor’s Theory Y that changes how managers should view employees. Even though I am not a manager, I think I view myself this way, but not my coworkers. Basically he is saying, hey give your employees some credit and because they actually want to do a good job. I don’t think the workplace follows Likert’s principle of supportive relationships. I think most workplace emphasize productivity not relationships. This view encourages relationships because it feeds into productivity. It makes sense, but it seems workplaces have yet to find balance in letting their employees build relationships but yet not developing lazy employees.