1. Chapter 6: Overcoming Obstacles to Communication in Organizations

2. Communicator Anxiety Examples of Communicator Anxiety
Expressing Ideas to Colleague
Giving instructions to your employees
Participating in a group discussion
Interviewing or being interviewed
Giving an oral presentation

3. Types of Communication Anxiety
Situational Anxiety
Firing an employee
Presenting a controversial idea
Selling a product to a new client
Approaching a banker for a loan
Meeting new boss
Trait Anxiety
Personal
Internal feeling
Experienced regardless of the situation

4. Managing Situational Anxiety
Prepare and Practice
Warm Up
Vocal exercises
Stretching
Use Deep Breathing
Use an introduction that will relax you
Concentrate on Communicating Your Meaning
Use Visual Aids

5. Trait Anxiety Communication Apprehension
Many people with trait anxiety feel that they
1) are different from other speakers
2) have a history of negative speaking experiences
3) consider themselves inferior to others.
May be an inborn trait
Communibiology
Positive imagery and visualization, is a successful technique in managing trait anxiety.
Law of Attraction
Positive imagery exercise on page 155

6. Obstacles to Communication
Inadequate preparation
Vague Instructions
8 rules for giving instructions (page 157)
Jumping to conclusions
Inference-observation confusion, occurs when we fail to distinguish between what we observed firsthand and what we inferred
Examples page 163
Bypassing
we assume that a word has the same meaning for other people that it does for us
See terms on page 165
Sexual Harassment
Loss of human dignity and decreased productivity in the workplace
Definition on page 166

7. Communication Technology Obstacles
Figure 6.4 on page 169
, Instant Messages, Blogs
Increases access and faster retrieval of information
Electronic Meetings
Telecommuters complete tasks offsite
Videoconferencing
Used by multiple location companies to communicate with employees