I think that I can learn a lot from this particular chapter because I am affiliated with many organizations on campus. The book describes organizational communication ethics as " The orchestrating of communicative practices through formal and informal structures of events and persons in a given organization to accomplish a given purpose or purposes." (138). This definition shows that we use organizational communication ethics everyday, especially as a college student. For example I can learn from this type of ethics and apply them in the classroom, with my roommates, in my sorority, and at work just to name a few types of organizations. This type of communication is focuses on what is needed to be done to efficiently and ethically accomplish a given task.
An area of my life that I particularly see this type of communication ethics is at work. I work for a large company, but the unique thing about where I work is that all of my co-workers are almost exclusively women. This makes for an interesting dynamic everyday. Another interesting part of where I work is that we are almost never supervised and we travel everyday, I am usually working with another college girl and rarely see my boss. This deals with a lot of accountability. Because we are not supervised by our boss we have to hold ourselves accountable not to just sit in the car and not do our job, but to actually get out and do the job right. The book says "the community of memory of an organization functions as a public conscience, reminding persons of the good and its coordinates within a given organization." (148). This is exactly right, especially in my work setting because without this community of memory girls would not do the job correctly.
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ReplyDeleteMacall, you have a very interesting blog post and brought up some excellent points. First, I am going to start off with a quote that I found that relates to your post; "Organizational communication addresses communicative practices and discourse processes among and between peers and between employees and leaders/managers," (p. 140), (even though your boss is rarely there). Being that you are involved in many different groups on campus, the communication ethics within each group probably varies as well. Another quote that I found relevant to your blog post was, "From a communication ethics perspective, organizations are carriers of a given sense of the good that offers human meaning in an organization - organizations offer places to participate, belong, play, and work; they situate our lives, giving meaning beyond our individual selves," (p. 145). When one is involved in an organization, there is less focus on the individual and more focus is on the organization. Also, in the Student Application in the beginning of the chapter, it tells us that, "As we enter different organizations, differing dwelling places invite us to use our time in quite contrasting ways," (p. 139). For example, you mentioned you are in a sorority, "the good" of the sorority is most likely different than "the good" at your place of work, and your goals are most likely different as well.
ReplyDeleteI also want to say that I relate to you in your job; I work at a small group personal training facility and my boss is rarely there as well, so we have to be self-motivated to be there and work for "the good" of the company. "Within any organization are competing goods that must be negotiated in order for the organization to carry out its work," (p. 141). This bring up community of memory, and like you mentioned, it is necessary to understand the "saying" and the "said" in order for people to do their work correctly; we must understand the goals of the organization in order to know what we are aiming for.