Communication at Work

Communication pervades virtually everything managers do. What most people mistakenly assume about communication can and does limit their effectiveness, professionally and personally. Communication is much harder work and more complicated than people realize. Concrete advice and thought-provoking questions show how to be a more effective communicator. Executives, researchers, and upper level and graduate students of management, human relations, and human resources, organizational behavior, leadership, and communication will find this volume instructive and illuminating.

The book explores and connects our uses of symbols and language, particularly metaphors, with how we think and act. It highlights a certain widely held metaphor for communication, called the conduit metaphor, and the inaction it implies. The book offers an alternative, opposing perspective, based on how human communication actually works. An appreciation of how communication works produces greater effectiveness—shared understanding and strong, productive relationships between people. Those lacking this appreciation will more likely communicate and act in ways that are ultimately self-defeating and self-limiting. Enabling communication activities that help executives in their responsibilities of leadership, empowerment, team building, and management of change and culture are explored in a comfortable, conversational style.

STEPHEN R. AXLEY is Professor of Management in the College of Business and Technology at Western Illinois University. He has served as a consultant and trainer to more than 60 organizations in the private and public sectors, including several Fortune 500 firms, as well as numerous agencies of three state governments. He has received numerous awards for outstanding classroom teaching of undergraduate and graduate students.