On page 462 of the textbook the author states that “the passive voice masks the decision makers and suggests a neutral air of authority.” On Goldberg, A. et al.’s article, The Meaning of Power, “one obstacle to the study of power and communication has been the elusive nature of power as a concept.”
The following real-life episode is perfect to explain the relationship language & power. Not even a month ago my manager decided to make some arrangements in our group. She sent out an email to the team, informing that everybody on the 4th floor would move to different cubicles. The interesting thing here is that no reasons were provided to justify such change. However, there was no room for inquiries, because she reinforced that we could ask any question we had, except why those changes were happening.
This neutral air of authority employed by my manager has everything to do with power as control. Her warning shut some people up, and frustrated others. Clearly, the decision was made, we were “informed” afterwards, but we still do not know the reason for such unexpected change. And we will probably never know.
Garota de Ipanema
Streaning Star Trek: Insurrection Full Movie
6 years ago
6 comments:
You provide a good example of the status quo is reinforced in everyday organizational communication. How could you find out the process for making the decision? What would your manager say if you ignored the implied directive not to question the decision and questioned it anyway? Could you found out through informal connections? Why do you think the reason for moving to different cubicles is such a big secret?
~ Professor Cyborg
That's so frustrating! You have a right to know why you need to move from your cubicle. Really, everyone involved in the move should have had some say in it...like a vote or something. And to use her authority to not allow anyone to ask questions is wrong as well. It's possible that there was a perfectly legitimate reason to ask everyone to move, but still she should have let everyone know. I have experience this many times and I'm sure it starts out something like "It has been decided that...." This completely discourages anyone from asking questions and implies that the decision has been made and that there is no room for discussion.
What's most frustrating to me is when you're given a "corporate directive"... which you question and are told to do as instructed... then find out later that the whole project was due to misunderstanding from a corporate standpoint.
Many upper level management executives are good at receiving feedback and keeping in touch with its operational base. Unfortunately, some upper level management personnel eschew communication in favor of a dictating top-down approach. There are many projects and assignments that end up redundant, wrong, or just plain wastes of time due to this mentality.
this is a good example and explains clearly the concept. another example would be the decisions and announcements made by the universities. All of a sudden the course list of engineering management program is changed. Courses like introduction to political science are added which requires student to study the US constitution as well and most of the students in the eng mgt program are international students and i do not understand that why would an international student take that course. and there are 3 political science courses included which i do not think is a good idea. There are better business courses that can be included such as managing change in organization etc. But the decision is taken and the students have no say in this. UNFAIR
That seems like an utterly bizarre thing for a manager to ask of you, especially since moving your workspace can be such a major inconvenience. And the statement that you could ask any questions except for why - what else would she be expecting you to ask?
I have absolutely no trouble imagining how your anecdote played out after my time in the corporate world. Directives like that were often passed down with no explanation, and the lack of information usually led to backroom whispers and wild guesses as to what happened, leading to institutional legends that could have been easily headed off at the pass if a reasonable explanation were given. (If I were in your company, I'd wonder if the "musical cubicles" were the result of a horrific personality conflict between cubicle neighbors, and the shifting of everyone was to cover up exactly where the problem happened, for example.)
At one company I worked at, I found out that my much-maligned manager was often not in charge of the less popular decisions, and disliked them as much as we did - but admitting as much would have been an admission that she didn't have as much power over the department as she wanted to convey. She decided somewhere along the way that if we were going to shoot the messenger anyway, she might as well appear as though she wielded the authority and was on board with it.
The neutral stance, often employed by corporate voices (I find) has a very irritating sound to it. In that resepect it is not very neutral at all, but vexing. Broad-reaching decisions, which affect very broad ranges of things ususally come from the corporate office at my job. Individual stores are not really given the latitude to make changes, but simply the longitude to enact them (or vice versa). Changes to store appearance, company policy and human relations elements are enacted by corporate officers with little or no explanation (usually none). And it is in this way that power is displayed: the remainder of the company carries out these inexplicable dictums every time. Of course the leadership of the company should be able to make company-wide changes. But some are really absurd and pointless in the end, and irritating.
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