Blog 5.1

Voices from the field
The idea of going "native" in your organization to study the aspects of organizational communication I believe has varying degrees. Like J. McMillian states, "I have learned the pitfalls well: people may be too willing to talk, especially the chronically dissatisfied." Recently I was put in charge of designing the department's Annual Report. The core team consisted of three individuals and we were tasked with putting the document together.

The process of gathering stories about interesting things that have gone on through the year was rather revealing. There seemed to be some bias on who got in and who didn’t. While I was asking for bios of the leadership I would receive some documents that were filled with years of service and a variety of career paths. Eventually I was in a meeting where all of these bios were reduced to three sentences because they didn’t want one manager to look less than the others.

The process of creating a document that reflects the organization for a particular period involved some revealing moments that I would rather have not been privy too.