MGMT 591 Week 4 Case Study; Difficult Connections

Week 4: Case Study: Difficult Connections James Matthews MGMT591 Dr. Mohamad SaouliDue: March Sem.2025Introduction: For this essay I have decided to use the first person to describe events, decisions and communication challenges faced in a clear and direct way. In my opinion, this way will give a better perspective on the scenario, such as it helps me to be overdue to the song of the communication from my side. In the following I will discuss the symptoms that led to the realization that something went wrong, I will explore the underlying causes utilizing communication concepts from the organizational behavior theory to explain what happened and end with some practical recommendations on how I should move forward and what steps Alicamber LLC could take to avoid similar problems in the future. Using concepts like media richness, synchronicity, communication noise and social presence I want to not only understand the reason why things went wrong, but to prepare some actionable plans for reestablishing a communication which is human centered and effective. Identify one or more symptoms that something has gone wrong here. With all that in mind, there is one such symptom of something that has gone wrong in the Nashville project that stands out above the rest for its miscommunication and exclusion within our team dynamic. It started at the beginning when I was assigned a leadership position for the team and key decisions were being made and conversations had without my input. This omission is not simply a failure to notice but rather it points to an issue that hints at a broader problem in the way organizations communicate, that is, failed formal or informal communications (McShane & Von Glinow, 2021). The growing interpersonal tension between Thomas is a second symptom. This has caused tension in the work relationship. In fact, the lack of transparency, inconsistent feedback and vague expectations reflect a bigger issue of poor encoding and decoding of communication (Daft & Lengel, 1986). When team members are not clear on each other’s intent or expectations, they spend time second guessing with one another, which creates distrust, missed deadlines, and ponderous morale. There seems to be no emotional investment from the Nashville team. They seldom reply to emails, and when they do, their emails are short and transactional. In a remote work environment (or a hybrid environment), this represents a low level of social presence in our communication, which is fundamental to developing trust (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). Indeed, when people talk to one another without taking the time to connect to one another’s humanity, collaboration becomes mechanical and disconnected. Analyze the causes of these symptom(s) using one or more communication concepts from this chapter. In an effort to make sense of the origins of these problems, I referred to a few specific concepts from Chapter 9 in our textbook. The absence of shared mental models and codebooks (McShane & Von Glinow, 2021) is one primary cause. As the new kid on the block in this team, I