Do your actions come across clear?

In a recent study of group research, Stephenson Beck, and Joann Keyton state, “To understand the connection between group member perception of communication messages and actual communication messages, new research methodologies are needed.” (Beck, S. 2009)

After reading the article entitled “Perceiving Strategic Meeting Interaction”, I found their research on meeting interactions quite interesting. This article went on to observe a small group of department heads conducting a weekly meeting of their company. Each person played their part well. Some members of the group were more prominent than others. To follow up with my quote, these two have done a great job at fulfilling their attempt to gather information in new ways. Six participants were chosen to be a part of this group including Jim, Don, Katie, Mark, Cal, and Lynn. At the end of the focus group, the participants were asked to review their participation and make statements on their intentions at each point in the conversation. Katie and Don were perceived as fighting according to Mark and Jim while they both tried to explain their point of view in their conclusions. A great point made during the recap of the interview was how tone and targeting of questions toward one person affects each person’s view of the conversation. This is also a big factor with regards to email messages, especially in my place of employment.

I frequently struggle with perception of messages due to the email factor. Tone is non –existent when working with an email, unless followed by some sort of smiley face. There are a lot of things I might find negative, while others see no problem with it. Individual perception is extremely important and being able to see the results of a professional study helped shed a little light on how communication unfolds, even in a small group.

In summary, I think further study groups like this could benefit not only individuals, but also promote a better sense of team building if everyone was able to understand the fundamentals of their speech. I would also be interested in finding out if they have done any other research conducted specifically toward internet communications within the work place.


References
Beck,S. (2009, April). Perciving strategic meeting interaction. Retrieved from http://sgr.sagepub.com.dml.regis.edu/cgi/reprint/40/2/223