Web Lecture Metaphors & Culture – Blog 4
In the Metaphors & Culture web lecture, Professor Cyborg objects to the conduit metaphor for communication since it suggests that communication is easy and effortless. As we all have experienced in our personal and organizational relationships, productive communication absolutely takes effort and in some cases an enormous amount of effort. It’s important for organizations to recognize how they metaphorically view communication since that alone can determine the company’s values and decision making processes.
The jungle metaphor Martin uses to describe culture (from the fragmentation perspective) paints a very vivid picture of organizations that are quite opposite of the conduit metaphor. This jungle metaphor shows the ambiguity, stress, and need for clarity in organizational settings. I heard a professor once say that learning is all about “confusion, struggle, and clarification.” I think that same concept can be applied to organizational communication. It isn’t always easy trying to convey messages in organizational settings, and at times we have to go through confusion and struggle in order to get clarification and understanding.
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1 comment:
I agree completely with your blog. The jungle metaphor is definitely one of the most familiar metaphors as we always have to email, call or ask questions to people in order to make sure things are correct. It's the only way to effectively interpret and process information in a way that teaches rather than barking orders. It's when an organization can recognize this confusion and work with each other that the clarification comes to light but when people are stubborn it only makes everything more difficult.
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