Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior - Soltanieh ...

COMMUNICATE SUCCESSFULLY BY SEEKING BALANCE
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EXERCISES
Take - home exercise – sociograms
Communication is both the substance and the medium for information flow. To learn how
information flows, we need to gather data on communication behavior, in particular, who
speaks to whom about what. A sociogram is a diagram in which people are points or circles
and lines represent types of relationships between the people.
1. Keep a journal of everyone whom you spoke to for one day at work. Write down to
whom you spoke (individuals or groups), for how long, about what topics, and the
type of relationship you have with those persons.
2. Group these people together according to the reason you interacted with them; for
example, people you work with on a particular project are grouped together, people
who are in particular departments are grouped together, clients are grouped together,
and so on.
3. Draw a sociogram (or network) that connects these people or groups of people (use
no more than 10 people or groups) to you and to each other. Use thicker lines to
denote strong relationships, thinner lines to denote weaker but important relationships,
and dotted lines to denote relationships with people that are both weak and
not important to you.
4. Now redraw the sociogram to illustrate the amount of time you talked with these
people. Use thicker lines to denote more minutes, thinner lines to denote fewer minutes,
and dotted lines to denote very brief conversations.
5. Compare the two sociograms. What do these illustrations tell you about whom you
communicate with, why, and for how long? Do these sociograms suggest ways you
may improve your communication with others?
In - class exercise – effect of trust on communication
Describe a recent dispute that you had with another person where the trust between you and
the other person was either very high or very low. Describe the relationship between you and
the other party, why there was high or low trust between you, and what happened in the
dispute?