[week 5] blog 4: Dialogic democracy

What I got from the web lecture: Democracy & Dialogue is the continuing understanding that the tangent of effective communication should inherently lead us to the dialogic democracy. It emphasizes what I've learned about organizational communication to connect the classical/historical/science of "rational discussion and reasoned arguments" with something undeniable about human communication, "emotion and passion." Dialogic democracy recognizes it's own difficult process especially if we realize that it is easy to go into chaos. Mindful dialogue is an important attribute. We can't learn from eachother over failed scripts. It creates room for the sharing of ideas and perspective that can easily be shifted towards justice and equity instead of dominance and oppression. But, I sort of get why the text emphasizes balance. Unconstrained passion has turned Iraq's dialogic democracy into an afterthought of smoke and ashes, Independence Day two steps behind from the other direction you're walking...

work life

If it's not to late to mention, I'm currently at Kaiser Permanente. And recently leased space to open a business with my mom as my first employee so learning about communication, power, and conflict are continuing to find relevance in my life...

[week 3] blog 4: Workplace surveillance and panopticon

The topic of workplace surveillance in the web lecture: Metaphors & Culture I found is very relevant to my experiences at work and to my ideology of where technology fits in our world.

You go to work and it would seem like you enter a sphere of surveillance. The technology that you use everyday to keeps you connected to and in more and more ways builds into your identity. Yet the technology now is in a business sphere filled with a new purpose. The computers at my work are certainly monitored by security, so any notion of my private life is filtered out. "Business purposes only" seems very justified. But, like Foucault's notion of the panopticon the surveillance including monitoring you behavior on the computer creates a shared and I think feared meanings of who is in power. Workplace surveillance makes it easy for organizations to dominate our public space and more covertly our private space as well. If I was more critical I may for go technology for a wider private space, but convenience and social constructions of self makes it more and more impossible.

[week 3] blog 3: Domination metaphor lecture

The domination metaphor in our course web lecture on metaphors and culture was very interesting. I've watched the "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" before not knowing the significance of what I has to say about critical approaches, organizational culture, domination metaphor, and how much damage a few greedy pigs can do. From the top-down Enron as an organization believed and constructed cultural symbols that they are the best. They created a culture that if you are out-group you were going to be stomped on. This allowed employees to accept being exploited and abused. I remember the film saying that Enron employees were fired based on peer evaluations. This had to create a dog eat dog, harassing environment, and definitely damaging to employee health. Shillings, the CEO of Enron is in prison, but what he created has drastic consequences even felt today. Kaiser still is implementing SOX compliance, and the trust given towards corporations will never return to that level. Constraints are forced on organizations, fearing a return of those guys in the room.

[week 3] blog 2: Discourse and discipline

Highlighting the power as operating, "primary in and through discourse," (p.178) in Chapter 6: Critical Approaches to Organizations and Communication is where I found meaning that resonated with me. The word and connotations are used so often and has numerous interpretations. I'm thinking the devil's greatest trick is fooling the world he doesn't exist (Usual Suspects). Power has feared and desired. In organizations it represses employees; it is madly sot after. It is never more clear; the idea that it resides more, "in a network of relationships which are systematically connected." Because when I think of communicating power so many pictures comes to mind: slavery, oppressive governments, forceful fist, or the whip. Thinking of power as a hidden yet with the will to guild our deepest ideologies of how the world is shines a stronger light on it. Power produces oppressive ways of thinking; more than forcing us into the organization by the whip or money, I think it makes us see ourselves the way it needs us to.

[week 3] blog 1: Cultures as symbolic construction at KP

The beginning stance of Culture as Symbolic Constructions in Chapter 5: Cultural Studies of Organizations and Communication I found was very insight and enforced the notions of culture as it is supported in organization and communication. I work where the culture of patient care is utmost to the organization. Sometimes the culture represented by the design of the hospitals, departmental postings, instructional protocols, and daily interactions with managers does "induces" me to think that care is above all else. After reading the section, I realize that the use of language by managers does the same in shaping my perception is culture, too. The ways that managers are communicating has me realize that KP values cost (e.g., over emphasis on generics). There is symbolic possibility now that I realize it that the structure to hospital has an influence on patients difficulty in accessing the care they need (e.g., parking is way horrible). KP can have a grand emphasis on care, but are constructing symbols of overemphasizing on budget cuts are swaying employee perceptions. And unfortunately I think organization culture is slow when changing but it when it does it changes everything. This reenforces my suspicion that KP is dealing with this overall economic crisis only by fanning the flames...

[week 2] blog 4: Retrospective sense making and cognition

Karl Weick's theory of retrospective sense making in chapter 4 was very interesting if not just from breaking down our postulate that decision making is think first, act later. It also lays out the cognitive process that occurs when we make sense leading to and from our decisions. This idea, rightly claimed as "counterrational", seems to aim at creating chaos. I've have been taught at an early age and managed at work to always thing before you act. You must assess all the consequences of your actions because repercussions are immediate. But, like a balance with the weight of creativity on one end and constraint on the other, it's up to the individual to balance his actions and his retrospection of it. Creativity is like retrospection untamed by manifestation of action; cognitively I recall my mistakes, but try my best at moving on. The idea that a manager in Weick's world concerns himself with making sure their employees makes sense of their work, seems like a professor/manager or super manager.