READING REFLECTION CHAPTER 10
Instructions:
1. After reading chapter 10, write-up your responses to the prompts below.
2. Submit your reading reflection as a .pdf in Moodle.
Reflection questions:
What was the most meaningful, interesting, or significant thing you learned from
this chapter?
Next, select one of the following to answer:
1. Have you ever been involved with a group that was facing a conflict? What do you believe were the major contributors to the conflict? Were there key players in the conflict? Or, was everyone in the group equally involved?
Now, think of ways you could have dealt with the conflict in a more positive way. Or, if you think you did handle it in a positive way, what did you do?
2. Revisit the section in Chapter 10 (p. 227) on Willingness to Admit Ignorance. Consider a time when you have had to admit you had something to learn, had to take a step back and listen, and/or admit you do not know everything. Describe your situation and how you overcame the situation. In what ways did you overcome defensive feelings? What are ways you can
overcome defensiveness in order to become willing to learn.
[Look at the second page for more!]
Finally, identify an organization you’re familiar:
Organizational experts Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy (1982) identified six
interrelated communication-based elements that help build strong organizational
cultures
1. History: sharing the organization’s past
2. Values and beliefs: what the company deems important
3. Rituals and ceremonies: traditions that unite workers
4. Stories: shared narratives about the organization
5. Heroic figures: organizational role models
6. The cultural network: lines of communication—grapevine and watercooler talk (storytellers, gossipers, whisperers, spies, etc.)
Select an organization that you admire, work for, or would like to work for someday and describe that organization’s culture using Deal and Kennedy’s 6 elements.
Communication
A Critical/Cultural
Introduction
Deanna L. Fassett | John T. Warren | Keith Nainby
COMMUNICATION
A Critical/Cultural Introduction
•
CHAPTER 10: GROUPS AND ALLIANCES IN CULTURE
Overview
•
•
•
•
•
Explore cultures as
emergent within and
through small groups and
alliances
Appreciate the role of
communication in and
about small groups and
alliances
Identify the stages in the
creation of small groups
Describe small groups as
organizational cultures
Identify and develop skills
for alliance building
Small Group Communication
• Communication in small groups is interpersonal
communication within groups.
– Groups generally work in a context that is both
relational and social
• People use communication in small groups to form
alliances across different cultures, values, and experiences.
– We bring our cultures with us into small groups
– We create cultures inside and through our small groups
Groups as Emergent and Evolving
• How do small groups emerge and
evolve relationally?
– Forming is the stage where the group
actually comes to be.
– Storming is about conflict within the
group, especially over interpersonal
issues. If a group is able to work through
conflict toward cohesion than they move
toward,
– Norming, where new roles and standards
develop among group members
– Performing is where the group begins to
run more like a well-oiled machine.
Although conflict may still be present,
group members have identified ways to
move through conflict productively.
Groups as Organizational Culture
•
•
•
Relevant constructs are shared global
understandings of objects, individuals,
and processes. Constructs are ideas
people use to better understand
something or to frame others’
understanding of a topic.
Facts represent social knowledge and
commonly understood explanations.
Practices refer to the process of how
members complete certain projects in
order to make the organization run
Groups as Organizational Culture
•
•
Vocabulary, metaphors, and stories are:
– specialized words or jargon,
– the way members describe their
organization
– Stories shared with other
organizational members make
commonplace experiences
Rites and rituals help mark occasions for
interpretation by observers within
organization
– Rites are the repeated and common
experiences you might have
– Rituals are more sporadic; they are
formalized events
Groups as Alliance Building
• An alliance most often means to
be associated, connected, and
joined in a united front;
• An alliance is a relationship in
which parties are interdependent
and responsible for and to each
other
What are the challenges you might
face in forming alliances across
difference?
Public Advocacy:
Skills for Alliance Building
• Willingness to engage others
• Willingness to Admit Ignorance
• Asking Questions/Questioning
Assumptions
– Listening
– Open-Mindedness
• Willingness to Dialogue
• Accepting Place in the Alliance
DeTurk (2011) notes, can lead to “both social
justice and personal growth” but also “involve
some tension or conflict because allying with
one group or cause is also to distance oneself
from others.”

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