1. Erin Bosman
CJ 355 Message Design
Martha Fay
Communication Breakdown Paper
Communication challenges can be seen within various different organizations, and
generally people are involved with more than one organization. This leads to encounters with
ineffective communication on a daily basis for many individuals. Throughout this paper, I am
going to discuss a communication challenge for an organization that I am a part of, and an
intervention plan for that communication challenge.
As a student manager at one of the dining locations on the University of Wisconsin- Eau
Claire’s campus, I think that communication between managers is less effective than it could be.
In becoming a student manager rather than a regular student employee, I had roughly two shifts
where I was trained into the differences. The regular student employees, are not informed of who
is a student manager, and there is no identifier for both other employees or customers other than
through verbal communication from the student manger themselves. Also, there is very little
formal, organized communication between all employees and supervisors which is the
communication challenge that I intend to focus on.
This location of this dining establishment has a very calm, casual environment which
leads to less than effective communication. Generally, the employees communicate in a way that
you would with family or friends, rather than what you typically would see between coworkers
and a supervisor. After becoming a student manager and through my courses in both
communication and psychology, I’ve been able to identify this informal, casual environment and
sometimes ineffective communication. In addition, when asking, reminding, or instructing
regular student employees to complete or help with a task, I have had many reply poorly saying
that what I’m asking is ‘unnecessary’ or the minimal effort for that task is ‘good enough’ rather
than them being as effective as they could be at their work. Partially, this is due to new additional

2. protocol that has recently begun. Partially, it is due to the relaxed, casual environment that the
employees tend to engage in. To summarize, I see a communication challenge between
supervisors, student managers, and regular employees in relation to when formal communication
and casual communication should be occurring, as well as in relation to who is in command and
what tasks need to be completed.
I think that one theory that this communication challenge can be described with is
Anthony Gidden’s structuration theory. This theory considers the idea that social life is more
than random individual acts but also isn’t determined by specific social protocol. Furthermore,
Human agency and social structure are correlated together, and it is the repetition of the acts of
individual agents which reproduces the structure. This means that there is a social structure or
specific protocol in place but that this structure can be changed when people start to ignore the
protocol or respond differently than expected (Gauntlett, 2002). In context of the communication
challenge that I discussed above, the company, supervisors and managers have specific protocol
targeted for their intended structure, but the employees along with the supervisors have changed
that protocol by acting in a more casual manner and acting how they feel comfortable and
relaxed with rather than fully adhering to the structure that was intended. Often times
structuration theory is a positive concept, that can help an organization to form a unique identity
that applies to their goals and to the organizations members. While this has occurred for this
organization I am a part of, it has also lead to a lack of cooperation and compliance from
employees, which in turn has lead to a need for an intervention plan.
Organizations need to have the characteristics of being constructed through
communication, having a willingness to cooperate among members, and having a common
purpose among members. The organization I have been discussing has all of these characteristics

3. except the willingness to cooperate is not as strong and effective as it could be. In order to
achieve a stronger willingness to cooperate, and more effective communication between
supervisors, managers, and students, a communication intervention needs to be initiated and
achieved.
The first step in creating an intervention plan is to assess communication needs in the
organization. In discussing the communication challenge, I have done this. To repeat and once
again summarize, the communication needs in this organization is a need for effective
communication between supervisors, managers and other employees. It is necessary that all of
the employees of this organization know when to be more formal and when to be more casual in
their communication. Supervisors and managers also need to be able to be more assertive when
needed.
Next, it is necessary to Design an intervention to meet the communication needs that
were assessed. I think that a necessary part of an intervention would be to execute a review of all
three levels of employees. For this review, I would ask employees both how effective they feel
they are performing and communicating and how they believe they could improve. Then I would
ask how effective they feel that the different level(s) of employees surrounding them are
performing, and how those employees, managers, and/or supervisors could improve. For each
question I would expand by asking how they or the other employees were being ineffective.
Their perceived notions about themselves and their perceived notions about the other employees
in the organization could be conflicting and not allowing them to understand each other point of
view and needs. I would then discuss anything that was seen as being ineffective and anything
that one considered effective, but others did not.

4. Furthermore, for the implementation step in intervention, I would implement regular
performance reviews between supervisors and managers, and managers and employee. I would
also implement weekly team meetings to discuss changes, or communication needs that could be
made more effective. Finally, to evaluate the intervention I would come back later, preferably six
months later, and go over the performance reviews. I would also sit down with the various
employees to see if they felt there had been any improvement, and if there was any ineffective
communication that needed to be reassessed. Hopefully, the initiation of this intervention plan
would succeed as I expect and would be effective for this campus dining location.

5. Sources
Gauntlett, D. (2002). Media, gender, and identity: An introduction. Retrieved September
27, 2016, from http://www.theory.org.uk/giddens2.htm