Our department, Dornsife Advancement can be divided into three units, the major gift officers (MGO's), the operations team (composed of all administrative and operation functions) and the corporate and foundations relations (CFR) officers. Each of these units function and communicate differently. When I asked Wayne to give me his thoughts on what the departments communication strategy, he broke it down into the three previously mentioned units. He said that for the CFR team collaboration and constant communication was necessary for their line of work. They work with government agencies, foundations and corporations that have a very clear message and expect clear requests from organizations looking to be funded. Since the CFR team has to always be clear and follow established rules they have to always be clear with their needs, messaging and requests. In CFR ambiguity doesn't exists. Unlike CFR, the MGO's work with less information and are less clear on what the current messages are that are coming from the top officials at the University. To deal with the ambiguity that they constantly have to work in, the MGO's have weekly meetings and are constantly in contact with their operations person (administrative assistant) who can keep them up to date with what is going on. Since the MGO's have to be on the road cultivating donors and fundraising they use their weekly meetings with each other to get clarity of what the funding priorities are and what the new case statement is, which depends on what the governing authorities decide it should be. Last but not least, Wayne discussed the operations team. The operations team serves the overall efforts of the department by providing accurate information that can be transmitted buy different methods, phone, email and phone. The operations team only be successful if they have clear, reliable and truthful information. To serve everyone the operation members come in contact with they have to be aware of all that is happening in the department and within the University.
Wayne stated that the operations team is "most impacted by lack of planning and without a clear communication strategy". He said that when there is a communication breakdown and there isn't a case statement every request becomes an emergency and the department becomes reactionary. To avoid this, the department needs to come up with a clear case statement and leadership at the top levels need to communicate more and with clear messaging. When I asked Wayne why he thought the messaging was vague, he said, "when you make your goals and objectives known, you are then accountable for them". He said that ambiguity gives them time to see if what they are planning will work and if it does, they continue with it but if it doesn't it will allow them to change direction without having to explain why it failed. As stated by Eisenberg, "Strategic ambiguity in task-related communication can preserve future options" (1984, p. 235).
To conclude, is ambiguity a form of strategic communication at USC, yes it is. Top level managers use vagueness to "reduce unnecessary conflict" (Eisenberg, 194, p. 231) and to "maintain their formal or informal standing in the company (William & Gross, 1975)" (Eisenberg, 194, p. 235). Ambiguity can allow for interpretations of messaging that can be beneficial to all parties involved, more so when the end result is better than what it was intended.
Combs, W. A. (2012, February 24). An oral interview with Mr. Wayne C. Combs/Interviewer:
Xiomara J. Moncada. Los Angeles, California.
Eisenberg, E. (1984). Ambiguity as strategy in organization communication. Communication
Monographs, 51, 227-242.
Xiomara, you provide a very thorough breakdown of the communication strategies of the three departments within Dornsife Advancement. It seems you have witnessed strategic ambiguity firsthand in your organization.
ReplyDeleteYou touch a little bit on Eisenberg's notion that strategic ambiguity can be used to "promote unified diversity" Can you think of a specific example from your organization(e.g. a specific message that was interpreted in different ways by the different units)?
Is there any coordination among the units in terms of their external messaging strategies?
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ReplyDeleteJessica,
ReplyDeleteThere are so many messages that come from the top management officials that say, "We need to raise money for laboratories and endowments". This message is interpreted in many ways; The CFR group can see funding from different agencies to fund labs in different departments, while the MGO's seek funding for an endowment that can generate a lab in the department where the endowment will be located. Since the official message is vague, interpretations are different.
Other people can hear the same message and wonder, what is the priority, is it labs or is it endowment? You don't know and once you go out and seek funding and get it you either did a good job, or you asked for the wrong thing, the one thing that they don't see as a priority. Securing the gift is still a positive thing because the University will still take the gift (they will never turn a gift down) and count it towards the fundraising totals but it will still seek more funding for labs and endowments from other donors and agencies.
Ambiguity does "promote unified diversity" (Eisenberg, 1984) and often times the University makes it a point to be vague so that the fundraising efforts do not become limited and in turn eliminating potential donors who have their own funding interests.
The coordination between units does happen in my department and is conducted by our associate dean who sets the priorities based on the needs of the College which often times coincide with those of the University. So at our department level we do make an effort to have clear direction and it is the reason we have different meetings.
I must say that ambiguity has forced more communication between all of the fundraising teams and it is beneficial because they are sharing ideas, concerns and successes to help in the formation of their external messaging to donors.
Ambiguity to my surprise is also conducive to team work.
Eisenberg, E. (1984). Ambiguity as strategy in organization communication. Communication Monographs, 51, 227-242.