As a middle level manager, I am responsible to handle the Networking Team of the Information Technology department. The team consists of 20 members and is a mix of technology graduates and diploma holders. The communication within the team is a two-way communication however usually as a manager; I am the initiation of the communication.
The readers of the memo are supposed to be the employees of the same company and therefore as an individual’s we all are a part of the organization we are working for and as employees we are all alike, however at the same time considering the fact that I am a part of the management and my team is the resources that are engaged into production we are different.
Ko and mei, meaning “together” and “change”, are very important aspects of this memo writing as it is important to understand the similarity and the change due to which I am writing and the audience will just get to know about it. The “Ko” factor can be explained by the fact that as a team working towards a particular goal, we are together and perform. I am responsible for the team’s performance and the team is responsible to perform according to my expectations, however we together are responsible for the results. At the same time ‘mei’ can be explained by the fact that I am a part of the management and will have to do whatever it takes to benefit the management and the company and no matter how the decision taken, impacts the team, I will have to take it in order to benefit my organization.
Self-Actualization is the most important aspect of this memo, as the performance issues must be reported at the earliest so that the employees can understand that in case if there is no improvement, considering a layoff they can be one of the employees who may not prove beneficial for the organization anymore and may result to be out soon. Till the time the employees do not realize the same, they will not be able to push themselves to perform better and therefore self-realization is the most important part of the corporate grid that matters in this case.
The given memo, explains that the sender is not interested in the ‘we’ of the community and is not addressing the community in the right manner. The ‘I’ is too strong and it should not be used in the context as the memo loses its ‘message purpose’ and the self-assessment factor will never come into play. Once again the important Ko-Mei factor is not considered while writing the memo and it seems that the team was never together and that the manager is too different from the team, and is not impacted by anything. The corporate communication grid requires that every message should be written for a purpose and with the way this memo is written, it defeats the purpose of writing it and no performance improvement can be observed as there will not be any self-assessment or realization among the readers.
We have not been performing up to the expectations of this organization, despite my several warnings in the last few weeks. It is important to understand that if not profitable, the company is forced to layoff, due to the economic downturn currently going on. I would like to inform you all, that due to our consistent nonperformance the company will be soon assessing this team for layoffs as the IT department will be shifted, off Canada. You may contact the HR team, if you have any questions regarding the same.
References
Davis, K. D. (2004). Manage Your Writing. Indianapolis: McGraw-Hill.
