Question

In “What Was Volkswagen Thinking?,” Jerry Useem (2016) discusses James Burke, the CEO of Johnson & Johnson, and highlights Burke’s decision to hold a meeting with his top executives to discuss eliminating the company credo. Burke was concerned that the managers were not reflecting upon the company credo for everyday decisions. He called for a debate among his top managers about the document and the role of moral duties in daily business. Instead of voting to remove it, the managers chose to revitalize the message of the credo within the company (Useem, 2016).

In your response, explain why this meeting was effective. Why do you believe Burke chose this type of channel—where the managers could not only directly talk to him, but they could also talk to each other—over other types of communication?

Your response should be at least 500 words in length.

Answer 1

Effective communication in general is needed in everyday life, but it is crucial to the success of businesses. Ineffective communication can quickly and easily cause businesses to fail. Choosing the proper mode of transmission is key to the task at hand. There are many modes of communication that are used in the business world daily, from face to face meetings, email, text messages, phone calls, video conferencing and conference calls. There are many factors that come in to play when deciding on a mode of communication, such as the importance of the information that needs to be transmitted, the number of people the information needs to be communicated to, how quickly a response is needed (if needed at all), etc.

Though many face to face interactions occur, today’s business world relies heavily on electronic communications such as email and conference calls. For standard day to day operations, electronic modes of communication are a great way to transmit quick and simple messages. Not to mention, in a global corporation employees are spread out all over the world, in different time zones. Therefore, sometimes an associate may have no choice but to use email to transmit a message because their colleague in Asia might be sleeping whenever the prompt for communication occurs! Therefore, sometimes email is the best mode of communication though responses may be delayed from associates in different time zones (or associates who are just plain busy).

In the article, "What Was Volkswagen Thinking?" (Jerry Useem ,2016), Jerry Useem examines the communication between the CEO of mega global corporation Johnson & Johnson, James Burke, and his leadership team over the company credo that was not being used to make day to day decisions. Deeming the importance of this topic, Burke decided to have this discussion face to face, and asked for his team members to actively debate the topic. This mode of communication was especially effective for the situation. A debate caused the team members to participate, not just listen, or better yet pretend to listen. It allowed the team members to actively analyze the question at hand. Everyone was able to give their take on the company credo and actively voice their opinion. In a setting such as this, different people are going to have different takes and ideas. Feedback can be given immediately, brainstorming can take place, and questions can be brought to the table. Another key to the effectiveness of a debate, face to face type of setting is that nonverbal cues of communication are visible.

Also, Burke involving his managers in such an important decision more than likely motivated them. Being involved with decision making can make people feel like their opinions are valued and that they as an employee are trusted. The debate setting probably created a sense of comradery as well, and helped the managers better understand each other. The mode that Burke chose turned out to be very effective in resolving the issue and in the end, they decided to revive the company credo, and put emphasis on acting morally on all accounts of business, including day to day operations.

(517 words)