Chapter 6 Communication, Conflict, and Negotiation 187Encoding and Decoding
Messages are encoded(converting a message to symbolic form) by a sender and decoded
(interpreting a sender’s message) by a receiver. Four factors have been described that
affect message encoding and decoding: skill, attitudes, knowledge, and the socio-cultural
system. For example, our success in communicating to you depends on our writing
skills and your reading skills. Communication success also includes speaking, listen-
ing, and reasoning skills. As we discussed in Chapter 3, our interactions with others
are affected by our attitudes, values, and beliefs. Thus, the attitudes of the sender and
receiver toward each other will affect how the message is transmitted. Clearly, the
amount of knowledge the source and receiver hold about a subject will affect the clar-
ity of the message that is transferred. Finally, our position in the social-cultural system
affects our ability to successfully engage in communication. Messages sent and received
by people of equal rank are sometimes interpreted differently than messages sent and
received by people in very different positions.
The Message
The messageis the actual physical product from the source encoding. “When we speak,
the speech is the message. When we write, the writing is the message. When we paint, the
picture is the message. When we gesture, the movements of our arms, the expressions on
our face are the message.”^5 Our message is affected by the code, or group of symbols, that
we use to transfer meaning; the content of the message itself; and the decisions that
we make in selecting and arranging both codes and content. A poor choice of symbols,
and confusion in the content of the message, can cause problems. McDonald’s recently
settled a lawsuit over its choice of words, as Focus on Ethics reveals.
encoding Converting a message
to symbolic form.
decoding Interpreting a sender’s
message.FOCUS ON ETHICSVegetarian or Not Vegetarian?
Does “no beef” really mean what it implies? In March 2002, Oak Brook, Illinois-
based McDonald’s Corporation agreed to pay $19 million (CDN) to settle lawsuits
from vegetarians who suggested the company had deceived them about how it pro-
duced french fries.^6 Under the agreement, McDonald’s had to pay $10 million to
charities that support vegetarianism. The company was also ordered to publicly apol-
ogize and learn about vegetarian dietary issues.
McDonald’s communication practices were questioned in the lawsuit. In 1990,
the company had announced that its restaurants would no longer use beef fat to cook
french fries. Instead, only pure vegetable oil would be used. What the company did not
say was that it would continue to add beef tallow to the fries as a flavouring agent.
When vegetarians discovered that they had been unwittingly eating beef-flavoured
fries, they were upset. McDonald’s claimed that it never said the french fries were
vegetarian. The company did apologize for any confusion its announcement caused,
however.Messages can also get “lost in translation” when two parties formalize their under-
standing through contracts. Contracts are meant to be written in legal terms, for lawyers, but
these may not always capture the underlying meaning of the parties’ understandings.
Collective agreements written between management and unions sometimes suffer from this
problem as well. When either management or union leaders point to the collective agree-
ment for every interaction in the workplace, they are relying on the encoding of their nego-
tiations, but this may not permit some of the flexibility that was intended in some cases.
message What is communicated.