Seafood Companies Fail to Reach Acquisition Agreement
Why does defensiveness harm communication?John Risley, chair and co-founder of
Halifax-based Clearwater Seafood, aimed to create a seafood giant by acquiring St.
John’s, Newfoundland-based Fishery Products International (FPI).^14
At first Risley was successful in his goal, when in May 2001 he engineered a takeover
of the FPI board. Immediately, he promised Newfoundlanders that they would lose
no jobs. This was a relief to the fishery workers, who had seen jobs tumble by two-
thirds in the past decades.
However, in January 2002 union representatives were told that to cut costs, up to
580 jobs would be lost from three rural Newfoundland plants. This announcement
angered workers and politicians alike. Risley defensively argued that the culture of
Newfoundland was the real problem: “This is a culture in which people think there’s
value in the number of jobs that become eligible for unemployment insurance,”
he said.
Allan Moulton, a union leader and employee at FPI’s Marystown plant for 30
years, spoke up at a public hearing on the FPI-Clearwater acquisition: “We’re not
the only seasonal workers in Canada and it’s unfortunate Newfoundland really got
pegged with this,” he added. “We worked long hours in this industry and every sin-
gle worker worked hard to save Fishery Products International, and we were suc-
cessful and we want to get back to doing that.”
During 2002, the acquisition was called off because the two companies could not
reach agreement, and plans to modernize FPI’s plants were scrapped. In mid-2006,
FPI was still having difficulties and hoping to sell off some of its holdings. More con-
siderate communication by Risley might have led to fewer problems and less defen-
siveness, and might have allowed his planned acquisition to go through.Information Overload
Individuals have a finite capacity for processing data. When the information we have to
work with exceeds our ability to process it, the result is information overload. With
emails, phone calls, faxes, meetings, and the need to keep current in one’s field, more
and more managers and professionals are complaining that they are suffering from too
much information. A related issue is the question of how much information managers
should share with employees.
What happens when individuals have more information than they can sort out and
use? They tend to select out, ignore, pass over, or forget information. Or they may put
off further processing until the overload situation is over. Regardless, the result is lost
information and less effective communication.
Language
Words mean different things to different people. “The meanings of words are not in
the words; they are in us.”^15 Age, education, and cultural background are three of
the more obvious variables that influence the language a person uses and the defi-
nitions he or she gives to words. For instance, when Alanis Morissette sang “Isn’t It
Ironic?” middle-aged English professors complained that she completely misunder-
stood the meaning of “irony”—but the millions who bought her CD understood
what she meant.
Chapter 6 Communication, Conflict, and Negotiation 191OB IN THE WORKPLACEinformation overload The state
of having more information than one
can process.Clearwater Seafood
http://www.clearwater.ca