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he’s late for a staff meeting. The supplier on the other end of the phone line has just
given Bill a choice among the products and delivery dates he requested. Bill realizes
he missed hearing the first two options, but he doesn’t have time to ask the supplier to
repeat them all or to try reconnecting to place the order at a later time. He chooses the

third option—at least he heard that one, he reasons, and it seemed fair. How good
was Bill’s decision amid all the information he was processing at the same time?
Emotional disconnects
Emotional disconnects happen when the Sender or the Receiver is upset,
whether about the subject at hand or about some unrelated incident that may have
happened earlier. An effective communication requires a Sender and a Receiver who
are open to speaking and listening to one another, despite possible differences in
opinion or personality. One or both parties may have to put their emotions aside to
achieve the goal of communicating clearly. A Receiver who is emotionally upset
tends to ignore or distort what the Sender is saying. A Sender who is emotionally
upset may be unable to present ideas or feelings effectively.
Lack of Source Credibility
Lack of source familiarity or credibility can derail communications,
especially when humor is involved. Have you ever told a joke that fell flat? You and
the Receiver lacked the common context that could have made it funny. (Or yes, it
could have just been a lousy joke.) Sarcasm and irony are subtle, and potentially
hurtful, commodities in business. It’s best to keep these types of communications out
of the workplace as their benefits are limited, and their potential dangers are great.
Lack of familiarity with the Sender can lead to misinterpreting humor, especially in
less-rich information channels like e-mail. For example, an e-mail from Jill that ends
with, “Men, like hens, should boil in vats of oil,” could be interpreted as antimale if
the Receiver didn’t know that Jill has a penchant for rhyme and likes to entertain
coworkers by making up amusing sayings.
Similarly, if the Sender lacks credibility or is untrustworthy, the Message will
not get through. Receivers may be suspicious of the Sender’s motivations (“Why am
I being told this?”). Likewise, if the Sender has communicated erroneous information
in the past, or has created false emergencies, his current Message may be filtered.
Workplace gossip, also known as the grapevine, is a lifeline for many
employees seeking information about their company. Researchers agree that the
[6]
grapevine is an inevitable part of organizational life. Research finds that 70% of all
organizational communication occurs at the grapevine level.
[7]
Employees trust their peers as a source of Messages, but the grapevine’s
informal structure can be a barrier to effective communication from the managerial
point of view. Its grassroots structure gives it greater credibility in the minds of
employees than information delivered through official channels, even when that
information is false.
Some downsides of the office grapevine are that gossip offers politically
minded insiders a powerful tool for disseminating communication (and self-
promoting miscommunications) within an organization. In addition, the grapevine
lacks a specific Sender, which can create a sense of distrust among employees—who
is at the root of the gossip network? When the news is volatile, suspicions may arise

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