Problem: Management Team Decision

Communication Dilemmas and Decisions As you watch the falling snow, you can't help thinking about the way the fax machine coughs out legal missives into a collection bin. You are a partner at Shaw Walker Theobald, a law firm with offices across the United States, and your office sits right next to the constantly humming fax machine. You're at your wit's end from the incessant buzzing. Documents of all lengths and levels of importance come through the fax; sometimes, a lawyer on one floor will write a question on a cover letter, send it by fax to a lawyer on another floor at your firm, and then request the answer by fax! While you pack your briefcase before heading home, you think, "What a drain on productivity! And the client ends up footing the bill. There has to be a more efficient way to communicate." After you finish dinner, you open your work and are again distracted-not by a fax, but by the pinging of your teenager's instant messaging on the computer in the den. Immediately, you think you've hit on a solution for the office. If the firm used instant messaging, you could save the energy used by the fax, eliminate all the paper, and have answers in an instant.

Communication would reach terminal speed! Unfortunately, you can't just implement your idea when you walk in tomorrow morning. You're only one of many partners, and they all have to approve anything that affects the management of the fi rm. How are you going to persuade a team of people trained to object? Instead of pulling a brief out of your bag, you flip to a clean sheet on your legal pad and begin drafting a convincing memo. Getting Started This exercise will give you practice in writing memos and giving verbal feedback. You will begin by writing a memo on your own based on the scenario you just read. Then assemble a team of five to six students. Make enough copies of your memo so that each team member can have one. The job of the team is to review and critique all the memos. You will want to review Section 3.3 on giving feedback before convening the team to evaluate the memos. Choose one team member to be the moderator. The moderator will be in charge of keeping the discussion on track and ensuring that it doesn't disintegrate into subjective attacks.

Activities: 1. Write a memo to your colleagues proposing the use of instant messaging to speed communication.

2. Convene the team and critique the members' memos. Try to use descriptive terms to give feedback about the memos. Avoid words like "good" and "bad"-they don't give the writer any real information about the effectiveness of the memo. Here are some adjectives that you might find useful as a starting point:

• Convincing

• Persuasive

• Condescending

• Concise

• Wordy

• Informative

• Detailed

• Sparse

• Neat

• Hard to follow

• Clear

• Sloppy

• Off-putting

• Effective

• Inappropriate

• Unprofessional

Don't limit your comment to a negative adjective, either. If you say a memo is hard to follow, explain why. What makes it hard to follow? If you say a memo is wordy, explain how it is wordy. And be specific: Point out which phrases are redundant, unnecessary, or repetitive.

3. Assume that your individual proposal was accepted, and the partners (your team) have asked you to announce the new capabilities and outline the rules for their use. Determine the best way to communicate the instant messaging plan to the junior partners, associates, paralegals, and office staff. Using whatever medium you think is best, write out your communication. For example, if you think e-mail is best, draft a relevant e-mail. If you think a memo would be appropriate, then draft one. If you think oral communication would be a better choice, draft the speech you will give. Regardless of your medium, you will need to remember your audience.

4. If you have time, repeat the group critique session with the second communication. You may also wish to discuss as a team which medium would be the best for telling everyone at the firm about the new instant messaging initiative.