This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study of project managers' competency in two core communication processes – encoding and decoding. Using data collected from 186 cross-functional project team members from a variety of industries during nationwide project management workshops, stepwise regression analyses explored the association of project managers' decoding and encoding, with team members' satisfaction and productivity. Results show a significant communication–performance relationship. Specifically, project managers' competency in decoding and encoding are significantly associated with team member satisfaction, while project managers' encoding is significantly associated with project team productivity. Implications and future directions for both researchers and practicing project managers are discussed.
Over 60 years ago, Chester Barnard published his short, yet influential classic, The Functions of the Executive. In his book, he strongly asserted that communication is the primary task of any executive, and communication with employees regarding their concerns, problems, ideas, and suggestions about the organization is the critical skill of managing. As he originally stated, “In the exhaustive theory of organization, communication would occupy a central place, because the structure, extensiveness, and scope of organizations are almost entirely determined by communication techniques.” [1].
Barnard's insights aptly apply to today's project managers who occupy a central role in the structure, extensiveness, and scope of organizational work. As more and more organizations of the 21st century transform their structures and processes to accelerate and enhance project work [2], project managers often become quasi-executives with high responsibility and accountability, but minimum authority. They must influence a myriad of challenges that coordinate interdependent, concurrent, and cross-functional work efforts as well as effectively negotiate with a variety of project stakeholders [3] and [4]. Nowhere are these challenges felt so acutely than in communicating effectively with project team members who may be quite diverse in order to realize successful project outcomes [5]. Effective responses to these growing challenges require project managers who are, first and foremost, competent communicators.
The purpose of my paper is to advance our understanding of what competent communication entails for project managers who are challenged to produce successful project outcomes. To this point, I have designed an exploratory study to answer the following research question: What are the associations between project managers' competence in two core processes of communication – encoding and decoding – and their team members' satisfaction and productivity?
To answer this question, I administered a survey to 186 members of cross-functional project teams from a variety of industries during a series of nationwide project management seminars in the USA. Items in this questionnaire asked team members to assess the encoding and decoding communication competencies of their respective project managers, their (the team members') satisfaction with their project manager and team, and their judgments of their teams' productivity.
Results produced significant findings that project managers' encoding and decoding are associated with team satisfaction and productivity. No research to date has explored this association in terms of the core components of the communication process: encoding and decoding. The findings make an important contribution to the literature for both practicing project managers and researchers in the field. Last, the findings suggest several areas for future research in this area.
In this study, I was able to show a significant association between project managers' encoding and decoding, and their respective team members' satisfaction and project productivity. These results make an important contribution to our understanding of the communication–performance relationship. They also contribute valuable and needed knowledge about how the explicit, core processes of communication – encoding and decoding – operate in project management. Finally, the implications offer potentially beneficial directions for practitioners and researchers alike.
