Helen Christine Smith
Communication Process Model
Misunderstanding example 1 1. Who was the sender?
My boss of 1 day

2. Who was the receiver?
Myself

3. What was the message?
“Working in accounting department has some draw backs. One of these draw backs is that the first week of January is very critical. We really need your contribution tomorrow”

4. What was the channel used to send the message?
Email

5. What was the misunderstanding that occurred?
I felt that his message was not necessary because I am well aware of the responsibilities of and the importance of being in the office to close the books.

6. How could the misunderstanding have been avoided?
Since he was a new boss to me and we had not established a working relationship yet, I should have called him to inform him that I was ill and would not be in the office that day but would definitely be in the next morning. If I would have spoken to him it would have been easy for me to determine his tone instead of reading into the message the exact opposite of the point he was trying to make. In fact when I spoke to him the next day he informed me that he was considering me for his open position based on what my previous boss told him about me and that he wanted to make sure that I would be available to start training. The position will be filled at the beginning of Q2 and he wanted to make sure that I continued to work closely with his team so I can get the hands on training that I need in order to be a good fit for the position.
What I learned about this communication process from this activity is that there were two factors that weighed in my misunderstanding of his message. First I was not feeling well physically which therefore affected my mental state and caused me to be offended. Second because I am a model employee and therefore took offense to the possibility that