Organizational Communication Analysis Paper: The Music Center

Victoria Ashby

San Jose State University

     When I was eighteen years old, I got a call from my cousin, Jessica. We grew up together in San Jose but at twenty-five years old, she decided that it was time for a change. She was moving to San Diego. Thus, she was leaving her job at The Music Center, where she had been teaching vocal and piano lessons for several years. “They need to find a replacement for me and I would highly recommend you,” Jessica explained. That was the beginning of my journey at the Music Center. For three years, I was employed at the Music Center as a vocal and piano instructor. As a small company, the Music Center was founded by my boss, Mark, and it operated out of his home. Three large rooms in his house became three large music studios. Each studio contained musical instruments, recording equipment, and a Mac computer. Mark employed one administrative assistant and four to five music teachers depending on the season. By the time I left my job at the Music Center, I had become one of their longest-standing employees. Because the company comprised of a small group of people, I could easily access the inner workings of the company and observe the communication patterns between people. The Music Center is an excellent example of the different ways that Morgan views organizations. I am going to explain how the Music Center is exemplifies Morgan’s views of organizations as organisms, as cultures, and as political systems.

     When Morgan examined organizations as organisms, he discussed the contingency theory which is a theory of organizational adaptation. It maintains that the survival of an organization is contingent on its ability to adapt to stabilize turbulence in the environment. He argued that organizations desire to operate in a state of homeostasis where they are at balance with their environment. At the Music Center, Mark had to adapt to the turbulence in our environment to maintain homeostasis. Ideally, he would love to employ four or five teachers to teach a steady number of students all year. However, in my three years as his employee, I learned that teaching is a particularly seasonal business. There are often a surplus of students who want to take music lessons during months like September, October, March and April. Unfortunately, January and summer months can be painfully slow months of business. In January, students are coming out of the holiday season and they aren’t ready to make any commitments. During the summer, many students take vacations and they don’t have a regular daily routine that accommodates music lessons. As a result, business at the Music Center decreased and income dropped.

     Morgan suggested that organizations need to engage in evolution when their situation is shifting. Since our environment at the Music Center was changing, we needed to change as well. Therefore, Mark got creative to bring in extra business during slow months. He would often advertise special deals during the summer. New students were allowed to register for a month of lessons at half of our regular rates. Occasionally, he would stumble across someone during his day-to-day life who was interested in taking lessons. If he knew them personally, he would offer them a month of lessons without charging them any money. He hoped that they would enjoy their experience at the Jam Center so much that they would continue as a student in the future. By offering them free services, he hoped to gain a loyal customer for several years into the future. This strategy was particularly effective. I remember a young lady named Apryl who came to me for vocal lessons. Mark had met her at church where she sang on the worship team. He offered her a month of free lessons with me and when the month finished, she continued to pay for lessons. Mark used personal connections like this and extra advertising to adapt to the months where our student numbers were low.

     In addition, Mark applied a level of feedback in his organization that Morgan associated with the metaphor of organizations as organisms. According to the organism view, employees probably know how to make their work process more effective than the managers do since they are the people that actively engage in the work process. Therefore, management should collect feedback from their employees and customers to make their organization more adaptive. At the Music Center, Mark organized a staff meeting every six months for all of his employees. During the meeting, he gave us an update on the organization and he also set aside a portion of our time for feedback. He acknowledged that we usually knew our students better than he did. He asked us questions like these: “What do your studios need?” “What isn’t working for you in our current work process?” “Which students are really excelling right now?” During the six months without staff meetings, Mark made it a priority to check in with me periodically for feedback. If I had a problem with a student, Mark was always ready with a listening ear. At one point, I was teaching piano lessons to a three-year-old boy. After our first two lessons, I knew that this student was going to be a challenge. I explained the situation to Mark and told him that I needed the student’s mother to come to lessons with him. Mark quickly adapted to the situation by contacting his parents and asking them to participate in the piano lessons. I saw the organisms metaphor clearly at the Music Center because we adapted to turbulence in the environment using advertisement, personal connection, and feedback.

     Morgan’s culture metaphor also surfaced in my experience at the Music Center. In any cultural group, people use communication to create shared understanding and shared meaning for symbols. In organizations, communication is also used to integrate people into the culture or to give membership to the organization. This metaphor from Morgan emphasizes the meaning behind symbols rather than their practical function. Each organization holds a set of central values and they use symbolic activity to reinforce those values. For example, Mark wanted our customers to see us as a fun, modern, athletic staff. To portray this image, he designed a stylish black t-shirt with our logo on it. On one sleeve, it bore the white words: “MUSIC COACH.” He asked us to wear these t-shirts every day at work and explained that our staff should look fun and athletic. One day, I came into work with a sweater over my t-shirt because I was cold. Within my first hour of work, he asked me where my t-shirt was because he wanted me to portray a specific image. Another day, I came into work wearing my t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Mark looked at me and smiled with approval. “That outfit is perfect for the Music Center,” he said.

     Mark also placed a high priority on the idea of “family.” He wanted our staff to have deep and honest relationships so that we would feel like a family. When he first hired me, he told me that I could come into his kitchen and help myself to the food in the fridge. When I had a break between students, Mark let me take a nap on the couch. During my last year at the Music Center, Mark invited our whole staff to go out for a company dinner. He asked us all to come downtown to a fancy, Italian restaurant called Il Fornaio. I expected the event to be one of our regular staff meetings but when I arrived, Mark didn’t want to talk about work at all. He simply asked us to share the big things that were going on in our lives so that we could support one another. I never saw the bill but I expect that Mark paid $600 to $700 for that dinner. He used it as a symbol to strengthen the value of family relationships within our organization’s culture.

     Lastly, I saw Morgan’s metaphor of organizations as political systems come to life at the Music Center. In this metaphor, Morgan suggests that people each have individual interests that can be satisfied by membership to an organization. However, occasions may arise where the interests of different members conflict with one another and they are forced to make a decision. The view of organizations as political systems argues that the person or group with the most power will prevail when resolving conflict. I saw this metaphor play out when I was transitioning out of my job at the Music Center. Last September, I was a full-time student and working two jobs. I was completely burnt out and my health was weak. It was in my best interest to leave my job at the Music Center. I told Mark that I needed to leave and the conflict arose. I had worked for him for three years and I knew his organization inside and out. I had deep, healthy relationships with my students so it was in Mark’s best interest to keep me as an employee.

     Morgan describes five different communication styles that can be used in conflict situations and Mark relied on two of them in his attempt to resolve our conflict of interests. First, he tried to avoid the conflict in hopes that it would go away. He reminded me that I had committed to the semester with my students so I needed to finish the calendar year with them. I knew that he was hoping that my time management and health issues would fade away. He didn’t talk to me about it for a month in hopes that I would just change my mind. When he realized that I wasn’t changing my mind, he employed the compromise communication style. Compromising allows both parties to negotiate to a point where one party must give something up to achieve temporary settlements to complex issues. Mark offered to raise my hourly wage by about 30% if I would stay at the Music Center and keep the same hours. He also offered to give me $500 in bonuses every year. I was amazed at his generous offer but I knew that I couldn’t keep the same hours because of my new class schedule. When I told him that I couldn’t keep my current work schedule, he revised his offer. He told me that I could work less hours and he would still give me the 30% raise but he would keep the annual bonuses. I took a lot of time to think and pray about Mark’s proposal. In the end, I made the difficult decision to reject his offer and leave my job. Throughout that experience, I resonated with Morgan’s metaphor of organisms as political systems.

     I am extremely thankful for my experience at the Music Center and for my relationship with Mark as my boss. I saw our music school adapt to turbulent environmental factors through the metaphor of organizations as organisms. Mark used employee feedback as a tool for adaptation. I was integrated into the culture of the Music Center through Mark’s symbolic actions like company dinners or uniform designs. He instilled the cultural value of “family” in each one of his employees. And when I left my position as a music coach, I experienced the organizations as political systems metaphor. I saw a difference of interests create a conflict situation. Mark engaged in the communication styles of avoiding and compromising in an attempt to resolve the conflict. I’m also really thankful for my organizational communication class because it allowed me to understand my own experiences in concrete concepts. Morgan’s organizational metaphors gave me a deeper understanding of the communication that occurred at the Music Center.