U-4_Effective Human Communications_Shadowing Exercise

Human Communications in a Customer-Relations Front Office
Shadowing Exercise
Unit 4 – Effective Communication
Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and University of Bath
Unit Tutor – Robin Beaumont
Student – Sanjoy Sanyal
March 2005

Preface
Sociologists live by it; it is the bread and butter of qualitative researchers, and ethnographers thrive in it. But I disliked it; the term
shadowing. To me it conjured up images of a private eye tailing a woman whose paranoid husband suspected her of infidelity, or a
stalker following a woman who takes his distorted fancy. Even the Microsoft® Encarta® [1] defines it thus:

• Somebody always following after another: somebody who constantly follows another person around wanting to be with the
other person
• Person secretly trailing another: somebody, for example, a detective or spy, who secretly follows somebody

If there is anything I disliked more than the term ‘shadowing’, it was the act itself. But it is an accepted and hoary qualitative
research technique. I remembered the writing of Alice Walker [2] (US African-American* novelist and poet);

“I've found, in my own writing, that a little hatred, keenly directed, is a useful thing”.

Thus, one fine day saw me sitting in the plush office of Airtel Telecom (Seychelles) Limited doing precisely
that, observing and talking to the customer relations lady behind her swank desk as a non-participant observer
in a mini-ethnographic exercise*; in other words ‘shadowing’ her.

Basil Bernstein tells us that middle-class speakers make more use of the personal pronoun “I”. [3] I was fond
of the first person reference ever since I was a child, even before I knew about Bernstein or even whether I
was middle-class or not. Till my teachers taught me that the proper usage is “We”. But this is my shadowing
exercise; therefore a first person account is what follows.

Pictures – Hermeneutic units for Interpretivism and QDA

At relevant points in the description I have used pictures. Apart from directly pertaining to certain parts of the text, the pictures
have also been used as hermeneutic units. As Michael D. Myers tells us, hermeneutics can be treated as an underlying philosophy
or as a specific mode of analysis. As a philosophical approach to human understanding, it provides the philosophical grounding for
interpretivism in qualitative research. [4] This is very important in this mini-ethnographic description.

Secondly, as a mode of analysis, hermeneutics is primarily concerned with the meaning of a text or text-analogue; it suggests a
way of understanding textual data. [4] I have used the pictures as hermeneutic units, as a specific mode of analyzing data from a
qualitative standpoint. In so doing, I have utilized a technique similar to what Thomas Muhr had done in his qualitative data
analysis (QDA) program, ATLAS.ti. His program has a hermeneutic unit editor that can analyze pictures or parts thereof. [5] In
my essay also I have analysed the pictures. Each picture has one or more hyperlinks. Clicking on any of the links will take the
reader to the appropriate portion of the text. Hovering the mouse-cursor will display a screen-tip giving a qualitative analysis of
that picture or part thereof.

Finally, certain key words have been marked with a hyperlinked asterisk, which will take the reader to the appropriate part of the
end note and also give a screen-tip description of the word.

Unit 4-Effective Communication; Shadowing Exercise; RCSEd+Univ of Bath; Unit Tutor-Robin Beaumont; Student-Sanjoy Sanyal 2

Introduction – Why Airtel customer office?
My choice of shadowing environment and shadowee was ideal from several perspectives. This was an exercise in a
communication module of the MSc course. And Airtel is a major telecommunication
service provider in Asia and Africa that connected people and ‘brought them closer’.
Secondly, I am personally fascinated by communication technology. However, these two
points do not strictly fit the bill of requirements of this study. More pertinent was the third
point. I had chosen the front office of the company for my shadowing exercise, where
public dealing and customer relations are the most important aspects of their work. So
there was a lot of scope to observe the complexities and nuances of face-to-face
communication in its richest and most variegated form. This was a world view-2 setting,
ideal for this exercise. Fourthly, being an Airtel customer myself, I was familiar with the
ladies ‘manning’ the swanky customer relations desks. Fifth point; I had treated a
colleague of the front desk ladies, who herself was not sitting in that particular office. Thus they knew me not only as their
customer but also as a doctor. Finally, and this I can say from my personal experience in tackling vast numbers of clients in the
outpatient clinics, it appeared to me these ladies were in a very tough profession. In spite of dealing with hordes of customers
daily, they were actually in a very solitary occupation, with no one to communicate with. I was reminded of the cry of the ship-
wrecked sailor cast away on sea on a small boat;

“Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!”

Whole day long they were listening to customers’ complaints; did they have anybody willing to listen to their complaints? I
wanted to see how these ladies managed and coped, and what they thought and said. What were their private feelings?

“You are welcome!”

Therefore when I told T’ina (anagram of her actual name) that as part of a course that I
was undertaking, I wanted to observe how she worked in a typical day, she gave me a
charming smile (the one she reserves for her special customers!) and said, “You are
welcome”. She even suggested that I should come towards the end of the month when
they got rush of customers, so that I could observe a wide variety of people and
problems, and how they dealt with them. It almost seemed as if T’ina knew exactly
what I wanted for the purpose of my shadowing exercise, without requiring any
elaboration from me!

A job well begun is half done; I patted myself symbolically on my back! Herbert Blumer’s symbolic interaction came to my mind.
The initial gesture from me, T’ina’s response to that gesture and the result (my securing permission to shadow her) neatly
constituted the three-part relationship of the social act that is encapsulated in George Herbert Mead’s movement*. [6]

Theoretical perspective – Communication genre
This was an all-female office. So my first temptation was to take a feminist perspective while tackling this exercise. But on closer
observation I noticed that the femininism was not an issue here.

“Communication is never a simple tool, but a way in which culture itself is produced and reproduced.” (Littlejohn and Foss, p316) [7]
As Gareth Morgan has described, the third defining dimension of an organization is its culture, and he has treated culture itself
as a metaphor to describe the organizational culture. Just like a society identifies with a culture because of shared values, beliefs
and practices, an organization also has all of these things. [8] I had a feeling that the working of my shadowee office and the
people that thronged there reflected, in a mutually dovetailing fashion, the culture of the organization and of the society in which
the organization thrived. Therefore I decided to focus on organizational culture in the socio-cultural tradition.
“The study of the individual as a social being is the thrust of the socio-psychological tradition.” (Littlejohn and Foss, p 43) [9]
Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, one of my main interests was the shadowee and her thoughts and needs, and her feelings and
attitudes about her organization. I wanted to gain an insight into the socio-psychological aspect of the organization. This prompted
me to also concentrate on the organization in the socio-psychological tradition. I shall elaborate more on these in my post-
shadowing reflection.

‘Facing the world’ – Literally and figuratively
The customer relations front office itself was a reflection of the underlying theme, purpose and culture of the
company. The entire front was in two-way see-through plate glass. I could see the pedestrians walking the
pavement; the cars going down the road. And the people outside could just as easily see us inside. It was
separated from outside, yet part of the outside world.


Only two of the four desks were ‘manned’ (because both were ladies!), one by T’ina, the senior personnel, and the other by R’aas
(another anagram of the actual name). Between these two, this office handled ninety-five percent of the public dealing work. The
other desks were occupied only during the extreme peak days, when extra personnel was sent from the head office in Providence.
T’ina being more senior dealt mostly with troubleshooting problems, requiring more experience and patience.

My strategic position
Keeping Edward Halls’ kinesthetic factors and proxemics [10] in mind I had chosen my spot rather carefully. I had positioned
myself on one end of a settee not far from T’ina. This was a strategic location from several points of view, both literally and
figuratively. I was close enough to T’ina to hear her discourse with her customers without making the latter feel as if I was
breathing down their necks. Secondly, from that position I could also converse with T’ina in a normal conversational tone and
decibel, in between customer dealings. Thirdly, I could maintain eye contact with the other lady, R’aas, who also knew why I was
there. Finally, my position gave me a clear view of the entire customer waiting area, where I could observe and study them as they
awaited their turn.
My situation and position thus included all the three key components embodied in Hall’s 1974 definition of proxemics; the study
of transactions; interactions viewed in spatial context (intimate, personal, social, and public); and behavior learned or culturally
determined. [11]

“And they said unto Halcolm, ‘Tell us, Aged One, what is evaluation?’ ‘To understand a world you must become part of that
world while at the same time remaining separate, a part of and apart from’ ”. [12]

From Halcolm's Methodological Chronicle and Universal Encyclopedic Dictionary of Evaluation

Halcolm was the fictional sage-like character, Sufi-Zen master, research guru and a philosophical alter ego of Michael Quinn
Patton, (author of “Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods”), all rolled into one. He was known for his sage advice and
anecdotes. Sitting in that office I reflected that not only was I undertaking precisely that type of qualitative study preached by
Halcolm, I also felt that the glass-fronted office epitomized the theme of the organization, ‘a part of and apart from’ the world it
was trying to connect and communicate with.
Informal communication atmosphere
The first thing that struck me outright was the informality of the communication atmosphere. This informality was obvious in
several different planes of interaction.

“Bon jour” – The customers

Firstly, there was no token or electronic/digital numbering system for the customers. Customers would walk in, say “Bon jour”
generally to the world at large and plunk themselves on whichever vacant position was available on the settee of the waiting area
with a sigh of relief. With the thermometer crossing the thirty degree centigrade mark, the air-conditioning in the office was no
doubt a welcome relief.

And as if by a tacit pre-arrangement, each knew when his/her turn came to go to T’ina (or R’aas). Whenever either got free, the
next waiting person got up and walked to the appropriate desk. I never observed any confusion, grumbling, argument or any
attempt by anybody ‘to jump the queue’. The customers were from all age groups, both sexes, and came singly, in pairs (couples)
and with families. The dress code was casual, by and large. The net inflow and outflow of customers to and from the office were
almost evenly matched.

Customers with T’ina
The second aspect of informality was in the interaction between the customers and T’ina. After
the customary, “Bon jour! Comment cá vá?”, the entire exchange was invariably casual and
conducted in a soft-voiced tone. Often customers would get up from their chair and go over to
stand on T’ina’s side as she explained something to them. The situations ranged from paying bills
to getting pre-paid / SIM cards to mobile phone troubleshooting.

Watching T’ina I realized I was witnessing the actual enactment of James Taylor’s ‘double
translation’ process in real life; proof positive of the validity of his theory of conversation and
text in the process of organizing. [13] There was the first translation from text to conversation
and then there was the second translation, from conversation to text, during T’ina’s interaction
with everyone.

Customer-to-customer

This office seemed to me an ad hoc meeting point. Thus I noticed the third aspect of informality. Quite often two or more in the
waiting area knew each other from before (not very uncommon in Seychelles, with its close-knit almost static population of
82,000). What followed would be light-hearted banter and chatter, in which, more often than not, T’ina and / or R’aas would also


join, while at the same time attending to the customer already present at their desk. Obviously, they all knew each other from
before; but more on this later.

T’ina with (non)-customers

The fourth aspect of informality was observable in T’ina’s interaction with those who were not waiting as customers. Many times
I noticed people walking on the pavement outside the glass front giving a cheery wave to T’ina, which she returned equally
cheerily. Several times people walked in and kept plastic bags of grocery, vegetables etc on the side table and left, only to come
later to collect them. This day happened to be a general shopping day for the local population. Another time a lady came in and
asked for R’aas, who had just gone out to buy some vegetables of her own, having borrowed some money from T’ina for the
purpose. Yet one more time, a lady in the waiting area offered a fruit she was eating to T’ina, which she declined to accept, saying
that she was “on a diet”. Then there was this gentleman who waited his turn till T’ina was free. Then he showed her some
decorative pieces he had just bought for his drawing room. T’ina admired them, winked at me and mouthed, “Beautiful, aren’t
they?” They really were beautiful. Once one lady, after finishing paying her bill, pulled up another chair and sat down right there,
munching an apple and talking to T’ina, while the latter continued attending to the other customers in the queue.

As T’ina later explained to me, they were all ultimately Airtel (and therefore her) customers, with whom she had developed a
rapport by virtue of her seniority and duration of stay at the front office, not to mention the small size of the local population.
“Most of these people started out as my customers and now they have become my friends and we have developed social contacts”,
is how she described it.

But to me all these signified something more. I was witnessing some examples of socio-emotional behaviours (seeming friendly,
dramatizing etc), embodied in Robert Bales’ Interaction Process Analysis in the socio-psychological tradition. [14] T’ina was
unconsciously engaging in dramatizing behaviour as a means of relieving tension, by sharing experiences etc that did not directly
relate to her task.

I was also reminded of Michael Pacanowsky and Nick O’Donnell-Trujillo’s organizational communication performances,
which I shall elaborate later. [15]

Cross-cultural atmosphere
Seychelles was an erstwhile French colony and subsequently a British one. Therefore French-Creole and English are the first and
second national languages respectively. The whole population speaks Creole, while approximately ninety percent can speak and/or
understand English. Then there is the vast influx of tourists (and exchange students), mostly from UK / European countries
(notably Germany), and a few from North America. Finally there is the sizeable expatriate population (like myself) who are
employed by the various ministries, which includes people from countries as diverse as Cuba, India, China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Philippines, Czech Republic, erstwhile Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Bulgaria etc. The economy is almost entirely based on tourism.

Even the true Seychellois citizen is actually a mixture of multiple ethnic races and communities. It is estimated that ninety-seven
percent of the citizens are of mixed origin, tracing their heritage to Mozambique (and other African countries), India, France,
England, and China. Therefore it is not at all uncommon to find a person with white skin (Caucasian), tightly curled black hair
(African) and a typically Indian name (Pillay, for example), speaking fluent French-Creole and English; multi-ethnicity in its
truest form.

“What we perceive, how we understand and how we act are very much shaped by the language of our culture.” (Littlejohn and
Foss, p 300) [7]

Tower of Babel – Multilingual communication

Given all these, not unexpectedly, I found a virtual ‘Tower of Babel’ among the waiting customers, not to speak of the potpourri
of cultural mix. Here are a few examples:

A lady customer with a very short haircut sat at T’ina’s desk to pay her bills. T’ina made a complimentary remark about her
hairstyle, to which the lady replied, in impeccable English, but with an indeterminate accent, “It’s too hot outside. That’s why I’ve
got a Halle Beri haircut!”, which evoked a round of appreciative laughter from everybody within hearing range. Both T’ina and
R’aas gave me a knowing look, as if sharing a secret joke.

A middle-aged gentleman approached T’ina. He spoke only Italian, presumably a tourist. He wanted a prepaid card for his mobile
phone. After his phone was charged, he wanted to know how to use it to send and receive calls to and from Italy. Some of the
waiting customers pooled in their knowledge of the country code for Italy and the difference in time zones between Italy and
Seychelles. T’ina patiently explained everything to him, using a combination of English, French and a smattering of Italian, and
wrote all the relevant details down on a piece of paper and handed to him.

Then there was this Chinese gentleman, presumably an expatriate worker. He had a problem of high outstanding bills. “How so?”
was his query. T’ina referred him to R’aas, who had the computer printout of his billing details. She gently needled him, “Chinese
talk too much, don’t they?” “Never!” came the mock indignant reply; it was all in good humour.


Throughout all this I was observing firsthand how actual social groups come to build meaning through their linguistic and non-
linguistics behaviours; the precise definition of ethnography as envisaged by Michael Agar and Paul Atkinson [16,17]. Likewise,
several different cultural styles of communication have been documented between different ethnic groups*.

“Next please” – Eye contact
In contrast to the beginning of the day when customers were coming in fits and starts, it was the middle of the day by now and
people were walking in (and out) in a steady stream. T’ina (and R’aas) was able to balance the rush so neatly that the waiting area
always had just so many people sitting on the available settees; nobody was forced to stand around. Even though there were no
tokens or numbering system, almost instinctively, intuitively if you will, T’ina knew who was next in the queue, in spite of
handling a steady stream of customers. Equally tacitly, the customers themselves also knew when it was their turn. But there were
some who didn’t.

At the end of her session with one, T’ina would look directly at the next person waiting and say softly, “Next please”, indicating
thereby that she knew it was his/her turn. Several times the waiting customers, seeing I had obviously been sitting before them,
thought I was a customer and it was my turn, and indicated to me that I can go to sit at T’ina’s desk. I had to smile and indicate to
them, “It’s all right; you can take your turn”.

Everybody was talking very softly; maybe the sedate ambience of the office contributed to it, or maybe because it is considered
impolite to talk loudly in the Seychellois culture. That is why the visual code component of proxemics, as defined by Edward
Hall, [10] seemed to play a prominent role in the communication space of the office. It would not be out of place to mention that
the olfactory code [10] also plays a considerable role here because the Seychellois are avid users of perfumes, T’ina being no
exception. Maybe the oppressively humid heat is responsible for this behaviour.

T’ina, the multipurpose lady
Being the senior-most person in the office, it was T’ina’s lot to handle just about anything and everything
the company could think of. Even between customers she was busy. Apart from the usual chores
mentioned earlier, she was also engaged in a company promotional activity. Whenever a customer
purchased a scratch card and scratched the black mark to get the code number, some lucky ones also got a
prize that was engraved on the card (a wrist strap, neck strap etc), which they could collect from T’ina
after showing the card. Several lucky ones collected their small gifts gleefully from T’ina. One poor soul
was a bit disappointed on not getting anything even after purchasing several cards. Seeing the crestfallen
look on the lady customer’s face T’ina consoled her, “Don’t worry, you’ll get lucky next time!”

In aid of tsunami victims

Airtel had arranged a musical evening that day. The proceeds of the sale of tickets were to be handed over to Indonesia and other
countries devastated by the recent tsunami, to aid in the rehabilitation of the survivors and bereaved families. Each ticket was
worth Seychelles Rupees (SR) 25 (approximately GBP 2.36). Of course, the event had been well advertised earlier. This office
was the outlet for the sale of the tickets and it was T’ina’s lot to dispense them. This was over and above her work of attending to
the regular customers. People of Seychelles, being music lovers, were thronging to buy the tickets, and most of them were not
Airtel customers. T’ina was handling that, in between her customers, and maintaining a separate account of the collection.

T’ina – The epitome of patience

T’ina was the very epitome of patience. I noticed one customer walking in four times and approaching T’ina with some problem
with his phone. Each time T’ina handled his queries with remarkable forbearance. To another who had a rather lower than usual
bill, she joked, “You are not talking much these days!” At one point she even got up from her place and sat next to the customer
on the settee itself to help him with his troubleshooting. T’ina handled them all with neither a hair nor word out of place.
Referring to patience, “Keep your hair on” is an anonymous London street saying; T’ina may very well have coined the phrase!
T’ina, in spite of being under pressure from the demanding nature of her duties, never appeared to be actually under pressure. I
can vouch from my personal experience in the outpatient clinic that it is not an easy task. Seeing her in action brought to my mind
the quotation from Comte de Buffon (1707-1788), the French naturalist, “Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience.” [1]

People I knew
Have I mentioned Seychelles is a small place? It is said that you cannot sneeze twice without people getting to know about it. I
cannot go anywhere without bumping into a couple of persons (at least) who I know, not to speak of many more who know me
but I may not know them, since expatriate doctors are a minority breed here. Therefore, not surprisingly, two people came to pay
their bills at different times, who knew me and I them. At our cheery wave to each other, T’ina gave me a knowing look, because
she also knew both of them from her previous encounters. If anything, I was slightly disappointed that there were not more than
two.


But I was glad that none of them guessed my motive for sitting there close to T’ina apparently doing ‘nothing’, because I did not
want to get into convoluted explanations regarding my presence there. Presumably they thought I was waiting my turn to pay my
bill. Maybe they were incurious. Seychellois don’t believe in prying too much into affairs that don’t concern them.

Diet and anklet – T’ina’s vanity or image of success?
“To succeed professionally is a paradox of embodied experiences for women” (Littlejohn and Foss, p 264) [18]
I had noticed that T’ina was wearing one silver anklet on her right leg. That piqued my curiosity sufficiently to prompt me to
venture a remark. This time R’aas chimed in, “Indian ladies wear in both ankles, isn’t it. To distinguish from them we wear only
one.” But then I had noticed some Cuban ladies also wearing only one. It really must be some cultural variation, I told myself.
T’ina had a more down-to-earth answer. “I bought two”, she explained. “I gave one to my sister.” How typically T’ina!

I have neglected to mention that T’ina is quite a handsome-looking lady, if slightly plump. She had got
it into her delectable well-groomed head that she needed to reduce her weight. Therefore she had
enrolled in a six-week dieting-cum-slimming-cum-exercise program designed to improve her bathroom
scale readings. She rather ingenuously explained to me, “For the first two days I have to “de-toxicate”
myself by abstaining from fish, meat and rice, and drink only carrot juice”! It put her behind by SR 850
(approximately GBP 81), a substantial amount by Seychelles standards. In keeping with the informality
of the atmosphere, many ladies offered her fruits, chocolates etc that they were munching, all of which
she politely declined to accept. “Nobody can tempt me”, is how she put it. This lady was taking her
slimming venture rather seriously. At one point she even got up and did a little pirouette for my benefit,
to show me how her slimming program was getting along.
Being a medico, I was tempted to insinuate my ‘expert’ knowledge regarding diet, weight and exercise, but I scratched the idea.
T’ina’s weight-reduction efforts had a freshness of childish enthusiasm to it that I did not consider prudent to try to dampen with
my sonorous ‘professional’ pronouncements. Instead I complimented her with, “That’s wonderful, T’ina”. Well, it did earn me a
thousand-watt smile sufficient to light up a dark room! Which lady does not like a show of appreciation for her figure?

This ‘anklet-diet’ business reminded me of Angela Trethewey’s observations. Professional women are always in a dialectic* state
between two opposing influences. On one hand they perceived a need to project an image of success verbally and non-verbally, for
which they had to devise strategies to manage their professional bodies. Was the silver anklet such a strategy? On the other hand,
the expectation of the female body was complicated by ‘a tendency to overflow’; they never knew when their bodies may display
messages and meanings that were not intended. Maybe that is why T’ina was on a weight-reduction program. [18]

‘Tower of bedlam!’
As in any busy office there has to be the occasional diversionary exceptions to the general rule. At one point of time, by a set of
coincidences, a number of events conspired together to prove this point. T’ina was troubleshooting a customer’s mobile. R’aas
was talking to a lady customer who was trying to listen to her and soothe her crying baby simultaneously. Anther customer was
looking around for a place to charge his mobile. Yet another group was testing and comparing their ringtones simultaneously,
while three other waiting customers were looking on. Rather inanely, the unlikely phrase “Tower of Bedlam” jumped into my
mind, short-lived though it was. But it did serve to emphasise that this was a vibrant active busy office, heroically maintaining its
stature in a corporate world.

“Doctor, meet my mother” – ‘Social point’
Towards the end of the day, an Airtel official came to collect the proceeds from the sale of tsunami concert tickets. Seventy five
tickets had been sold so far; T’ina tallied the total (75 x 25) and handed over one thousand eight hundred seventy five SR
(approximately GBP 177).
As the office hour began to draw to a close, the rush of customers began to dwindle, marking the end of
another long day for the hardworking souls. Armed with a little free time the naturally ebullient spirit of the
sociable Seychellois began to surface. The office became more of a ‘social point’ than before. “Doctor, meet
my mother”, said R’aas, introducing me to a cheerful matronly lady who had just dropped by to say hello to
her daughter. The lady pumped my hand hard enough to shake it off its socket. From
nowhere ice-cream cones appeared. R’aas took one but T’ina refused. And the chatter
continued…

I took this opportunity to take a few pictures. T’ina of course had no objections; in fact
she seemed rather pleased to be shot on film! She even volunteered to take a snapshot
of me sitting on one of her ‘hot seats’. Even more interesting, the few customers still
present, especially the ladies, also enjoyed the photo session. That is Seychellois culture for you; no false
airs, no snobbishness, and no suspicious attitudes.


Witnessing all these made me realize I was observing micro-behaviours in real situations. Through my vantage point as non-
participant observer I was looking at the way the participants were managing their back-and-forth flow of communication with
language and non-verbal behaviours. Though I was not engaged in one, this was similar to Harold Garfinkel’s ethno-
methodology*. [19] I have many mini-ethnographic reflections on these assorted observations later in my essay.

“Just like you came and sat here…company should show more appreciation”
I had some free time again with T’ina, now that the office time was drawing to a close. I wanted to question T’ina about herself
vis-à-vis her organization. “How long have you been with the company?” I asked her. “Well, six years now. I am the senior-most
here, and have to report only to the manager at the head office in Providence. That’s why so many people know me. Most of them
started out as my customers, and now they have become my friends.” I could detect a little pride in her voice.

I was curious to know what her feelings for her company were. So I worded my next question a bit obliquely, “What does your
company think of your work?” That sort of opened the floodgates, and T’ina began to pour out her woes. I guessed no body had
asked her that in as many words. “Just like you came and sat with me the whole day, I wish my manager would come and see
under what pressure we work,” she started off. “Quite often we have to miss our lunch just to cope with the rush of customers. We
don’t like to keep them waiting. At the same time, we see to it that every person goes from here satisfied. But nobody from the
head office sees that. Why, we have never received even a word of thanks or a gesture of appreciation from the head office, leave
alone a visit.”

“Don’t you get any time off for all the hard work that you are doing?” was my next question. “Whenever I ask for leave the first
thing they asks me is, ‘For how many days?’, because they have difficulty finding a replacement to sit in this office; nobody else
wants to sit on my chair. I have never been able to take a long Christmas or New Year leave. I have never been able to take my
family on an overseas holiday.”

I wanted to know what her clients thought of her work, though, after seeing her interacting with people the whole day, I was pretty
much sure of the answer. “As you have noticed, doctor, we have to tackle all sorts of problems, not just collect payments and issue
receipts mechanically”, she told me. “Yet my customers are so satisfied with me. They often ask for me by name when they don’t
find me here – when I’m away for some reason. They go away, only to come back later when I am back in my place, even though
my replacement could have handled the job equally well. That is the type of rapport I try to establish with my customers.”

Muzafer Sherif’s social judgement theory focuses on how we make judgments about the statements we hear. [20] After having
watched T’ina in action, I got the impression that she did not consciously orchestrate the situation to be like the way she described
it, so as to make her feel more needed. She appeared to be naturally and genuinely the conscientious type, who worked hard for its
own sake rather than any need to define herself by her work. Maybe that is why she felt hurt that she was not being recognized
enough by her bosses, though I have plenty more reflections on this issue later.

“Au revoir” – Winding up
It was time for T’ina to start counting the day’s collection, tally them with the computerized receipts and store them safely in the
strong-room for depositing in the bank first thing next morning. Predictably, T’ina had to do all that. After I thanked her, she
walked me to the door and locked it to get on with her final chore.

Armchair reflection
Shadowing, unit course and professional career

I arrived home with mixed feelings of exhilaration and relief. Relief, because the essential field-work for my unit 4 assignment was
over. The task of collecting my scattered thoughts together and putting pen to paper was for tomorrow. Exhilaration, because my
shadowing exercise was a tremendous success, and it changed my earlier concept and attitude about shadowing. I had gone in
dragging my feet; I came out with a spring on my steps. Shadowing wasn’t that bad after all!

“Practice without theory is like sailing the seas without a compass. Theory without practice is like never setting sail at all.”

The unit material per se was largely meaningless to me initially, probably partly because of its dry, featureless presentation. As an
aside, I may venture to suggest introducing some diagrams and pictures in the text, not only to relieve the monotony of the barren
literary landscape of the material, but also to aid those students who, like me, possess ‘visual’ (as opposed to ‘verbal’) Felder-
Soloman learning styles. [21]

After the exercise I not only read the text with greater understanding, it was a relatively simple matter to relate portions of the text
to the exercise. Now I realize there is no way the exercise could be avoided or rendered less painful, if I were to gain a true insight
into the mini-ethnigraphic art of shadowing. I have to “go get the seats of (my) pants dirty” (Park, in Gomm and mcNeill 1982) if
I am to engage in real research later in my career.

I am still interested in quantitative research more than qualitative, but now I know how to go about the latter and what to look for
in qualitative results when I decide to use them to pave the way for more objective quantitative evaluation of any query of interest.

Why did the Unit 4 curriculum require us to carry out this exercise? Before I started the assignment I had only the five reasons that
my unit tutor Robin had given in his handout. Now I have added a sixth one. In today’s cyber world, communication has been
‘technologized’, ‘mathematized’ and digitized beyond recognition. But we should never forget that right from the dawn of
mankind’s history, communication has always been an intensely human and personal affair. No matter how much we reduce
communication, like patient anamnesis, into ‘0-1’ binary codes or XML tags and data entry masks, [22] it will always remain a
human interaction. The semantic richness of patient communication/anamnesis can never be captured in code. [23] I think the
purpose of this assignment was to drive home this point to us the hard way, in the form of an object lesson.

T’ina’s fortitude – Socio-psychological correlation
As mentioned at the beginning, one of my main interests was the shadowee and her thoughts and needs, and her feelings and
attitudes about her organization. Therefore I had decided to concentrate on the organization in the socio-psychological tradition.
After the shadowing exercise and observing and talking to T’ina, I had greater insight into the socio-psychological aspect of her
organizational relationship. Especially my last discourse (in the sense that Leslie Baxter* describes it [24] rather than Jurgen
Habermas’* definition or Robert Craig’s discourse/meta-discourse* or Michael Foucault’s discourse*) with T’ina had a
profound impression on me. Still waters do run deep! Under that cool, professional, cheerful and sociable exterior, there was a
significant amount of bitterness at the fact that her management was not giving her the recognition that she justly deserved. It also
indirectly told me that she welcomed my presence there. Maybe that is why she agreed to my shadowing proposal with such
alacrity. Maybe she found in me a proxy of her manager. Maybe she was glad there was somebody who wanted to see her in
action. I definitely did not get the impression that she was politely accommodating me because I was also her customer. She
genuinely seemed happy to see me sitting there.

I got reminded of Rensis Likert’s theories on human relations. Is Likert’s management premise correct that if you care for and
nurture workers, employees will be more highly motivated and productive? [25,26] If I were to diagrammatically represent
Likert’s model of organizational systems (figure 1), it would be a continuum, with exploitative authoritative system and
participative management occupying opposite ends of the spectrum, and benevolent-authoritative leadership and consultative
system coming in the middle.

Figure 1: Continuum of Likert’s Four Systems of organizational management

System 1 System 2 System 3 System 4
Exploitative authoritative system Benevolent-authoritative leadership Consultative system Participative management

As per this model, the organization I shadowed, of which T’ina’s office was a representative, would come somewhere between
Systems 3 and 4. It had features of the consultative system where management exerted control and sought occasional consultations
from T’ina, and also features of participative management insofar as T’ina had full decision-making power within her office, in her
immediate sphere of influence.

Every human being is just that, a human being. Every body has a need to be recognized and appreciated. Carolyn Aydin and RE
Rice, though they were investigating something totally unrelated to our present discussion, proved through their qualitative and
quantitative studies that workers feel they need to receive adequate praise from supervisors and co-workers. [27] Likert’s premise
was that if management cares for and nurtures its workers it would increase their productivity. I had the feeling that T’ina was being
marginalized by the management. Not that T’ina was in any way less productive, but perhaps if management had shown a little more
appreciation for her work, it would have given her the psychological boost that human beings, especially the conscientious ones,
secretly crave for.

It has been my general observation based on personal experience, and corroborated by T’ina’s statements, that during the course of
our routine work, provided everything goes satisfactorily, we do not get any praise. However if anything goes wrong, criticism is
quick to come from all quarters. I have learned to accept such a state of affairs as a universal phenomenon; I do not feel
marginalized. Therefore when I go about my professional work, I put my best foot forward without any expectations of praise. But
now, I have made a firm vow that I shall show appreciation to my colleagues, peers and juniors for the hard work they are doing. As
a beginning, I had promised myself that whether her head office appreciated her or not, I was going to present a letter of appreciation
to the company, as a satisfied customer, mentioning T’ina (and R’aas) by name. That was my way of showing that they were not
marginalized.
Note: I did post such a letter to the head office recently. I let T’ina (and R’aas) have a sneak preview before I mailed it. The look of undiluted joy on their faces was a
sight to behold! “Never before has anyone ever given us a written appreciation of our work”, is what they said.

The organizational culture – Socio-cultural correlation

Socio-cultural tradition captures the situational and emergent nature of meaning and action within cultural groups (Litlejohn and
Foss, p. 312). [7]


Ecological context:
Physical world; location,
time, social context
within which
organization operates

Collective
understanding:
Common ways
of interpreting
events
Individual
Differential
domain:
interaction:
Practices,
Networks
actions of
individuals

Figure 2: John Van Maanen and Stephen Barley’s four domains of organizational
culture, represented in the form of Venn diagram with overlapping circles, where the
domains overlap.

I had also decided to focus on organizational culture in the socio-cultural tradition, and see how it relates to the wider culture. The
working of my shadowee office and the people that thronged there reflected, in a mutually dovetailing fashion, the culture of the
organization and of the society in which the organization thrived. Again after the shadowing exercise I recalled John Van
Maanen and Stephen Barley’s four domains of organizational culture in the socio-cultural tradition (figure 2). [28] The
ecological context (physical world; location, time, social context of organizational operation) and the individual domain (practices,
actions of individuals) seemed particularly relevant to my shadowee setting.

The office was a cross-sectional representative of the country as a whole. All the features that I noticed in the office with T’ina as
part of the shadowing day; the politeness, customer-friendliness, the informal self-imposed discipline, all represent the
organizational as well as the Seychellois culture. Underlying the apparent casualness of the whole shadowing atmosphere (eating,
shopping, chatting etc), there was an element of self-imposed discipline that ensured there was no deviation from the essential
work that had to be done. An analogy can be drawn between the atmosphere of the office and a person who wears slightly rumpled
casual clothes and walks around with a carefree air, which actually masks a serious-minded disciplined individual.

Organizational performances
In the course of a shadowing day I had a chance to observe first hand many of the organizational communication performances
described by Michael Pacanowsky and Nick O’Donnell-Trujillo. [15]

First there were the passion performances through storytelling. T’ina (and R’aas) put on performances that made their otherwise
boring routines lively. They made lively stories about T’ina’s efforts at weight reduction (personal storytelling). T’ina dramatized
how other people in the head office, especially managers, are ‘scared’ to visit the front office because of the rush of customers
(corporate storytelling).

Then there were the sociality performances (“bon jour”, “comment cá vá”, “tres bien” etc), which reinforced a common sense of
propriety within the office. ‘Bitching’ about the heat, weather, cost of vegetables and ‘talking shop’ drawing room decoration
artefacts, constituted the sociability aspects of the performances. Confessing about T’ina’s weight problem and her dieting
exercises were the privacy aspects of sociality performances.

Thirdly, T’ina was talking about organizational politics when she mentioned about her head office, the fact that the manager never
visited the front office, nor did he ever send anybody to cover for her because nobody wanted to sit on her ‘hot’ seat.

Then there were the task rituals; counting cash at the end of the day, tallying it with the computerized total, storing them in the
strong room and banking them first thing next morning.


Finally, let us not forget the social rituals of these ladies, unrelated to their task; going vegetable shopping, for example.

Perhaps the only thing I did not notice was enculturation, because both T’ina and R’aas were veterans in the office. Maybe if I had
undertaken the shadowing exercise when a newcomer was there, perhaps I would have witnessed that also.

Cultural correlation on a wider context

All that I observed and described represent the Seychellois culture in general, reflected in a miniature form within the confines of
the office. However, it is not a universal phenomenon in all work group settings. In my clinic for example, things are much more
somber and serious. Perhaps because it is a hospital setting where there is sickness and death; perhaps it is the ‘white coat
syndrome’, when people automatically become apprehensive and serious in a doctor’s clinic. Maybe it is because I am an
expatriate doctor in a small culturally close-knit community, who does not ‘belong’ there, and therefore people unconsciously feel
they have to behave differently, perhaps more formally or respectfully with me. Whatever may be the reason, I have always been
addressed as ‘Doctor’ either in or out of the hospital. On a personal level I do not particularly care whether, or if at all, I am
bestowed with the sobriquet.

Conclusion
What could have been a rather boring and monotonous job turned out to be a lively and interesting exercise, thanks to a rich and
variegated tapestry of informally-formal communication paraphernalia; customer dealing, chatting, small talk, raised eyebrows, the
knowing looks, olfactory proxemics, vegetable shopping, dietary discussions and musical mobile ringtones – a true example of
communication in its richest form.

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End notes


African-American: The erstwhile ‘Negroes’ and ‘blacks’ have evolved their sense of self to a global identity and now call
themselves African-American. This is in keeping with Mikhail Bakhtin’s views on dialogue as a shaper of world culture. [Back]

Ethnography: Michael Agar and Paul Atkinson define it as observation of how actual social groups come to build meaning
through their linguistic/non-linguistic behaviours. This process being very arduous and time-consuming, it has been toned down to
a more user-friendly ‘mini-ethnography’, of which shadowing is a component. [Back]

Symbolic Interactionism: George Herbert Mead of the Chicago School is considered the founder of classical symbolic
interaction movement, though Mead himself never actually used the expression; the phrase was coined by his pupil Herbert
Blumer. [Back]

Cultural Styles of Communication: People from different cultures have different styles of communication. Bahraini men talk
with animated gestures and making direct eye contact (Encarta Encyclopedia Charlie Westerman/Gamma Liaison), Polish teens
avoid eye contact as they talk (Carlos Freire/Hutchison Library), Eskimo women talk with considerable space between them
(Gamma Liaison), and Kashmiri women talk at a very close distance (Wolfgang Kaehler/Gamma Liaison). [Back]

Dialectic: Leslie Baxter in her ‘Dialectical Approaches to Studying Personal Relationships’ defines it as a tension between
opposing forces within a system. [Back]

Ethnomethodology: Ironically, the originator of the term, sociologist Harold Garfinkel himself was rather dismissive of the term,
claiming too much importance was being placed on it (Turner 1974, p 15) [Back]

Discourse: In Baxter’s vantage points for viewing the process of relational dialogue, one of them is that ‘dialogue is discourse’;
practical and aesthetic outcomes are created in communication. [Back]

Habermas’ discourse: The special kind of communication required when a speaker’s statements are challenged [Back]

Discourse-metadiscourse: In Craig’s “Communication Theory as a Field”, he considers theories as a form of discourse or a
discourse about discourse (metadiscourse). [Back]

Foucault’s discourse: Includes written speech, spoken language and non-verbal forms; discourse shapes knowledge. [Back]


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