The interactive nature of management means that most management work is conversational. When managers are in action, they are talking and listening. Studies on the nature of managerial work indicate that managers spend about two-thirds to three-quarters of their time in verbal activity. These verbal conversations, according to Eccles and Nohria, are the means by which managers gather information, stay on
top of things, identify problems, negotiate shared meanings, develop plans, put things in motion, give orders, assert authority, develop relationships, and spread gossip. In short, they are what the manager’s daily practice
is all about. “Through other forms of talk, such as speeches and presentations,” they write, “managers establish definitions and meanings for their own actions and give others a sense of what the organization is about, where it is at, and what it is up to.
