Playful Communication in Mentoring.

Abstract

Freshmen in an orientation course at a state university answered questionnaires about their peer mentors' playful communication and about how well their peer mentors help them ease tensions of socialization. Results showed that a mentor's perceived playful communication helped the protege ease tensions of socialization. Proteges liked mentors who engaged in playful communication, but regression results suggest that it was proteges' perceptions of the mentors' playful communication that helped proteges adapt to the organization and not the proteges' perceptions of their mentors' attitudes. ********** Playful communication is a non-serious type of informal communication that includes humor, telling stories, teasing, and gossiping. People in organizations engage in playful communication primarily for enjoyment. Some studies have examined humor in organizations (Yarwood, 1995), but other forms of playful communication have not been studied, including how playful communication works in the mentoring process. The authors of the present study propose that playful communication leads to effective mentoring because these forms of communication help the protege ease tensions of socialization into an organization. Young and Cates (in press) found that both emotional and directive listening by the mentor as perceived by the protege helps the protege's socialization into the organization. Playful communication may also help the protege's socialization into the organization. Specifically, the protege balances tensions associated with the dual processes of assimilation into an organization (Miller, 1995). These tensions are similar to the primary dialectic of interpersonal relationships (Baxter, 1988; Baxter, 1990). Primarily, proteges want to feel connected to the organization. With this connectivity comes a sense of belonging and conforming to the organization. At the same time, proteges want to feel free to express their individuality. We propose that through playful communication with their proteges, mentors help them to feel both a sense of connectivity and individuality, ease their tensions of socialization, and thus help them adapt to the organization. Review of Literature Many organizations have developed mentoring programs as means of fostering learning and development of new members (Allen & Poteet, 1999). Several studies have found that mentoring positively correlated with protege satisfaction and success in a variety of organizations (Baker, Hocevar, & Johnson, 2003; Campbell & Campbell, 2000; Galbraith, 2001; Kram, 1985). For example, Baker et al. (2003) found that midshipmen in the United States Naval Academy who were mentored were significantly more satisfied than midshipmen who were not mentored. Similarly, mentoring programs in education have been linked to success and satisfaction of teachers (Clifford, 1999; Strong & Baron, 2004) and students (Campbell & Campbell, 2000; Erdem & Ozen, 2003; Liang, Tracy, Taylor, & Williams, 2002; Van Gyn & Ricks, 1997). Additional evidence suggests that mentoring may increase retention of nurses (Green & Puetzer, 2002; Hurst & Koplin-Baucum, 2003) and college students (Hurte, 2002; Lee & Bush, 2003; Pidcock, Fischer, & Munsch, 2001). Playful communication between mentor and protege should be a key factor in effective mentoring because playful communication helps people deal with paradoxes inherit in organizations, is a component of healthy relationships, and is an important communication skill. Playful communication, especially humor, is well suited for dealing with paradoxes and ambiguity that occur in organizations. For example, humor and other forms of playful communication are ways that people in organizations can deal with the primary dialectic between autonomy and dependence (Baxter, 1988). Boland and Hoffman (1983, p. 188) explain that humor provides an ambiguity in resolving the questions of individual freedom and self-determination such that the individual both is and is not free, both is and is not self determined, but continues to act (cf. …