| Course | BU 302 Leadership and Organizational Behavior |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 5 |
| Paper type | Communication breakdown analysis |
| Length | About 1,010 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | BS in Business Management |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for BU 302 Unit 5
The Date That Fell Out of a Text Message: A Communication Breakdown Analysis of a Mulch Promise Made for Friday and Scheduled for Monday
Student Name
Business, Herzing University
BU 302: Leadership and Organizational Behavior
Instructor Name
March 25, 2026
The Date That Fell Out of a Text Message: A Communication Breakdown Analysis of a Mulch Promise Made for Friday and Scheduled for Monday
In March 2026, a client of Greenline Grounds, our composite grounds-maintenance firm, asked for fresh mulch before a tenant event on a Friday. The mulch was installed the following Monday. This paper rebuilds the exchange step by step without interpretation, maps it onto the communication process model taught in the course, marks exactly where meaning changed, names each barrier at the step it affected and closes with two changes aimed at specific steps.
The Exchange, Rebuilt
Step 1, Thursday, March 12, 9:40 a.m. The property manager of Peachtree Commons, an office park client, emailed account manager Lauren Pace: "We are hosting a tenant appreciation lunch on Friday, March 20, in the front courtyard. Could your team refresh the mulch in the front entrance beds before then?"
Step 2, Thursday, 10:05 a.m. Lauren replied by email: "Absolutely, we will take care of it."
Step 3, Thursday, 10:12 a.m. Lauren sent a text message to Renee Castillo, the maintenance operations manager: "Peachtree Commons wants mulch in front beds, can we get it on the schedule?"
Step 4, Thursday, 3:30 p.m. At the weekly account and operations meeting, Peachtree Commons was not discussed; Lauren assumed the text had covered it.
Step 5, Friday, March 13. Renee added "Peachtree Commons front beds mulch" to the list of spring mulch jobs, which were scheduled in the order the mulch supplier could deliver. Peachtree Commons fell on Monday, March 23.
Step 6, Monday, March 23, 6:15 a.m. The crew lead received the work order "Front beds mulch, Peachtree Commons" at dispatch and completed it that morning. At 11:20 a.m. the property manager emailed Lauren that the event had been held the previous Friday with faded mulch and asked why the promise had not been kept.
The Communication Model
Shannon and Weaver (1949) described communication as a message passing from a source through a transmitter and channel to a receiver and destination, with noise able to distort the signal along the way. Robbins and Judge (2019) present an organizational version of this model with eight elements: the sender, encoding, the message, the channel, decoding, the receiver, noise and feedback. The last element, feedback, is the check that the message was understood as intended. Daft and Lengel (1986) added that channels differ in richness, their capacity to carry cues and allow quick feedback, and that ambiguous or important messages need richer channels. Each step of the Peachtree Commons exchange can be mapped onto these elements.
Where Meaning Drifted
Steps 1 and 2 worked. The property manager encoded a clear message with a date, a location and a purpose, and Lauren decoded it correctly and confirmed it. Meaning first changed at Step 3, and the problem was in encoding. Lauren's text kept the client, the task and the location but dropped the date and the event. The message that reached Renee said what to do but not when, and it did not say that a promise had already been made. This was a message sent badly, not a message never sent.
At Step 5, the receiver decoded the incomplete message through her own frame of reference. In March, Renee was scheduling dozens of routine spring mulch jobs, and "wants mulch in front beds" looked like one more. Without a date, she placed it in the ordinary queue. Robbins and Judge (2019) call this selective perception, interpreting a message according to one's own interests, background and current concerns. Her decoding was reasonable given the message she received.
Step 4 is where feedback should have caught the error and did not. The weekly meeting existed to review client requests, but no one read back the week's promises, so neither sender nor receiver learned that their understandings differed. By Step 6 the crew lead received a message two steps removed from the client, with no date and no reason, and carried it out exactly as written.
Barriers, Named and Placed
Four barriers appear, each at one step. At Step 3, filtering: the sender passed on a shortened version of the message and left out the information that made it urgent, not deliberately but because she assumed the date was obvious. Also at Step 3, the channel: a text message is a lean channel with no structure for required details and no prompt for a deadline, which Daft and Lengel (1986) would predict is poorly suited to a message carrying a commitment. At Step 5, selective perception: the receiver interpreted the request in light of the routine mulch season. At Step 4, missing feedback: the organization's own review meeting did not include a step to confirm promises and dates.
Noise in the Shannon and Weaver (1949) sense, random interference, played no part; every message arrived intact. The breakdown came from what was encoded and from the absence of a check, which is why general advice to communicate better would not have helped.
Two Changes, Each Aimed at a Step
The first change targets Step 3. Client requests from account managers to operations should go through a request form in the company's scheduling app rather than by text. The form would require four fields: property, task, a "must finish by" date and whether the date has been promised to the client. A request cannot be submitted without the date field, which removes the chance of filtering it out. This change turns a lean, unstructured channel into one that carries the details a commitment needs.
The second change targets Step 4. The Thursday account and operations meeting should end with a read-back of every client promise due in the next ten days, with its date, read aloud from the request forms. This adds the feedback element the exchange lacked. It takes about five minutes a week and would have caught the Peachtree Commons date eight days before the event.
Every email, text, person and property in this reconstruction is fictional, and no real client or employee is represented.
References
Daft, R. L., & Lengel, R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science, 32(5), 554-571. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.32.5.554
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2019). Organizational behavior (18th ed.). Pearson.
Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. University of Illinois Press.
Reading the BU 302 Unit 5 instructions
Unit 5 of BU 302 has students analyze one communication failure inside an organization using the communication model from the course. Most rubrics want the exchange reconstructed in sequence, the model explained with its elements, an analysis marking where meaning changed and which barriers caused it, and recommendations aimed at specific steps. Instructors usually prefer one concrete exchange to a general discussion of poor communication. Composite examples are commonly allowed. Research on channels or barriers strengthens the analysis. Keep the paper short and organized, with sources cited in APA 7. A failure with written traces, such as emails, texts or tickets, is easier to reconstruct accurately than one remembered from a conversation. Pick an exchange where the harm was concrete, like a missed deadline, so the analysis has a clear outcome to explain.
How the BU 302 Unit 5 example is put together
The sample reconstructs the exchange in six timed steps, quoting each message and adding no interpretation. The model section describes Shannon and Weaver's source-to-destination model, the textbook's eight elements including feedback and the idea of channel richness. The analysis moves down the steps: the first two worked, the third lost the date in encoding, the fifth decoded the request as routine and the weekly meeting failed to provide feedback. A barriers section names four barriers and places each at its step, then rules out random noise. The final section proposes two changes, each aimed at one step, and notes the composite setting.
Where the points sit in the BU 302 Unit 5 rubric
Herzing's rubric for the breakdown analysis typically scores the reconstruction, use of the model, identification of barriers and the recommendations. Reconstruction earns full points when the sequence is complete and free of interpretation. Model use is judged by mapping the exchange onto named elements rather than mentioning the model in passing. Barrier identification rewards precise placement of each barrier at a step; the sample's four barriers and its exclusion of noise show this. Recommendations score highest when they target the step where meaning was lost. Clear headings, citations and a professional tone complete the grade. The strongest papers also explain why the organization did not catch the error, which is usually where the most useful recommendation comes from.
Common BU 302 Unit 5 mistakes, and how to avoid them
A common Unit 5 problem is blaming a person or saying communication was poor without locating the failure. Another is mixing interpretation into the reconstruction, so the reader cannot tell what happened from what the writer thinks. Students often list barriers from the textbook without tying any of them to a step. Some papers recommend training or better communication in general, which would not fix a missing date field. Others skip feedback, even though a missing check is often the real cause. Finally, rule things out as well as in; saying which parts of the model did not contribute makes the analysis more precise. Keep the reconstruction honest by quoting messages exactly where you can.
Get a BU 302 Unit 5 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 5 instructions and the rubric from your BU 302 classroom, with the communication model your section uses and the discussion prompt if one is attached. We write a custom example that rebuilds the exchange first, separates sending from receiving and aims the fixes at one step. First custom sample free, back in 24 to 48 hours.
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BU 302 Unit 5 questions, answered
Should the breakdown be one I actually witnessed?
It can be, and the instructions usually allow it, but rebuild rather than reproduce. Change the names, the industry detail and anything that would identify the people, and keep out messages your employer owns. A composite built from a pattern you have seen more than once is often clearer, because you can include the steps you did not observe.
How much of the model has to appear?
Enough of it to carry the analysis, cited where it appears. Most sections want the elements used rather than defined, so a page restating the model is space taken from the reconstruction. Name the version your reading gives, map the exchange onto it, and let anything the model does not cover be said outright.
Is a conflict paper the same thing?
They overlap and some sections combine them, so read the prompt closely. A breakdown analysis stays on how meaning moved and where it stopped, while a conflict paper is about interests and how they were handled. If your instructions mention both, keep the sequence work first and let the conflict discussion sit on top of it.
Where can I find a free BU 302 Unit 5 sample paper?
A free copy of the BU 302 Unit 5 breakdown analysis, from reconstruction to recommendations, is shown above. If your exchange happened elsewhere, send the unit prompt and a custom analysis will be written around it for free, usually returned in about two days.
How much of the model must BU 302 Unit 5 use?
Enough to map every step of the exchange. The sample uses the textbook's eight elements, including feedback, and adds channel richness to explain one step. You do not need every model in the chapter, but each element you name should be tied to something in the sequence.