**4.4 Case study and examples**

This section, following the introduction to the essence of L.S.s, will exemplify its usages through a few case studies and actual use examples. You may not think that they are necessarily considered internal communication processes within an organization. However, I hope that they should give you better pictures of how to use particular L.S.s. I do not provide the readers with detailed descriptions of each L.S. while suggesting you refer to the available resources.

Four provided fictional and non-fictional examples are contextualized in Japan, and the settings are where Japanese social workers are working toward rebuilding the community.

#### *4.4.1 The setting*

The description here is fictionally based on the real situation where I was involved. Imagine the "center" is responsible for welfare services in a particular geographic area. The center chief who is a social worker himself leads the center, and the staff members include two social workers and a nurse, and two administrative staff

### *Communication Strategy for Organizational Leadership and Relationships: Liberating Structures DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105806*

members who deal with paperwork for the public procedures. The center's responsibilities include 1) the management of the cases of individuals with long-term care needs, who usually use public services to some extent, and 2) the community organization work, which involves developing relationships with individual residents, community organizations, and other community resources such as medical clinics and hospitals, private or non-profit welfare service providers and so on. While staff members need to set and attend various meetings to develop collaborative relationships with outside organizations across the serving community, being understaffed is a chronic condition. The center chief does feel the lack of information sharing, but he does not want the staff members to sacrifice their roles in private life.

The following is a brief description of 4 possible issues of communication processes that the center face and the possible L.S.s use to resolve them.

#### **Example 1**

Issue: With the difference in professional backgrounds, there is a huge perception gap of community organization work among staff members. Because staff members actually do not know well what they are doing, particularly as community organization work done outside the office, some staff members feel that they take the uneven workload. Staff members need to first know and share what the other members are doing as part of their responsibilities, and to have time to think about how community organization work is really what they as the center need to do.

Possible L.S. use: In this case, for the first part of sharing what they do like the role in the center, one of the best fits is "Troika Consulting." It allows staff members to share their thoughts, feelings, and concerns about their own daily work. Using Troika Consulting, feelings and deep thoughts can be voiced with coaching-like support from colleagues. The invitation may be famed by questions like "How do you feel about your daily work and what is the burning issue recently?"

The second part of sharing the value and goal of community organization can be achievable by "Celebrity Interview." The social worker takes the celebrity role (interviewee), and the center chief can interview him/her. The interviewer (the center chief) asks a series of questions to reveal the value felt by the interviewee (the social worker). After finishing a "Celebrity Interview," the other staff members, as if they are press members, can ask additional questions. Then they can reflect on what they thought and felt about what was told by the social worker. This process can be done by "1-2-4-ALL" if the number of participants is large. The communication process is composed of a few L.S.s.
