The metaphor of dosage offers us a rich organizing principle for managers. It focuses our efforts on fundamental, pragmatic communication issues such as amount, frequency, delivery system, sequencing, interaction with other agents, and contraindications. It suggests compelling new answers to fundamental problems that all managers must face, with an appreciation of basic issues beyond our conscious awareness: How much communication should we engage in to pursue our projects? Inside this book, the author focuses on the dosage metaphor as a way of confronting this question—what level of communication, both in terms of amount and of depth, is really necessary to accomplish particular purposes? Most communication theories implicitly paint a picture of the prevalence and paramount importance of communication, with a “communication metamyth” that more is necessarily better. This book provides the first truly comprehensive treatment of dosage. It details the most contemporaneously interesting issues of change and of productivity, and the final chapter presents the dosage metaphor in broad sweep and suggests a countervailing minimalist approach to communication.
