Business Communication: A Framework for Success
CHAPTER 1 Understanding Business Communication
PRETEST
Answer the following questions to see how well you understand the material. Re-take it after you review to check yourself.
1. Define business communication
2. List four reasons why developing communication skills are essential to your personal and professional success.
3. What are three common reasons often cited to justify unethical communication practices?
4. List four business responsibilities and list communication skills necessary to fulfill each responsibility.
Business Responsibilities Communication Skills
_____________________ ___________________________
_____________________ ___________________________
_____________________ ___________________________
_____________________ ___________________________
5. What are three common barriers to effective communication?
6. List three different communication barriers that may impact global business transactions?
7. Explain the communication process.
8. Define communication media.
A BRIEF OVERVIEW
This Chapter reviews why it is so important to your career to develop strong communication skills. Effective communication creates opportunities for promotions, leads to greater job satisfaction and increases productivity. Barriers to effective communication include mismanaging information, providing inadequate feedback, possessing inadequate communication skills, allowing anxiety to interfere in the communication process, and selecting inappropriate means of conveying messages. The communication process is explained, beginning with the method through which messages are developed than transferred through a loop of encoding, decoding, feedback, and understanding.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1 Describe how effective communication skills lead to personal and professional success.
Effective communication improves your ability to present your ideas to other people. Communication skills are also necessary for getting noticed so that promotion opportunities come your way. When you communicate effectively you will also find more satisfaction with your work, and will see a greater degree or productivity in your job.
2 List the special challenges facing business communicators.
Communicators must include cultural diversity as a key element in communicating with others on the job. International communication is becoming more prevalent, requiring business communicators to remain sensitive to global conditions. Advanced technologies present challenges and opportunities for the business communicator. Communicators must conduct critical analyses in preparing messages for communication contexts. These include information management techniques, critical thinking skills, and goal setting.
3 List the most common communication barriers in business
Communicators must remain aware of the problems associated with a lack of information and poor quality information. Inadequate feedback can cause problems for communicators by failing to complete the communication process. All too often communication media/channels are poorly selected for conveying messages to others. Communicators must deal with the anxiety that accompanies communication performances.
4 Explain the different parts and their relationships in the model of communication.
Encoding refers to the process of producing and sending messages through various media. Decoding refers to the process of intentionally processing the communication signals that carry messages. Perception is the process of assigning meaning to the signals sent by communicators. Message interpretation and evaluation serve to assign meaning to messages so that appropriate responses can be made. Mutual understanding is the process where communicators recognize the relative knowledge each person has of the messages sent in the communication process. Feedback is any response that a receiver provides to a sender of a message. Noise is anything that adversely affects the communication process.
KEY TERMS
Communication skills Encoding
Information management Decoding
Cultural diversity Messages
Globalization Mutual Understanding
Technology Feedback
Ethics Noise
Communication media
CHAPTER OUTLINE
1 Describe how effective communication skills lead to personal and professional success.
I. What business experts say about developing communication skills
A. American corporations are critical about employees' lack of communication skills, saying that interpersonal, written, and oral skills are the most difficult to find in job applicants.
B. Communication skills are critical for a successful career
1. Your potential for a successful career is limited if you cannot communicate effectively.
2. Four related consequences of effective business communication directly affect the success of your career.
a. Self-presentation skills are improved
1. Make a positive impression on your superiors and coworkers with effective communication skills
b. Effective communication creates opportunities for promotion
1. Most supervisory and managerial positions require skills that are demonstrated through oral, nonverbal, and written communication activities.
c. Effective communication leads to increased satisfaction
1. Becoming proficient in writing, speaking, reading, and listening will make you more successful in exchanging information with others, reporting on projects, and leading task forces.
d. Effective communication leads to increased productivity
1. Individually and as a member of a group, your communication skills enhance your job productivity and value within an organization
2 List the special challenges facing business communicators.
II. Special Challenges Facing the Business Communicator
The dynamic nature of information, cultural diversity, globalization, technology, and ethics all require a greater focus on communication effectiveness
A. Information Management
The global economy and information age requires that employees constantly communicate to handle a volume of information that doubles each year.
B. Cultural Diversity
With cross-cultural communication becoming more prevalent, you will need to recognize and respond to the diverse background and needs of your co-workers.
C. Globalization and International Communication
In today's global economy, your ability to communicate with diverse cultural groups will become an essential challenge.
D. Technology
Fax machines, the Internet, and the World Wide Web all present new challenges and opportunities for the business communicator.
E. Ethics
Ethical communication is not only morally correct, but highly profitable in the business world.
3 List the most common communication barriers in business
III. Common Communication Barriers
A. "Wiio's Laws" demonstrate where and how ineffective communication leads to business and personal shortcomings.
1. Mismanaging Information
a. A major communication shortcoming, mismanaging information refers to an ineffective quality or quantity of information to match the communication task.
2. Inadequate Feedback
a. The response that a receiver of communication makes to the sender is called feedback.
3. Inadequate Communication Skills
a. Poor communication skills result in material that is overwritten, poorly-organized, and full of stylistic, grammatical, and spelling errors.
4. Mistakes with Communication Media
a. Selecting an inappropriate means or systems to convey your verbal or written messages would be an example of a mistake with communication media.
5. Communication Anxiety
a. Fear or stress associated with communication -- such as writer's block or stage fright -- is common is the business world, but also controllable.
4 Explain the different parts and their relationships in the model of communication.
IV. The Communication Process
A. Stimulus
1. Anything that causes you to consider the communication process.
B. Analysis
1. Information management is the first step of the analysis stage
2. After you evaluate your information you can engage critical thinking processes.
3. Goals are developed out of critical thinking and represent what a communicator is attempting to accomplish.
C. Developing Messages
1. Decision making is the first step in developing messages.
2. Next, conduct a context analysis to determine if the message is appropriate to the audience and occasion.
3. Design the message by selecting which properties are most appropriate for your context.
4. Media selection involves picking which communication channel is most suitable to the message.
5. Evaluation of messages is based upon their level of competency.
a. Message competence is determined by six factors:
1. The message must arrive at its destination (reception).
2. The receiver must understand the message (comprehension).
3. The message must hold value for the receiver.
4. The message must be appropriate fitting for the context.
5. The message must be credible.
6. The message must be influential.
D. Encoding
1. The process of sending a message through a media destined for a receiver.
a. Steps in this process include:
1. An idea is analyzed and elevated to a communication goal.
2. The goal is developed into an organizational format.
3. The message is developed.
4. The message is transmitted through the most effective media.
E. Decoding
1. Decoding refers to the receiving and processing of messages.
a. Three elements are at work during the decoding process:
1. Messages must be received before they can be decoded.
2. All of your senses are used in the decoding process
3. Perception, which is affected by attitudes, anxiety, or apprehension, is the part of the process where you assign meaning to a stimulus.
F. Analysis
1. Analyzing a message involves interpretation and evaluation.
a. Message interpretation allows you to use criteria and different communication media to identify essential messages
b. Message evaluation helps determine if the message was received, understood, appropriate, timely, credible, of any benefit and influential.
G. Mutual Understanding
1. The concept of mutual understanding means that not only do you understand the message as communicated, but that your communication partner also understands it as well.
a. There are four levels of mutual understanding:
1. Receiver understands the message.
2. Sender believes that receiver understands original message.
3. Receiver believes that sender understands receiver's level of knowledge of original message.
4. Continuous process if desired or warranted.
H. Developing Feedback
1. Feedback is any response that you make to the sender of a message.
a. Feedback can be verbal or nonverbal, and occur across any communication media.
I. Noise
1. Noise is anything that interferes, detracts, or adversely affects the message.
a. Internal interference refers to your psychological, mental, emotional and physical conditions.
b. External distortions come from the outside environment and include loud sounds, poor room lighting or heating, or mis-routed messages.
VOCABULARY PRACTICE
Fill in the blank(s) with the appropriate term or phrase from the alphabetized list of chapter key terms.
Communication skills Encoding
Information management Decoding
Cultural diversity Messages
Globalization Mutual Understanding
Technology Feedback
Ethics Noise
Communication media
1 Describe how effective communication skills lead to personal and professional success.
1. Promotion opportunities are more likely to come your way if you practice effective _________.
2. Standards of _______ dictate many of the communication practices of managers, who are under increasing pressure to produce results and increase profits.
2 List the special challenges facing business communicators.
3. As international communication becomes more prevalent, _______________ will become an increasingly important element in determining how to communicate with others in the workplace.
4. E-commerce, or doing business on the web, is now commonplace thanks to dramatic advances in ___________________.
5. Appreciating the norms and values of other cultures is critical for business communicators working for organizations involved with the ________________ of manufacturing and marketing systems.
3 List the most common communication barriers in business.
6. Managers who successfully obtain, analyze, synthesize, and communicate large chunks of information from a variety of sources -- especially communication technology -- have mastered the skill of _________________
7. A mistake in the selection of the appropriate _______________may result in a message that is misinterpreted, inappropriate, or less effective than desired.
4 Explain the different parts and their relationships in the model of communication.
8. The process of producing and sending a message to a receiver though a specific media is called ___________.
9. Interference in the communication process, or _________________, can impede the understanding of the message and deter the ability or desire of the message recipient to respond in an appropriate manner.
10. Good communication is not the same as effective communication. While a good communicator may understand the definition of words and sentence structure, an effective communicate appreciates that _________________ of the message must exist between the sender and receiver.
11. Communicators rely heavily on non-verbal communication cues to accentuate their messages. Nodding, frowning, shrugging, or raising eyebrows all provide ________ to the sender to help establish your level of understanding of the message.
12. Numerous stimuli compete for our attention each day. The ability to take in and process messages -- even when external forces compete for our attention -- is referred to as _____________.
13. Much like currency is the backbone of any economy, _______are the means through which communicators function, using a five-step process to formulate their thoughts.
Check your answers to these questions before proceeding to the next section.
TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS
Mark the statement T if it is true and F if it is false
1 Describe how effective communication skills lead to personal and professional success.
_____ 1. Overall, American corporations are satisfied with communication skills demonstrated by their
employees.
_____ 2. Approximately 10 percent of all business failures result from poor communication practices.
2 List the special challenges facing business communicators.
_____ 3. Challenges facing business communicators in the industrial age are very similar to those
facing communicators in the information age.
_____ 4. The workforce of the 21st century will consist of more workers who are older, foreign-born
disabled, and illiterate.
_____ 5. A direct, no-nonsense style to presentations, negotiations, and bargaining is the best
approach for communicating in a global economy.
3 List the most common communication barriers in business.
_____ 6. Finnish business consultant Oslo Wiio believes communication efforts are usually successful.
_____ 7. Familiar and trusted sources of information can be counted on to provide the most accurate
and timely data.
_____ 8. Feedback is fragile yet an essential component to the communications process
4 Explain the different parts and their relationships in the model of communication.
_____ 9. Some stimuli need time to develop before they are communicated, while others are instantly
transferred into messages.
_____ 10. When you develop a creative solution to a business problem you are engaging in critical
thinking.
_____ 11. Encoding a message requires the selection of a communication media.
_____ 12.Communication anxiety is not a factor in the decoding of messages.
_____ 13. The mutual understanding of a message works independently from the process of message
evaluation.
Check your answers to these questions before proceeding to the next section.
AGREE/DISAGREE QUESTIONS
For the following statements, indicate reasons why you may agree and disagree with the statement.
1. Only people who work in communication fields such as public relations or corporate communications
need to develop strong communication skills.
Reason(s) to agree:
Reason (s) to disagree:
2. With increasingly sophisticated levels of technology, it is less important for professionals to be
concerned with effective information management, as so many functions are now "programmed."
Reason(s) to agree:
Reason(s) to disagree
3. The high levels of cultural diversity in the workplace, coupled with the increasing trends toward
globalization, will make communication easier because more role models, customs, and examples of communication (written, verbal, and nonverbal) will emerge.
Reason(s) to agree:
Reason(s) to disagree