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Eng 209/WI Business Writing Week 1 Lecture Notes (Summer)

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Week 1 Lecture Notes

Module 1 Laying Communications Foundations

Week 1 Lecture Notes

1. What's the Value of a Class like Eng 209

2. The Goal of Communication in Business

Lecture 1: What is the Value of a Class like Eng 209?

Eng 209/WI helps you to become effective business writers. It is required by nearly every business program at the

University of Hawai'i as well as at most universities in the country, and with good reason.

What is the value of a course like Eng 209/WI?

The relevance of a class - ANY class - can easily escape you when you're caught up in the day-to-day

business of homework, lectures and tests. When that happens, remember the BIG PICTURE: th is class gives

you the ski ll s you need to succeed in the real wor ld . Each assignment and lecture moves you closer to that

next level. Keep the big picture in mind and set your sights on the final goal: to become a better business

communicator.

Figure: Benefits of Effective Communication (Bovee, Thill and Schatzman)




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1. Eng 209/WI gives you important job preparation: communication skills that are the lifeblood of an

organization. Organizations understand that achieving success in today's workplace is closely tied to the

ability of employees and managers to communicate effectively with each other and with people outside their

organization. Your ability to communicate effectively increases productivity, both yours and your

organization's (See Fig. 1) and helps you anticipate problems, make decisions, coordinate work flow,supervise others, develop relationships, and promote products and services. You can shape the impressions

you and your company make on co-workers, employees, supervisors, investors and customers in addition to

perceiving and responding to the needs of these people you communicate with.

Without effective communication, people misunderstand each other and misinterpret information. Ideas misfire or fail to gain attention, and people and companies flounder. Studies by authors Stephanie

Armour and Ted Pollock show that on average 14 percent of each 40-hour work week is wasted because of

poor communication between staff and management (and that number doesn't include problems cleared up

through phone calls and meetings.) Such required follow-up is a drain on the resources and productivity of an

organization.

2. Eng 209/WI gives you the strong communications skills that companies value. Some companies value

good communications skills in their employees so much that they actively encourage employees to take business communications courses. For example, Motorola requires 1.5% of payroll to be used to maintain

employee competency level - training plus financing AS., B.S., or M.S. degrees. Our team work project is an

example of the real-world work you'll be doing.

3. Eng 209/WI gives you a competitive edge in today's information/technology society. There is evidence of

the continued use of English as a universal language. 80% of information stored in more than 100 million

computers around the world is in English. 85% of international telephone conversation is in English. Most of

the world's scientific papers are first published in English. Thus, English is the language of international

business. Still, cultural nationalism means people keep traditional languages and cultures alive. Moreover,

Pacific Rim countries (Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) make up the fastest

growing area in the world of economics and culture (such as in arts, fashion and design). Hawaii is a key

location in business and communications.

In the future you will be called upon to write and speak.

Every time you do, you advertise your potential worth as a professional

Lecture 2: The Goal of Communication in Business

The overriding goal of this course is to help you become a more effective business writer regardless of the

field you plan to go into. Virtually everyone communicates at work. No matter what the field, and no matterhow much you know about your job, specialized knowledge alone isn't enough to guarantee success;communication skills are also vital. The table below summarizes the results of one survey in which

employers list the skills and qualities for their ideal candidate. Communication skills always top the list.

Successful professionals will tell you that to succeed in business today, you need the ability tocommunicate with people both inside and outside the company you work for. Whether you are

competing to get the job you want or to win the customers your company needs, your success or failuredepends to a large degree on your ability to communicate:




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Figure: Top Ten Qualities/Skills Employers

Want

1. Communication skills 2. Honesty/Integrity3. Interpersonal skills (relate well to others)

4. Strong work ethic5. Teamwork skills (work well with others)

6. Analytical skills7. Motivation/Initiative8. Flexibility/Adaptability

9. Computer skills10. Detail orientated

source: Job Outlook 2005 (Bethlehem, PA: NationalAssociation of Colleges and Employers,

http://jobweb.com/jopboutlook/2005outlook/3a.htm)

Additional research validates the importance of communication-related skills, including working on teams,teaching others, serving customers, leading, negotiating, working with cultural diversity, interviewing,listening, conducting meetings, and resolving conflicts. This act explains why almost 90 percent of US

companies provide some type of communications skills training.

Subscribers to the Harvard Business Review rated "the ability to communicate" the most important factor inmaking an executive "promotable," more important than ambition, education, and capacity for hard work.

Research spanning several decades has consistently ranked communication skills as crucial for managers.One 20-year study that followed the progress of Stanford University MBAs revealed that the mostsuccessful graduates (as measured by both career advancement and salary) shared personality traits that

distinguish good communicators: a desire to persuade, an interest in talking and working with other people,and an outgoing, ascendant personality. As students, these achievers developed their communication skills

by choosing courses such as business writing, persuasion, selling ideas, negotiation, and speaking.

The need for communication skills is important in virtually every career, not just those that are traditionallyregarded as people-oriented. Practitioners in Big Six accounting firms spend 80% of their work timecommunicating with others, individually and in groups. Likewise, engineers spend most of their

professional lives writing, speaking, and listening. Technical people with good communication skills earnmore, and those who are weak communicators suffer. William Schaffer, international business development

manager for computer giant Sun Microsystems, made the point emphatically: "If there's one skill that'srequired for success in this industry, it's communication skill." Other high-tech experts back up this claim.Over 90% of the personnel officials at 500 US businesses stated that increased communication skills areneeded for success in the 21st century.

The importance of communication is not surprising when you consider the staggering amount of time people spend communicating on the job. One study, published in Business Outlook, based on responses

from over 1000 employers at Fortune 1000 companies found that workers send and receive an average of1798 messages each day via telephone, email, faxes, papers, and face-to-face communications. Some

experts have estimated that the average business executive spends 75 to 80 percent of the timecommunicating, about 45 minutes of every hour.




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The importance of communicating effectively on the job is clear. But this discussion so far hasn't evenaddressed the fact that communication skills often make the difference between being hired and being

rejected in the first place. A study published in the Journal of Career Planning & Employment asked almost250 employers "What skills are most important for college graduates?" Their overwhelming response waswritten and oral communication skills, followed by interpersonal skills, teamwork, and analytical abilities.

As you can see, having strong written, and oral, business communication skills will make you morecompetitive, more promotable, and more productive on the job. And the best part of all? You can develop

these skills now, as a student, before you enter the job market. As author Jim Richman writes in TheScientist , "If I give any advice, it is that you can never do enough training around your overallcommunication skills."

source: excerpted mostly verbatim from Ronal Adler and Jeanne Elmhorst, Communicating at Work

(McGraw © 2008, Ch. 1, pp. 5 - 8. )

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