UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

SESSION 1

• Introduction to Communication Components

•Nature and Types

•Barriers to Communication

•Ethics and Communication

COMMUNICATING IN ORGANIZATIONS

•An organization is a group of people working together to achieve common goals.

•Communication is vital to that process.

COMMUNICATING IN ORGANIZATIONS

•Understanding how communication works in business and how to communicate competently within an organization can help you participate more effectively in every aspect of business.

•Competent writing and speaking skills will help you get hired, perform well, and earn promotions.

THE COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATION

•Stimulus

•Filter

•Message

•Medium

•DestinationF

ee

db

ack

THE COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATION

•Communication is the process of sending and receiving messages through spoken or written words or through nonverbal means.

THE COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATION

The Stimulus

• Internal or External—is an event that createswithin an individual the need to communicate.

•You respond to the stimulus by formulating amessage, either a verbal message (written orspoken words), a nonverbal message (non-written and non-spoken signals), or somecombination of the two.

• The Filter

It consists of a person's unique impression ofreality based on that person's experiences,culture, emotions at the moment,personality, knowledge, socioeconomicstatus, and other variables. The brainreceives the stimulus that is the source ofthe communication, interprets the stimulus,and derives meaning from it in determiningwhat response—if any—is necessary.

The Message

•The message consists of the verbal andnonverbal symbols that representinformation you want to transmit. Theextent to which your communicationachieves its goal depends directly onhow you construct your message to suityour audience.

•The Medium

The medium is the form the messagetakes. The medium can be oral (forexample, a phone call), written (aletter), or nonverbal (a smile).

THE DESTINATION

“The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”

— George Bernard Shaw

THE DESTINATION

•The destination is the point at which thetransmitted message enters the sensoryenvironment of the receiver. At this point,control passes from the sender to thereceiver, and the transmitted messagebecomes the source, or stimulus, for the nextcommunication. A response or reaction to amessage provides feedback.

FACE

NATURE OF COMMUNICATION

•From a look at the communication model it is very easy to infer that communication is a linear and static process-flowing in an orderly fashion from one stage to the next-and that one can easily separate the communicators into senders and receivers. But that is not at all what happens.

• Two or more people often send and receive messages simultaneously. While a person is receiving one message, he may be at the same time sending another message. For example, the look on the face as one is receiving the message may be sending a new message to the sender. This may mean that the receiver either understands the message, agrees with it or is baffled by it.

•Now this feedback may prompt the sender to modify his or her intended message.

•Thus artificially freezing the action in order to examine each step of the communication process may lead to lose some of the dynamic richness of the process in terms of both its verbal and non-verbal components.

VERBAL COMMUNICATIONOral

Video conferences

Presentations

Phone calls

Meetings

One-on-one conversations

Written

Miscellaneous

Reports

Email

Letters

Memorandums

FORMAL COMMUNICATION NETWORK

Downward

CEO

VP-1

MGR-1 MGR-2

VP-2

MGR-3 MGR-4

Upward

Horizontal

Cross-Channel

THE GRAPEVINE IS ...

•Business related

•Accurate

•Pervasive

•Rapid

•Most active during change

•Normal

VERBAL BARRIERS

• Inadequate knowledge or vocabulary

•Differences in interpretation

• Language differences

• Inappropriate use of expressions

•Over abstraction and ambiguity

•Polarization

NONVERBAL BARRIERS

• Inappropriate or conflicting signals

•Differences in perception

• Inappropriate emotions

•Distractions

ETHICS AND COMMUNICATION

•Defamation

• Slander

• Libel

• Invasion of privacy

• Fraud

•Misrepresentation

OTHER ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS.

• Is this message true?

•Does it exaggerate?

•Does it withhold or obscure information that should be communicated?

•Does it promise something that can not be delivered?

•Does it betray confidence?

•Does it play unduly on the fears of the reader?

•Does it reflect the wishes of the organization?

REMEMBER !!!

•Competent communicators use their knowledge of Communication to achieve their goals while acting in an ethical manner.

COMMUNICATION PROCESS

•Use an incident from any recent television program to illustrate each of the five components of the communication process. Identify any communication barrier that you observe.

COMMUNICATION DIRECTIONS

•Think of an organization that you are familiar with. Provide a specific illustration of each of the four directions in the formal communication network. Also develop an organizational chart representing this.