2. Effective Communication
Achieving Success Through Effective Business Communication

3. Learning Objectives Learn why communication matters
Identify skills today’s employers expect
Learn the audience-centered approach
Assess the communication process
Review communication technology
Explore ethical communication
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you will be able to do the following:
Explain the importance of effective communication to your career and to the companies where you will work
Describe the communication skills employers will expect you to have and the nature of communicating in an organization using an audience-centered approach
Describe the communication process model and the ways that social media are changing the nature of business communication
List four general guidelines for using communication technology effectively
Define ethics, explain the difference between an ethical dilemma and an ethical lapse, and list six guidelines for making ethical communication choices

4. Understanding Why Communication Matters
Communication is the process of transferring information and meaning between senders and receivers, using one or more written, oral, visual, or electronic channels. The essence of communication is sharing—providing data, information, insights, and inspiration in an exchange that benefits both you and the people with whom you are communicating.
You will invest a lot of time and energy in this course to develop your communication skills, so it’s fair to ask if it will all be worthwhile. This section outlines the many ways in which good communication skills are good for your career and your company.

5. Career Success
Improving your communication skills may be the single most important step you can take in your career. No matter what career path you pursue, communication skills will be essential to your success at every stage. You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but they’re no good to your company or your career if you can’t express them clearly and persuasively.
As you take on leadership and management roles, communication becomes even more important. The higher you rise in an organization, the less time you will spend using the technical skills of your particular profession and the more time you will spend communicating. Top executives spend most of their time communicating, and businesspeople who can’t communicate well don’t stand much chance of reaching the top.
If you learn to write well, speak well, listen well, and recognize the appropriate way to communicate in any situation, you’ll gain a major advantage that will serve you throughout your career.

6. Communication and Your Company
Aside from the personal benefits, communication should be important to you because it is important to your company. Effective communication helps businesses in numerous ways:
Closer ties with important communities in the marketplace
Opportunities to influence conversations, perceptions, and trends
Increased productivity and faster problem solving
Better financial results and higher returns for investors

7. Communication and Your Company
Earlier warning of potential problems, rising from business costs to critical safety issues
Stronger decision making based on timely, reliable information
Clearer, more persuasive marketing messages
Greater employee engagement with their work, leading to higher employee satisfaction and lower employee turnover

8. Effective Communication
Practical
Factual
Clear
Concise
Persuasive
Effective communication strengthens the connection between a company and all of its stakeholders. Conversely, when communication breaks down, the results can range from time wasting to tragic. To make your communication efforts as effective as possible, focus on making them practical, factual, concise, clear, and persuasive:
Provide practical information
Give facts rather than vague impressions
Clarify expectations and responsibilities
Present information in a concise, efficient manner
Offer compelling, persuasive arguments and recommendations

9. Summary of Discussion
This section covered the following elements involved in Understanding Why Communication Matters:
Communication Is Important to Your Career
Communication Is Important to Your Company
What Makes Business Communication Effective?
This concludes our discussion of Understanding Why Communication Matters. The next section will cover Communicating in Today’s Global Business Environment.
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10. Communicating in Today’s Global Business Environment
You’ve been communicating your entire life, of course, but if you don’t yet have a lot of work experience, the expectations of a professional environment might require some adjustment. This section offers a brief look at the skills that employers will expect you to have, the nature of communication in an organizational environment, and the importance of adopting an audience-centered approach. 

11. Unique Challenges of Business Communication
Globalization and diversity
Business information value
Pervasiveness of technology
Organizational structures
Growing reliance on teamwork
Business communication is far more demanding than the communication that you typically engage in with family, friends, and school associates. Expectations are higher on the job, and the business environment is complex. The next five slides highlight five issues that illustrate why business communication requires a high level of skill and attention:
Globalization of business and increased workforce diversity
The increasing value of information
The pervasiveness of technology
The evolution of organizational structures
The growing reliance on teamwork

12. Globalization and Diversity
Business communication
Today’s businesses increasingly reach across international borders to market their products, partner with other businesses, and employ workers and executives—an effort known as globalization. Many U.S. companies rely on exports for a significant portion of their sales; moreover, thousands of companies from all around the world vie for a share of the massive U.S. market. Therefore, managers and employees need to communicate with business partners from many other cultures.
As people and products cross borders, businesses of all shapes and sizes are paying more attention to workforce diversity—differences among the people in the workplace, including age, gender, sexual orientation, education, cultural background, life experience, and so on. Successful companies realize that a diverse workforce can yield a real competitive advantage, but it also requires a more conscientious approach to business communication.

13. Business Information Value
Competitive
insights
Customer
needs
Regulations
and guidelines
Knowledge workers
As competition for jobs, customers, and resources continues to grow, the importance of information continues to escalate. An organization’s information is now every bit as important as its other resources. Therefore, today’s companies rely on knowledge workers to acquire, process, and communicate information. The following examples illustrate the value of information in today’s economy:
Competitive insights. The more a company knows about its competitors and their plans, the better able it will be to adjust its own business plans.
Customer needs. Most companies invest significant time and money in the effort to understand their customers. This information must be analyzed and summarized in order to develop goods and services that satisfy their needs.
Regulations and guidelines. Today’s businesses must comply with a wide range of government regulations covering areas such as employment, environment, taxes, and accounting.

14. Pervasive Technology Technical expertise
Technology influences virtually every aspect of business communication in today’s workplace. To benefit from this technology, however, you need to have at least a basic level of skills. If your level of technical expertise does not keep up with that of your colleagues and co-workers, the imbalance can put you at a disadvantage and complicate the communication process. This course will help you gain insights into using numerous tools and systems more effectively.
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15. Organizational Structures and Leadership Styles
Tall
Flat
Network
Matrix
Every business has a particular structure that defines the relationships between the people and departments within the organization. These relationships affect communication throughout the organization.
Tall structures have many layers of management between the lowest and highest positions. Communication structures are well defined, but messages can be delayed as they are passed up and down through multiple layers. To overcome such problems, many businesses are now adopting flat organizational structures. The fewer the links in the communication chain, the less likely that misunderstandings will occur; however, individual employees are expected to assume more responsibility for communication.
Specific types of organization structures present unique challenges. In a matrix structure, employees report to two managers at the same time. This increases communication burdens on everyone involved. In a network structure (also known as a virtual organization), a company supplements the talents of its employees with services from one or more external partners. Communicating across these multiple boundaries requires extra planning and diligence.
Regardless of a company’s structure, communication efforts will also be influenced by the organization’s corporate culture; i.e., the mixture of values, traditions, and habits that give a company its atmosphere and personality.
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16. Communication dynamics
Reliance on Teamwork
Communication dynamics
Both traditional and innovative company structures can rely heavily on teamwork, so you will probably find yourself on dozens of teams throughout your career. Teams are commonly used in business today, but they are not always successful—and a key reason that teams fail to meet their objectives is poor communication. Chapter 2 offers insights into the complex dynamics of team communication and identifies the skills you will need to be an effective communicator in group settings.
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17. What Employers Expect Organizational skills Information and ideas
Active listening
Communication diversity
Communication technology
Today’s employers expect you to be competent at a wide range of communication tasks. Fortunately, the skills that employers expect from you are the same skills that will help you advance in your career:
Organizing ideas and information logically and completely
Expressing yourself coherently and persuasively
Actively listening to others
Communicating effectively with people from diverse backgrounds and experiences
Using communication technologies effectively and efficiently

18. What Employers Expect Writing and speaking skills Business etiquette
Ethical communication
Time management
Lifelong learning
Following accepted standards of grammar, spelling, and other aspects of high-quality writing and speaking
Communicating in a civilized manner that reflects contemporary expectations of business etiquette
Communicating ethically, even when choices aren’t crystal clear
Managing your time wisely and using resources efficiently
Honing your communication skills throughout your career

19. Organizational Context
Every organization has a formal communication network, in which ideas and information flow along the lines of command (the hierarchical levels) in the company’s organization structure. In a formal network, information flows in three directions: Downward communication flows from executives to employees. Upward communication flows from employees to executives. Horizontal communication flows between departments.
Every organization also has an informal communication network (the grapevine or the rumor mill) that encompasses all communication that occurs outside the formal network. Some of this communication takes place naturally as a result of employee interaction both on the job and in social settings; some of it takes place when the formal network doesn’t provide information that employees want. In fact, the inherent limitations of formal communication networks helped spur the growth of social media in the business environment.
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20. Center on Audience Audience focus “You” attitude
Emotional intelligence
“You” attitude
Business etiquette
Adopting an audience-centered approach means focusing on and caring about the members of your audience. This approach is also known as adopting the “you” attitude.
Learn as much as possible about your audience. If you’re addressing people you don’t know, try to project yourself into their position by using common sense and imagination. Relating to the needs of others is a key part of emotional intelligence, widely considered to be a vital characteristic of successful managers and leaders
The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to concentrate on their needs—which, in turn, will make it easier for them to hear your message, understand it, and respond positively.
An important element of audience-centered communication is etiquette, the expected norms of behavior in a particular situation. The way you conduct yourself can have a profound influence on your company’s success and your career.
Long lists of etiquette “rules” can be overwhelming, and you’ll never be able to memorize all of them. Fortunately, you can count on three principles to get you through just about any situation: respect, courtesy, and common sense. Moreover, these principles will encourage forgiveness if you do happen to make a mistake.
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21. Summary of Discussion
This section covered the following elements involved in Communicating in Today’s Global Business Environment:
Understanding the Unique Challenges of Business Communication
Understanding What Employers Expect from You
Communicating in an Organizational Context
Adopting an Audience-Centered Approach
This concludes our discussion of Communicating in Today’s Global Business Environment. The next section will cover Exploring the Communication Process.
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22. Exploring the Communication Process
Even well-intentioned communication efforts can fail. Fortunately, by understanding communication as a process with distinct steps, you can improve the odds that your messages will reach their intended audiences and produce their intended effects. This section explores the communication process in two stages: first by following a message from one sender to one receiver in the basic communication model, second by expanding on that with multiple messages and participants in the social communication model.

23. The Communication Model
By viewing communication as a process, such as the following, you can identify and improve the skills you need to be more successful.
The sender has an idea. The success of a communication effort starts here and depends on the nature of the idea and the motivation for sending it.
The sender encodes the idea as a message. When someone puts an idea into a message, he or she is encoding it, or expressing it in words and images.
The sender produces the message in a transmittable medium. The sender needs a communication medium to present the message to the intended audience.
The sender transmits the message through a channel. The communication channel is the system used to deliver the message.

24. The Communication Model
The audience receives the message. It is not enough for the message to reach the intended audience. The audience must also sense the presence of a message, select it from all the other messages, and perceive it as an actual message.
The receiver decodes the message. Decoding is a complex process; receivers often extract different meanings from messages than the meanings senders intended.
The receiver responds to the message. Whether a sender responds to a message as the sender hopes depends on the receiver remembering the message long enough to act on it, being able to act on it, and being motivated to respond.
The receiver sends feedback—verbal, nonverbal, or both. Just like the original message, however, this feedback from the receiver needs to be decoded carefully.
Considering the complexity of this process, it should come as no surprise that communication efforts frequently fail to achieve the sender’s objective. The following slides cover two important aspects of the process: environmental barriers and how audiences receive, decode, and respond to messages.

25. External Barriers Noise and distractions Competing messages Message
filtering
Channel
breakdowns
Within any communication environment, messages can be disrupted by a variety of communication barriers:
Noise and distractions. External distractions range from poor acoustics to uncomfortable meeting rooms to crowded computer screens with instant messages popping up. Internal distractions consist of thoughts and emotions. Multitasking is virtually guaranteed to create communication distractions.
Competing messages. Having your audience’s undivided attention is rare. In many cases, you must compete with other messages that are trying to reach your audience at the same time.
Filters. Messages can be blocked or distorted by filters, which involve any human or technology intervention between the sender and the receiver. Filtering can be both intentional (e.g., automatically filing messages based on sender or content) or unintentional (e.g., an overly aggressive SPAM filter that deletes legitimate ).
When channel breakdowns occur, messages may be delayed, misrouted, or lost.
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26. Audience Mindset Receiving Decoding Responding
After a message works its way through the communication channel and reaches the intended audience, it encounters a whole new set of challenges. Understanding how audiences receive, decode, and respond to messages will help you create more effective messages.
Messages often reach the intended audience but have no effect. For an audience member to actually receive a message, three events need to occur: the receiver has to sense the presence of the message, select it from all the other messages clamoring for attention, and then perceive it as an actual message (as opposed to random, pointless noise).
Even though a message may have been received by the audience, it still does not “mean” anything until the recipient decodes it and assigns meaning to it. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that your audience will assign the same meaning that you intended.
Your message has been delivered, received, and correctly decoded. Now what? Will the audience respond in the way that you would like them to? Probably—if three events occur. First, the recipient has to remember the message long enough to act on it. Second, the recipient has to be able to respond as you wish. Third, the recipient has to be motivated to respond.

27. Social Communication Model
Traditional
Interactive
Conversational
Participative
Scripted
One-Way
Directive
The traditional model of business communication was largely defined by a publishing or broadcast mindset. Externally, a company released carefully scripted messages to a mass audience that often had few, if any, ways to respond. Likewise, customers and other interested parties had few ways to connect with one another to ask questions, share information, or offer support. Internally, communication tended to follow the same “we talk, you listen” model, with upper managers issuing directives to lower-level supervisors and employees.
Today, a variety of technologies have enabled and inspired a new approach to business communication. In contrast to the publishing mindset, this new social communication model is interactive and conversational. The audience is no longer a passive recipient of messages but an active participant in the conversation.
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28. Business Communication 2.0 Model
Traditional
approach
Social media
Hybrid
method
Strategic
plans
Policies
Customer
support
Project
updates
Just as Web 2.0 signifies the second-generation of World Wide Web technologies (blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other social media tools), Business Communication 2.0 is a convenient label for this new approach to business communication. In the 2.0 approach, customers and other stakeholders participate in, influence, and often take control of conversations in the marketplace.
Of course, no matter how enthusiastically a company embraces the 2.0 mindset, it is not going to be run as a social club in which everyone has a say and a vote. Instead, a hybrid approach is emerging in which some communications (such as strategic plans and policy documents) follow the traditional approach and others (such as project management updates and customer support messages) follow the 2.0 approach.

29. Summary of Discussion
This section covered the following elements involved in Exploring the Communication Process:
The Basic Communication Model
Barriers in the Communication Environment
Inside the Mind of Your Audience
The Social Communication Model
This concludes our discussion of Exploring the Communication Process. The next section will cover Using Technology to Improve Business Communication.
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30. Using Technology to Improve Business Communication
Today’s businesses rely heavily on technology to enhance communication. In fact, many of the technologies you might use in your personal life are also used in business.
Anyone who has used a computer, a smartphone, or other digital device knows that the benefits of technology are not automatic. To communicate effectively, learn to keep technology in perspective, guard against information overload and information addiction, use technological tools productively, and disengage from the computer frequently to communicate in person.

31. Maintain Perspective Business tools value
Perhaps the single most important point to remember about technology is that it is simply a tool, a means by which you can accomplish certain tasks. Technology is an aid to interpersonal communication, not a replacement for it. Technology can’t think for you or communicate for you, and if you lack some essential skills, technology can’t fill in the gaps. No matter how exotic or entertaining it may be, technology has business value only if it helps deliver the right information to the right people at the right time.

32. Guard Against Problems
Information
overload
Technology
addiction
The overuse or misuse of communication technology can lead to information overload, in which people receive more information than they can effectively process. As a sender, make sure you don’t send unnecessary messages. In addition, when you send messages that aren’t urgent or crucial, let people know so they can prioritize. Also, most communication systems let you mark messages as urgent; however, use this feature only when it is truly needed.
Beyond simple overload, some workers are beginning to show signs of information technology addiction—to the point of craving the stimulation of being connected practically around the clock, even while on vacation. Although employees who refuse to disconnect from their work might sound like a manager’s dream, being constantly “plugged in” often does more harm than good.
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33. Productive Use of Technology
Policies
Guidelines
Training
According to the “information technology paradox,” information tools can waste as much time as they save.
Inappropriate web use not only distracts employees from work responsibilities but also leaves employers open to lawsuits. Blogs or social networking pages can expose confidential information or damage a firm’s reputation in the marketplace. The best solution to such problems lies in developing clear policies that are enforced evenly for all employees. 
Managers must guide employees in using information technology productively. The speed and simplicity of these tools can cause a flood of digital messages that distract employees from completing their work. In addition, knowing how to use technology efficiently can boost a worker’s productivity. Therefore, managers need to ensure that employees have sufficient training to use information technology while on the job.
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34. Reconnect with People Face-to-face contact Telephone conversations
Even in the best circumstances, technology cannot match the rich experience of person-to-person contact or a telephone conversation. Therefore, even enthusiastic users know that technology has limits.
Jill Smart, an executive with the consulting firm Accenture, uses her company’s advanced videoconferencing system for routine meetings but still travels frequently to meet with clients—particularly those in other countries. According to Ms. Smart, “You get things from being there, over breakfast and dinner, building relationships face-to-face.” Therefore, remember to step out from behind technology frequently to learn more about the people that you work with—and to let them learn more about you.
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35. Summary of Discussion
This section covered the following elements involved in Using Technology to Improve Business Communication:
Keeping Technology in Perspective
Guarding Against Information Overload and Information Addiction
Using Technological Tools Productively
Reconnecting with People
This concludes our discussion of Using Technology to Improve Business Communication. The next section will cover Committing to Ethical and Legal Communication.
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36. Committing to Ethical and Legal Communication
Ethics are the accepted principles of conduct that govern behavior within a society. Ethical communication includes all relevant information, is true in every sense, does not violate the rights of others, and is not deceptive in any way.

37. Unethical Communication
Unethical communication can distort the truth or manipulate audiences in a variety of ways. Plagiarizing involves using someone else's words or other creative products and ideas and claiming them as your own. Omitting essential information the audience needs to make an intelligent, objective decision is unethical. Selective misquoting occurs when damaging or unflattering comments are omitted, in order to paint a better (but untruthful) picture of you or your company.
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38. Unethical Communication
Misrepresenting numbers involves manipulating data by decreasing numbers, altering statistics, or omitting numerical data. Distorting visuals involves making a product look bigger or changing the scale of graphs and charts to exaggerate or conceal differences. Finally, failing to respect privacy or information security needs is unethical and it may be illegal.
The widespread use of social media has exposed the issue of transparency. In this context, transparency involves a sense of openness—of giving everyone involved in a conversation the information they need to process a message accurately. A key aspect of transparency is knowing who is behind the message.
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39. Ethical Questions Ethical dilemma Ethical lapse
Every company has responsibilities to its stakeholders, and those various groups often have competing interests. In some situations, what's right for one group may be wrong for another.
An ethical dilemma involves choosing among alternatives that aren't clear-cut (perhaps two conflicting alternatives are both ethical and valid, or perhaps the alternatives lie somewhere in the gray area between clearly right and clearly wrong). Unlike a dilemma, an ethical lapse is a clearly unethical or illegal choice.
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40. Ethical Communication
Ensuring ethical business communication requires ethical individuals, ethical company leadership, and appropriate policies and structures. Employers have a responsibility to establish clear guidelines, such as a written code of ethics to promote ethical behavior and an ethics audit to monitor ethical progress.
Every employee has the responsibility to communicate in an ethical manner. In the absence of clear guidelines, ask yourself the following questions about your business communications:
Have you defined the situation fairly and accurately?
What is your intention in communicating the message?
What impact will the message have on the people who may receive it or be affected by it?
Will the message achieve the greatest good while doing the least harm?
Will the assumptions that you have made change over time?
Are you comfortable with your decision? Would you be embarrassed if it were printed in the newspaper or posted on the Internet?

41. Legal Communication Promotions and contracts Employment messages
Intellectual
property
Financial
reporting
Defamation
Transparency
In addition to ethical guidelines, business communication is also bound by a wide variety of laws and regulations, including the following areas:
Promotional communication. Marketing specialists need to be aware of the many laws that govern truth and accuracy in advertising.
Contracts. A contract is a legally binding promise between two parties, in which one party makes a specified offer and the other party accepts.
Employment communication. Local, state, and federal laws govern communication between employers and both potential and current employees.
Intellectual property. In an age when instant global connectivity makes copying and retransmitting electronic files effortless, the protection of intellectual property (IP) has become a widespread concern. Intellectual property includes patents, copyrighted materials, trade secrets, and even Internet domain names.
Financial reporting. Finance and accounting professionals who work for publicly traded companies (those that sell stock to the public) must adhere to stringent reporting laws.
Defamation. Negative comments about another party raise the possibility of defamation, the intentional communication of false statements that damage character or reputation.
Transparency requirements. Governments around the world are taking steps to help ensure that consumers and other parties know who is behind the information they receive, particularly from online sources.

42. Summary of Discussion
This section covered the following elements involved in Committing to Ethical and Legal Communication:
Distinguishing Ethical Dilemmas from Ethical Lapses
Ensuring Ethical Communication
Ensuring Legal Communication
This concludes our discussion of Committing to Ethical and Legal Communication. The presentation will close with a review of this chapter’s learning objectives.
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