Written communications

Written Communication is most common form of communication being used in business. So, it is considered core among business skills.

Memos, reports, bulletins, job descriptions, employee manuals, and electronic mail are the types of written communication used for internal communication. For communicating with external environment in writing, electronic mail, Internet Web sites, letters, proposals, telegrams, faxes, postcards, contracts, advertisements, brochures, and news releases are used.

Advantages of written communication includes: Messages can be edited and revised many time before it is actually sent. Written communication provides record for every message sent and can be saved for later study. A written message enables receiver to fully understand it and send appropriate feedback. Pictures, tables, graphs and diagrams can also be included in written communications.

Disadvantages of written communication includes: Unlike oral communication, written communication doesn’t bring instant feedback. It takes more time in composing a written message as compared to word-of-mouth, and number of people struggle for writing ability.

Written communications should be:

• accurate - everything should be checked, including all facts, spelling and grammar;

• clear - the person writing the message must know what they want to say before they begin to write it down, and the person reading the document should be able to understand its content immediately;

• simple - short words and sentences are more effective and have more impact than long ones;

• complete - a document which leaves a message unfinished or leaves out a vital piece of information will fail in its purpose.

Barriers to communication

The most common barriers are:

Language can affect communications in several ways. Most obviously, if the person sending and the person receiving the communication are not both fluent in the language for the communication, whether written or oral, misinterpretations of the communication may occur. Similar misinterpretations and lack of understanding can occur if the language used by the person sending the communication is too technical or academic for the person receiving it. Many businesses and functions within businesses have their jargon, which is used fluently by those in the business or function, but not by those outside. Indeed, such jargon often uses words that have other meanings in everyday language.

Atmosphere in which a communication is made can affect its effectiveness. For example, if the atmosphere is strained, and the person receiving the communication is nervous, perhaps afraid for their job, they are likely to look for hidden meanings in a communication – and will often find one that is not intended.

Physical barriers to effective communications come in many forms. Some affect the ability of a person to communicate normally, but physical barriers also include factors in the environment that may interfere with the communication. Physical barriers include noise in a factory where a meeting or conversation is taking place, interference on a telephone line and so on.

Timing of a communication is frequently important to its effectiveness. Notification of a meeting or other event, for example, should be given in sufficient time for people to arrange to be present and to prepare for the event. If an organization must make a decision about action to be taken on Friday, a report containing the results of research, which the organization needs, to enable it to make that decision, is of little use if it is not completed until the following Monday.

Communications skills - the importance of removing barriers:

Communication barriers can pop-up at every stage of the communication process (which consists of sender, message, channel, receiver, feedback and context - see the diagram below) and have the potential to create misunderstanding and confusion.

To be an effective communicator and to get your point across without misunderstanding and confusion, your goal should be to lessen the frequency of these barriers at each stage of this process with clear, concise, accurate, well-planned communications. We follow the process through below:

Sender...

To establish yourself as an effective communicator, you must first establish credibility. In the business arena, this involves displaying knowledge of the subject, the audience and the context in which the message is delivered.

You must also know your audience (individuals or groups to which you are delivering your message). Failure to understand who you are communicating to, will result in delivering messages that are misunderstood.

Message...

Next, consider the message itself. Written, oral and nonverbal communications are affected by the sender’s tone, method of organization, validity of the argument, what is communicated and what is left out, as well as your individual style of communicating. Channel...

Messages are conveyed through channels, with verbal including face-to-face meetings, telephone and videoconferencing; and written including letters, emails, memos and reports.

Receiver...

These messages are delivered to an audience. Keep in mind, your audience also enters into the communication process with ideas and feelings that will undoubtedly influence their understanding of your message and their response. To be a successful communicator, you should consider these before delivering your message, acting appropriately.

Feedback...

Your audience will provide you with feedback, verbal and nonverbal reactions to your communicated message. Pay close attention to this feedback as it is crucial to ensuring the audience understood your message.

Context...

The situation in which your message is delivered is the context. This may include the surrounding environment or broader culture (i.e. corporate culture, international cultures, etc.).

Removing barriers at all these stages

To deliver your messages effectively, you must commit to breaking down the barriers that exist in each of these stages of the communication process.

Let’s begin with the message itself. If your message is too lengthy, disorganized, or contains errors, you can expect the message to be misunderstood and misinterpreted. Use of poor verbal and body language can also confuse the message.

Barriers in context tend to stem from senders offering too much information too fast. When in doubt here, less is often times more. It is best to be mindful of the demands on other people’s time, especially in today’s ultra-busy society.

Once you understand this, you need to work to understand your audience’s culture, making sure you can converse and deliver your message to people of different backgrounds and cultures within your own organization, in this country and even abroad.

Some tips on how to develop good communication skills:

• Start by understanding your own communication style

Good communication skills require a high level of self-awareness. Understanding your personal style of communicating will go a long way toward helping you to create good and lasting impressions on others. By becoming more aware of how others perceive you, you can adapt more readily to their styles of communicating. This does not mean you have to be a chameleon, changing with every personality you meet.

• Be an active listener

People speak at 100 to 175 words per minute (WPM), but they can listen intelligently at 600 to 800 words per minute. Since only a part of our mind is paying attention, it is easy to go into mind drift - thinking about other things while listening to someone. The cure for this is active listening - which involves listening with a purpose. It may be to gain information, obtain directions, understand others, solve problems, share interest, see how another person feels, show support, etc.

If you're finding it particularly difficult to concentrate on what someone is saying, try repeating their words mentally as they say it - this will reinforce their message and help you control mind drift.

• Use nonverbal communication

Use nonverbal behaviors to raise the channel of interpersonal communication. Nonverbal communication is facial expressions like smiles, gestures, eye contact, and even your posture. This shows the person you are communicating with that you are indeed listening actively and will prompt further communications while keeping costly, time-consuming misunderstandings at a minimum.

• Give feedback

Remember that what someone says and what we hear can be amazingly different! Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can distort what we hear. Repeat back or summarize to ensure that you understand. Restate what you think you heard and ask, "Have I understood you correctly?"

Feedback is a verbal communications means used to clearly demonstrate you are actively listening and to confirm the communications between you and others. Obviously, this serves to further ensure the communications are understood and is a great tool to use to verify everything you heard while actively listening.

Reading comprehension

Exercise 1

Find in the text and explain the following words:

1. communication 2. recipient 3. message 4. feedback 5. facilities 6. external/internal communication 7. memo 8. jargon 9. misinterpretation

10. barrier 11. timing 12. sender/receiver 13. audience 14. context 15. assumption 16. judgment 17. credibility 18. word-of-mouth

Exercise 2

Match a word from 1-8 with a suitable word from a-h to make a phrase from text 1. Make up your sentences using these phrases.

non-verbal communication face-to-face two-way facial technological effective permanent

development process communication record skills expression meetings behaviour

Exercise 3

Complete the sentences.

1. People communicate at work by means of …

2. Managers need to evaluate …

3. Most of the time we give and receive feedback using …

4. Most oral communications take place …

5. One of the main problems with telephone communication is …

6. The most common types of written communication are…

7. Written communication should be …

8. To develop your message effectively, you must …

Exercise 4

Match the beginnings of the sentences below with their endings:

1. Communications are used …

2. You must communicate with your teachers …

3. And you will need to communicate with the examiner at the end of the term,…

4. People communicate with each other in many ways …

5. Communications are only effective if the receiver …

6. Many businesses and functions within businesses have their own jargon …

7. Physical barriers include …

8. Internal communications are communications …

9. External communications are communications …

1. …in order to get through your course successfully.

2. …to pass on information, give instructions, check and receive feedback on activities, and to discuss matters of interest or concern.

3. …if you are going to pass.

4. …actually receives and understands the message the sender intends.

5. …by talking face to face or over the telephone, or by sending e-mails and letters.

6. …noise in a factory where a meeting or conversation is taking place, interference on a telephone line.

7. …which uses words that have other meanings in everyday language.

8. …with people outside the organization.

9. …between people in the same organization.

Exercise 5

People in business have to communicate with others in the same business organization and with people outside. Put the correct word in the boxes.

a) colleagues	e) managers
b) suppliers	f) customers
c) other organizations	g) subordinates
d) other employees	h) government bodies

Internal communication People within the business, such as: 1. 2. 3. 4.

External communication People outside the business, such as: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Exercise 6

Fill in the chart below:

Oral communication Written communication

advantages

disadvantages

Translate into English

Ділове спілкування є одна з важливіших управлінських процедур поряд с плануванням, організацією, мотивацією, контролем та прийняттям рішень. Вона займає від 50 до 90% робочого часу менеджера. Ні жодна з вказаних управлінських процедур не може реалізуватись без ділового спілкування. Ділове спілкування включає в основному три елемента – це: сприйняття, передача та розуміння інформації. Від ефективності кожного з них залежить й ступень розуміння інформації.

Look through the text again and

1. describe communication process using the diagram in the text.

2. speak about two types of communication.

3. list all barriers to communication and the ways of removing them.

4. give some tips on how to develop good communication skills.

Suzanne Jameson, Communications Manager at LWP, is interviewd about electronic communications (e-mail, internet and intranet).

1. Listen and choose the correct options (a-c).

1. According to Suzanne, companies use intranets to

1. Reduce company costs.

2. Motivate their employees

3. Keep teams in contact with each other.

2. Which statement does Suzanne make?

1. The majority of staff do not have the same first language.

2. Many employees work away from their workplace.

3. Key vacancies are filled by the wrong people.

3. Which of these advantages of an intranet is mentioned?

1. Companies can monitor staff contact with suppliers.

2. It is a way of providing free training courses.

3. Everyone can receive the same ingormation.

4. How does Ford’s management use the company intranet?

1. To inform staff about company business.

2. To provide technical support.

3. To recruit new staff.

5. What problem arose at SAP?

1. The chairman felt he was losing control.

2. Employees thought the intranet was a waste of time.

3. Some middle managers were unhappy about changed roles.

6. Which statement is made about communication at Siemens?

1. Arrangements are all made by secretaries.

2. All e-mails go via the Chief Information Officer.

3. Everyone has the right to communicate across the organization.

2. Now complete the phrases to summarize Suzanne’s views from the interview. Remember to summarize Suzanne’s message – not necessarily her words.

1. Suzanne was talking about … the effect of new technology on communication.

2. Basically, what Suzanne said was that intranets …

3. She reckons that …

4. When asked about potential disadvantages of technology, she said the main thing

is …

Exercise 1

As you know using information technology can improve the effectiveness of oral and written communications. Read the text and put the correct words from the box in the text.

a) network	f) information
b) personal computers	g) Internet
c) mobile phones	h) modem
d) tool	i) telephone line
e) fax machines	j) communications

Advances in information technology over recent years have led to radical new forms of communication. These include:

…..1….. – which transmit written text, graphics, charts and photographs quickly anywhere in the world;

…..2….. – which can be carried by people at all times so that they can keep in touch with their place of work;

…..3….. – with modems and software for sending e-mail, which may consist of text, graphics and even sounds, depending on the capabilities of the sender’s and receiver’s computers.

Businesses with several computer terminals can link these to a …..4…..or Intranet, so that each computer can exchange …..5…..with the others and even access information held on their hard drives. Employees’ home computers may be networked to their employer’s internet so that they can communicate with, and access information stored on computers at their workplace, using a …..6…..and telephone line.

The …..7…..is a worldwide network of high speed computers permanently linked to provide and exchange information. Anyone with a personal computer and a modem connected to a …..8…..can connect to the Internet via an Internet Service Provider. The number of computers connected to the internet is vast and growing daily, as is the amount and variety of information that can be obtained. The Internet is an invaluable …..9…..for businesses, which can use it for …..10….. , marketing their products, providing customer and technical support, inviting customer feedback and so on.

Exercise 2

Look through the list of technological inventions in the field of communication. Match the advantages and disadvantages of each invention and put your variants in the table. Some may be used more than once.

The list of advantages and disadvantages

1. easy to use

2. not everybody can afford one

3. access to all kinds of information

4. may lose social skills/become isolated

5. instant information about world issues

6. people may ring at inconvenient time

7. can be contacted at any time

8. children may access unsuitable information

9. faster than sending letters by post

10. poor reception in certain areas

Technological inventions	Advantages	Disadvantages
the Internet
e-mail
radio/television
mobile phone
fax machine
telephone

Exercise 3

1. Not everyone is relaxed about new technology. Look through the newspaper report and answer the questions.

What does the picture suggest that the report is about? What do you think these phrases from the report mean? the explosion in electronic communication information overload information fatigue syndrome the information age computer rage

2. Now read the article and answer the questions.

1. What does the headline of the report refer to?

2. How do you feel if you have information fatigue syndrome?

3. What causes the problem?

Trying to climb a ladder under Niagara Falls

Do you ever feel that it is all too much and that you are in danger of being swallowed by your computer? Are you unable to cope with the quantity of data produced by the explosion in electronic communication? Are you drowning in messages received via e-mail, the Internet, faxes and voice-mail? If so, you are experiencing information overload, and you may be suffering from information fatigue syndrome.

Before we can solve a problem or make a decision, we have to search through ever-expanding mountains of information; much of this information may be out of date, contradictory or inappropriate. Twenty years ago we only had to deal with communication by telephone, letter and telex. Information age workers have to answer dozens of e-mails, read piles of faxes and respond to calls on voice-mail, answering machines and mobile phones. The biggest fear of employees is that they cannot deal with all the information that arrives on their desk in the time available. One worker described the feeling as trying to climb a ladder under Niagara Falls!

The first signals of information fatigue syndrome are forgetfulness, bad temper, loss of concentration, sleep disturbance and anxiety. This can lead to computer ‘rage’ and often results in people literally hitting their PCs!

Pre reading Are you a good conversationalist? Why? Why not? Are conversationalists born or made? Can everyone make a good conversationalist? What makes a good conversationalist?

1. Look at the picture. Who is the unhappiest person there? Why?

2. What kind of an impression do you get from the way the colleagues interact with each other?

3. Read the situation described in the picture:

You have just started working in a new department, and you find yourself at an

office birthday party for a colleague you don't know. Your new colleagues are

chatting, telling jokes, and laughing, and as the newcomer, you feel a bit out of

place.

4. Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? What did you do?