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UNIT 1 BUSINESS-NETWORK OF COMMUNICATION Structure Introduction- Dependence of business on communication The concept of Business network Variety of Media in Communication Variety of Communication Tools Objectives of Communication ‘Knowledge’ in Comm...

UNIT 1 BUSINESS-NETWORK OF COMMUNICATION Structure Introduction- Dependence of business on communication The concept of Business network Variety of Media in Communication Variety of Communication Tools Objectives of Communication ‘Knowledge’ in Communication Skills needed in Communication Listening Values’ supporting communication Being Passionate Features of Business Communication Summary Keywords INTRODUCTION- DEPENDENCE OF BUSINESS ON COMMUNICATION Business involves in society as the main agency providing goods and services. Thus community has to be aware of businesses that exist around it. The community must know what goods and services are available and business must know who can be their customers. Thus this need is mutual. It is in the interest of business that it communicates and it is in the interest of the people that they should be aware who can give them goods and services. In a way there is interdependence of each other and such an exchange must be supported by communication. Without communication business is not possible. The success of business in a way depends on how it conducts an activity called communication. THE CONCEPT OF BUSINESS NETWORK There must be a link between business and society if both are to exist. The principal link between business and society is established through communication. Lot of individuals and business units, need to come together to form viable and working link. It is not guided by hierarchy but parallel, complementary, supplementary, crisscross and one-to-many relations which can be fittingly described as a network with multiple relations. In a network everyone is connected directly or indirectly and thus forms a huge network organization. The only thread available to it to keep in form and shape is communication. Thus communication is heart of business network. If there is no communication this network will fail. Business communication is network based. VARIETY OF MEDIA IN COMMUNICATION If one has to make any organized activity possible, it cannot be done without resorting to communication. This communication can take shape of signs, even silence, words-spoken or written, pictures, sounds, even fragrance and by arranging supporting environment. ‘Signs’ is an unspoken language, while silence also amounts to communication if receiver of communication can understand the communicator. Long silence, for example, expresses displeasure on part of the communicator. Others such as spoken or written words, pictures are self- expressive. Sounds not representing words, fragrance and supporting environment all express a mood of communication. All these are media used to communicate and thus we have range of media to communicate. Thus making right choice of media is important to communicate. VARIETY OF COMMUNICATION TOOLS Ability to speak and ability to hear are enough if people are opposite to each other, Seeing eye to eye. This is simple and direct communication.. But if there is a distance between the communicator and the listener one has to use long distance tools such as mail, telephone call, E- Mail message, fax, etc. and create technical capabilities to reach words or sounds to the receiver. This makes the need for establishing a process between sender and receiver. Thus one has to code the message, process it and see that receiver is capable of decoding and understanding it. Apart from setting a correct message there could be number of disturbances on way to sender such as traffic jam, technical disturbances etc. and the message may reach in a form incapable of decoding. On mobile how many times one has to say “sorry, I cannot hear you “and we try to move in less congested place. While speaking through a mobile phone it becomes very natural that you expect some disturbances. Through voice mail you can send voice message. One can add pictures, animation, symbols, graphics, slides, movies etc. and make communication interesting as well as attractive. This capability of computers to act as Multimedia communication tool increased utility of computer. The choice of media tool has now become essential before we start communicating. Due to these tools the communication also requires a technical knowhow and maintenance of technical systems. This has increased the ease communicating over distances but has also added cost considerations. Each of these tools adds to our costs. OBJECTIVES OF COMMUNICATION You are in a hurry and you find telephone at hand and pick up and phone someone and then find you have forgotten as to why you are phoning and then say “sorry” and you keep your handset down. What has happened is you have forgotten the purpose of message and have to take back your decision to communicate. If we decide the objectives for communication, then we will develop standards for communications. Thus the objectives also give us standards to evaluate our communication. In the following pages we will elaborate but you must all the time keep the objectives of communication in mind which we may summarize as follows: 1) Purposeful-All communication must be purposeful. Especially business communication is always purposeful. What and why you want to communicate? If you are not clear as to why you are communicating, your communication will never be effective. If you are doing communication purposelessly you are wasting time and money. Any wastage of time and money is reducing profitability of business. 2) Within time-frame -Then you must decide the time frame within which the communication should reach the receiver so that he can act on communication and give you a feed back of his action. Many people expect immediate action without thinking how much time it will take for receiver to decide, act and then give a feedback. When the receiver is reacting to your communication he must be having a peace of mind to act and circumstance as far as possible favorable for taking action. It is the time frame that you are willing to allow that will also decide how you should communicate. If there is a time you may choose a cheaper or slower method. If Sunday is holiday one can arrange communication in such a way that it reaches the receiver the first day of the week. Why hurry and disturb others? 3) Cost-Benefit view- The side consideration of time is a cost. At what cost you  want to communicate? What are the advantages you expect against these costs? In fact you must think in terms of cost benefit analysis as you decide to communicate. Once you form this habit of thinking in terms of cost/benefit, it becomes a part of your behavior and communication costs are reduced and yet maintain its effectiveness. 4) Clear and Brief- Another care you have to take in designing message. The message should be clear and brief. It saves on communication costs without damaging intentions in communication. Thus designing message is an art. Especially when you are conversing one cannot take care of being clear and brief without forming a habit. When you are in a group your communication tends to be loose and unchecked. Many business occasions are of group nature and one requires a lot of behavioral control. Your message must be clear from receiver’s point view because he has to understand it. Most of the senders are self-centric while communicating and do not try to see that others understand it, totally forgetting the interest of the receiver. Ask the question how I will make understand the receiver my message? 5) Action and feedback orientation - The communication must result in anticipated action. The communication must prompt in the receiver of the message an action and we must know it has been taken. Action and its feedback are essential concomitants of communication. It means we must ensure that the communication is received, acted upon and the receiver sends a feedback pertaining to it. The communication cycle ends with action feedback. ‘KNOWLEDGE’ IN COMMUNICATION Language: The most powerful media of communication is words. From the very beginning of life we try to learn words as symbols of expressing all that we see, hear, sense, and then convert it into words. These words make a language and then we use language as a media most of the time. If we are weak in language our expressions are incomplete in terms of persuasion and understanding of the receiver. One of the important area of knowledge for communication is language. Cultivating language is important for communication. in order to overcome differences in languages and variety of expressions in public places  we are resorting to Pictures, emblems for common usage. The best example of this you would find in road signs which you learn while getting a driver’s license. Similarly if one goes to international airports you will find everything is indicated by pictures so that nationals of different countries should understand it effortlessly. The red-cross indicates availability of health care. These are all picture symbols. Technical know-how: Technical knowledge involves selection of media tool, its use and maintenance. One must also understand its cost of purchase and maintenance cost. The type of maintenance it requires and how often. Further we must have its part list, service manual and other descriptive help material. We must know what care one has to take in its use while operating as well as while maintaining. Operator must have a minimum operational knowledge. Merely knowing how to make the best communication possible is not enough, we must be able to choose right media tool and operate. We must know limitations of tool to use it properly. For presentation slides we must know the minimum size of letters and distance up to which the projection can be legible for the audience. What type of projector you should use and how to operate while presenting. All these are technical requirements. Human relations: The sender and the receiver are both human and it is quality of human relations between the two that counts in communication. In any selling you first sell yourself and then your product. In communication, you are selling an idea, a thought, an emotion and as such one must feel like listening to you before they start listening. Thus cultivating as broad, open, transparent, empathetic personality adds to effectiveness of communication. The process of communication involves manners of expression which should create confidence in dealing with you. Communication becomes highly personal when the sender and the receiver both are human. When someone is expecting your communication and when you delay it, your quality of message get affected by the impressions created. Thus mere thoughts are not communicated but the emotions displayed with it. Technically people may learn to write well but may not support it with appropriate emotions. Thus the tone with which you convey a message also creates favorable or unfavorable impression. All this involves  understanding humans and establishing relations which will create a favorable mood at the receiver’s end. One should never undermine the importance of being human in communication. Your personality is expressed through your communication. SKILLS NEEDS IN COMMUNCIATION Listening : If one wants to be a good communicator one must be a good listener. You cannot understand unappreciated a person or situation without being patient in listening. Listening involves concentrated attention on a message given by being in sender’s shoes. In business we are so engrossed that we can misunderstand or misinterpret the message received and therefore, require to give undisturbed attention. The advantage of written communication is that you can read and re-read the same communication but in case of conversation there is no chance of giving second attention. You must listen carefully. Listening involves undivided attention keeping aside all disturbances. We will discuss more about this when we discuss about conversation and meetings. Reading skills: Even though it is possible to read and re-read, the business does not allow so much time so that we can refer the same thing quite often. The shortage of time also demands reading speed to do reading in as less time as possible. This increases need of grasping what is being read. This habit can come only by practicing. As listening is the next stage of hearing so understanding is the next stage of reading. In rapid reading courses effort is made to increase your eye span to more number of words at a time. One must also increase the time span of listening so as to form habit of listening for a long time. Presentation and formatting skills: Whatever you speak, write, show can become effective if its presentation is planned and formatted. This presentation will have to be crisped, short and effective. Though communication is natural one can make it presentable by forming habit of pre-thinking about what and how it is to be communicated. Thus it is necessary that presentation should become a habit. It means you have to practice the best you can give of whatever you have. When we design presentation we try to format it. One of the examples would be when we write  letters we format it with salutation, address and end with using words showing respect for relationship. There can be number of ways we format even telephone conversation. These are given in detail at appropriate places in this book but one must remember that formatting enables us to standardize communication and their by speed it up. If one knows package Microsoft Word one will come across a term “Wizard’ which shows preformatted methods that wise people (termed as Wizards) have developed for your use. Speaking and Conversational skills: Especially with foreign language medium opportunities for speaking come rarely and one has to collect people and see one practices speaking. Speaking speed can be transformed to writing speed to an extent and therefore, speaking is very important aspect of learning language. Remember the old saying reading makes man full, writing an exact and speaking a ready man. VALUES’ SUPPORTING COMMUNICATION When we use words, pictures, symbols we are not only conveying the meaning of these but also give these a tone which is supported by your personal values. If you are transparent your communicated will be drafted differently and if you are cunning it will be drafted differently. Thus your words are interpreted also as values and this may be because of your past impression the receiver carried for you. Though words have the same meaning the tone for it will be guided by values implicit in such words. If you see any word dictionary it will show you the various ways it is interpreted since different people used in different connotations. In business you do not sell your products or service but also your values. Thus person is read along with its communication. Similarly organizations are also read along with their communication. The principal values we look for are: Trust: Any organization and particularly business organization and individuals work on the basis of trust. Your communication will not be believed if there is no mutual trust that exists between communicating parties. The trust has to be cultivated over time and without values it cannot be established. The building blocks of trust are transparency and in time response. The communication alone does not create trust it is the actions that follow such communication that builds it up. A good communicator need not necessarily be a reliable communicator. Empathy: Self-interest is guiding factor in human motivation and human acts in his self- interest. The starting point of empathy knows what is in the interest of receiver of the communication. We must identify this interest and see that our communication satisfies his self-interest. We must also imagine the environment within which he is likely to receive message. We must anticipate the likely repercussions of our communication and be ready to face it now and subsequently. Though communication looks to be independent each time we undertake it has a long term effect and ability to create sustainable relationships. Empathy is putting ourselves in the position of receiver of communication and then thinks of his reaction and decides the presentation of our communication. In order to empathize we must send communication with attitude of service. BEING PASSIONATE One of the less talked aspects of communication is need of presenting it more passionately. Passions show expressions of emotions to support one’s thoughts. The passion heightens the emphasis since the communication is done more forcefully. All communication requires a human touch of feelings, even when business communication is said to be rational than emotional. When you say “I am enclosing a message in duplicate and you can just put your remarks and send me back.” you are trying to make your communication easy and treating the other side as busy and thus showing feelings of respect to the sender. You not only convey thoughts but also emotions. Lot of communication needs to be persuasive. Finding emotional balance with the receiver is a good communication. A manager in the company was for a long away from his place for undertaking a long term course. When he resumed his work, he sent a cable reply to a client against his communication. The action and its communication tone was so different that the receiver immediately sensed that concern manager is back and replied “Welcome to the seat, hope you have done well”. There was no name in the cable yet the receiver perceived by the very tone that the sender is back from a long absence. This message has nothing to do with business but this was expression of business relations. You not only think of business but the relations behind as well. FEATURES OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION So far we have talked about general communication but since now we are going to concentrate on business communication, we must identify its features so that we can tone our approach to communication for business. Some of the factors we have to note are: 1) Purposeful- Business communication is purposefully done and if one does not appreciate the purpose the communication will not be fruitful. One must understand the particular business and occasion to communicate. 2) Direct and result oriented -Most of the relations are business relations with whom we communicate and their interest is obvious. The communication is more direct and result oriented. 3) Time and cost oriented - Since business world is conscious of costs and therefore, time – both these factors need consideration in communication. 4) Emotional flavor -The emotional part is tempered by serving the business purpose. 5) Decline in Presentation Orientation-The initial communication weighs more in terms of mutual impression but soon it assumes a sense of routine and is more action oriented and result oriented than presentation oriented. 6) Series of Communication- Since business involves persuasion and negotiation, it does not end with one communication, it is series of communications. 7) Interactive -Since it is continuous it is interactive. A single communication is not enough to produce results. 8) Human touch - Business communication being formal, you must seek opportunities for emotional expression to develop relationship. 9) Contractual and legal - It is tempered by contractual relationship and legal environment and one must exercise caution in allowing its interpretation. Friends, we have now started our journey towards learning business communication and we have reached the first mile stone. We just gave you an overview of business communication process. This should create many doubts in your mind. This will be cleared when we start thinking them in more elaborate terms evaluating each media and its use. SUMMARY Business serves its purpose through establishing a network of communication. Such a communication can take place through variety of media. Making a right choice of media is important to communication. The use of tools for communication has made communicating technical knowledge oriented. One can increase effectiveness of communication by adding text, voice, pictures etc tool used will add to the cost. One must have clear objectives if one has to communicate. These objectives may include to be purposeful, to decide time frame, thinking of cost versus benefits and having clear and brief message designed for understanding of the receiver. Communication needs language, technical know-how and human relations knowledge as a base. At the same time it demands skills in listening, reading presentation and speaking. Business communication is always purposeful and aiming for results. It is continuous and done in series and therefore, interactive. The time and cost frame of business is more rigid. KEYWORDS  Business – Exchange of goods and services for value  Contractual – Communication by agreement between the parties and affected by law.  Empathy – Showing concern of how addressee of communication will understand by trying to be in his position.  Media – Used as a medium such as words, voice, pictures etc.  Network – direct and indirect weaving of relationships such as fishermen’s net  Presentation – Design to increase understanding of receiver for delivery at the final stage  Time frame – As if time has been framed with beginning and end.  Wizard – A term used by Microsoft to indicate a readymade format developed by wise men.