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Business Communications
Lesson Three
FJU/AIEDL
Dr. M. Connor
Based on Excellence in Business Communication,5/e
Thill and Bovée
Busy communications life
You’ll face a variety of communication
assignments in your career, both oral and
written.
 Some of your tasks will be routine, needing
little more than jotting down a few sentences
on paper or keyboarding a brief e-mail
message.
 Others will be more complex, requiring
reflection, research, and careful document
preparation

Stand out

People are bombarded with messages at
work every day, so you want yours to
stand out as being well done.
Your messages must be:
Purposeful
 Audience-centered
 Concise

Purposeful:
Business messages provide information,
solve a problem, or request the
resources necessary to accomplish a
goal.
 Every message you prepare will have a
specific purpose.

Audience-Centered:
Business messages help audiences
understand an issue, collaborate on
establishing a goal, or take some action.
 So every message you prepare must
consider the audience’s point of view.

Concise:
Business messages respect everyone’s
time by presenting information clearly
and efficiently.
 Every message you prepare will be as
short as it can be without detracting from
the subject.

Goal of business writing
The goal of effective business writing is
to express your ideas rather than to
impress your audience.
 One of the best ways to do so is to follow
a systematic writing process.

What is the three-step writing
process?

The specific actions you take to write
business messages will vary from
situation to situation, but these
generalized steps will help you write
more effective messages.
1. Planning
 2. Writing
 3. Completing

Planning:
Think about the fundamentals of your
message.
 Clarify your purpose in communicating,
and analyze audience members so that
you can tailor your message to their
needs.
 Gather the information that will inform,
persuade, or motivate your audience.

More planning
Then adapt your message by selecting
the channel and medium that both suit
your needs and meet your audience’s
expectations.
 And finally, establish a good relationship
with your audience.
 Planning business messages is the
focus of this week’s lecture.

Writing:
Once you’ve planned your message,
organize your ideas and being
composing your first draft.
 This is when you commit your thoughts
to words, create sentences and
paragraphs, and select illustrations and
details to support your main idea.
 Writing business messages will be the
focus of next week’s lecture.

Completing:
Now that you have your first draft, step
back to review the content and
organization for overall style, structure
and readability.
 Revise and rewrite until your message
comes across clearly and effectively;
 then edit your message for details such
as grammar, punctuation and format.

Final steps
Next produce your message, putting it
into the form that your audience will
receive.
 And finally, proof the final draft for typos,
spelling errors and other mechanical
problems.
 We will be covering this material next
week.

How does the three step process
work?

Because so many of our business messages
are composed under pressure and on a
schedule that is often anything but realistic,
dividing your time among the three steps can
be a challenge.
 In some cases, your audience may expect you
to get your message out in record time—
sometimes only minutes after speaking with a
client or attending a meeting.
 But even if you only have 30 minutes, try to
give yourself enough time to plan, write and
complete your message.
General rule of thumb

Try to use about half of your time for
planning—for deciding on purpose, getting to
know your audience, and immersing yourself
in your subject matter.
 Use less than a quarter of the time writing your
message.
 Then use more than a quarter, what’s left, for
completing your message.

That way you won’t shortchange the important
steps of revising and proofreading.
Chart
Writing
Planning
Completing
Analyzing your purpose and
audience

For a business message to be effective, its
purpose and its audience must complement
one another.
 You must know enough about your purpose
and audience to shape your message in a way
that serves both.
 So you begin planning your message by being
as specific as you can about the purpose of
the message.
 Then you analyze your audience as thoroughly
as possible.
Define your purpose:

All business messages have a general
purpose:
to inform,
 to persuade,
 or to collaborate with your audience.

Purpose shapes content

The overall purpose determines both the
amount of audience participation you
need and the amount of control you have
over your message.
To inform:
To inform your audience, you need little
interaction.
 Audience members absorb the
information and accept or reject it, but
they don’t contribute to message
content.
 You control the message.

To persuade:
To persuade your audience, you require
a moderate amount of participation.
 You need to retain a moderate amount
of message control.

To collaborate with audience
members:
You need maximum participation.
 Your control of the message is minimal
because you must adjust to new input
and unexpected reactions.

Business messages also have a
specific purpose.
That purpose may be clear and
straightforward, such as placing an order
 Or it may be more complex, such as
convincing management to hire more
part time workers during the holiday
season.

Defining specific purpose
To help you define the specific purpose
of your message, ask yourself what your
audience should do or think after
receiving your message.
 Then state your specific purpose as
precisely as possible, even identifying
which audience members should
respond.

Is it worth it?

You must also consider whether your purpose
is worth pursuing at this time.
 Too many business messages serve no
practical purpose, and writing useless memos
can destroy your credibility, your believability—
based on how reliable you are and how much
trust you evoke in others.
 If you suspect that your ideas will have little
impact, wait until you have a more practical
purpose.
Four questions to ask yourself:
Is your purpose realistic?
 Is this the right time?
 Is the right person delivering your
message?
 Is your purpose acceptable to your
organization?

Is your purpose realistic?
If your purpose involves a radical shift in
action or attitude, go slowly.
 Considering proposing the first step and
viewing your message as the beginning
of a learning process.

Is this the right time?

If an organization is undergoing changes
of some sort, you may want to defer your
message until things stabilize and people
can concentrate on your ideas.
Is the right person delivering your
message?
Even though you may have done all the
work, achieving your objective is more
important than taking the credit.
 You may want to play a supporting role
in delivering your message, if, for
example, your boss’s higher status could
get better results.

Is your purpose acceptable to your
organization?
If you receive an abusive letter than
unfairly attacks your company, you might
wish to fire back an angry reply.
 But your supervisors might prefer that
you regain the customer’s goodwill. Your
response must reflect the organization’s
priorities.

Develop an audience profile

Ask yourself some questions:
Who are your audience members?
 What are their attitudes?
 What do they need to know?
 And why should they care?


The answers to these questions will
indicate which material you’ll need to
cover and how to cover it.
Friends or stranger?
If you’re communicating with someone you
know well, audience analysis is relatively easy.
You can predict the personas reaction pretty
well, without a lot of research.
 On the other hand, your audience could be
made up of strangers—customers or suppliers
you’ve never met, a new boss or new
employees, so you’ll have to learn about the
members of your audience before you can
adjust your message to serve them.

Things to look at:
Identify the primary audience.
 Determine audience size.
 Determine audience composition.
 Gauge your audience’s level of
understanding.
 Estimate your audience’s probable
reaction.

Identify the primary audience.
If you can reach the decision makers or
opinion molders in your audience, other
audience members will fall into place.
 Key people ordinarily have the most
organizational clout, but occasionally a
person of relatively low status may have
influence in one or two particular areas.

Determine audience size.
A report for wide distribution requires a
more formal style, organization and
format than one directed to three or four
people in your department.
 Also, be sure to respond to the particular
concerns of key individuals.


The head of marketing would need different
facts than the head of production or finance
would need.
Determine audience composition.

Look for common denominators that tie
audience members together across
differences in culture, education, status, or
attitude.
 Include evidence that touches on everyone’s
area of interest.
 To be understood across cultural barriers,
consider how audience members think and
learn, as well as what style they expect.
Gauge your audience’s level of
understanding.
If audience members share your general
background, they’ll understand your
material without difficulty.
 If not, you must educate them.

But...

But deciding how much information to include
can be a challenge
 As a guideline, include only enough
information to accomplish your objective.


Everything else is irrelevant and must be
eliminated. Otherwise it will overwhelm your
audience and divert attention from important points.
If audience members do not have the same
level of understanding, gear your coverage to
your primary audience (the key decision
makers).
Estimate your audience’s probable
reaction.

Next week we’ll discuss how audience
reaction affects message organization. If you
expect a favorable response, you can state
conclusions and recommendations up front
with less evidence. If you expect skepticism,
you can introduce conclusions gradually, with
more proof. By anticipating the primary
audience’s response to certain points, you can
include evidence to address those issues.
Investigating necessary information
When writing long, formal reports, you
will have to do research to locate and
analyze all of the information relevant to
your purpose and your audience.
 We will talk about this and do some work
with this later in the term.

Less formal research

However, many other kinds of business
messages require much less formal
information gathering techniques.
You can collect information
informally by:
Considering others’ viewpoints.
 Browsing through company files.
 Chatting with supervisors or colleagues.
 Asking your audience for input.

Considering others’ viewpoints.

You might put yourself in someone else’s
position to consider what others might be
thinking, feeling or planning.
Browsing through company files.

Your own filing cabinet may be a rich
source of the information you need for a
particular memo or e-mail message.
Chatting with supervisors or
colleagues.

Fellow workers may have information
you need or they may know what your
audience will be interested in.
Asking your audience for input.

If you’re unsure of what audience
members need from your message, ask
them—whether through casual
conversation (face-to-face or over the
phone), informal surveys or unofficial
interviews.
The key to effective communication
Determining your readers’ informational
needs and responding to them.
 A good message answers all audience
questions.

Find out exactly what your audience
wants to know

In many cases your audience’s
information needs are readily apparent

a customer asks a specific question, for
instance.
Vague requests

But sometimes people are vague about what
information they need, often because they
either haven’t thought things through or they
simply don’t know what they need to know.
 By restating a vague request in more specific
terms, what you think the audience is asking
for, you can get the requester to define his or
her needs more precisely.
Think ahead for goodwill
Try to think of information needs that
your audience may not even be aware
of.
 Include any additional information that
might be helpful, even though the
requester didn’t specifically ask for it.
 Although adding information like this
lengthens your message, doing so
creates goodwill.

Provide All Required Information

Once you’ve defined your audience’s
information needs, be sure you satisfy
those needs completely.
The journalistic approach.

Check to see whether your question
answers
who
 what
 when
 where
 why
 how


Many messages fail to pass the test.
Be Sure the Information is Accurate.
There’s no point in answering all of your
audience’s questions if the answers are
wrong.
 Your organization is legally bound by any
promises you make, so be sure your
company is able to follow through.
 Check with the appropriate people
before you make the commitment.

Minimize mistakes
By double-checking everything you write
or say.
 Be sure to review any mathematical or
financial calculations.
 Check all dates and schedules.
 Examine your own assumptions and
conclusions to be certain they are valid.

Be Sure the Information is Ethical

Honest mistakes are certainly possible.
 You may sincerely believe that you have
answered someone’s questions correctly and
then later realize that your information was
incorrect.
 If that happens, the most ethical thing for you
to do is to contact the person immediately and
correct the error.
 Most people will respect you for your honesty.
Unethical omissions
Messages may be unethical simply
because information may be omitted.
 Of course, as a business professional,
you may have legal or other sound
business reasons not to include every
detail about every matter.
 So how much detail should you include?


Include enough detail to avoid misleading
your audience.
Be Sure the Information is Pertinent
Remember that some information will be
of greater interest and importance to
your audience.
 Try to figure out what points will
especially interest your audience.
 Then give those points the most
attention.

Adapting your message to serve
your audience and purpose

By now you know why you’re writing, you
know the audience you’re writing for, and
you have most of the information you
need.
Before actually beginning to write

You need to figure out how to make it serve
both your audience and your purpose.
 To adapt your message, you may need to
decide matters as detailed as whether to
include a date on your Web site materials.
 Mainly, you need to select a channel and
medium that fit your purpose and satisfy your
audience’s expectations.
Select the Appropriate Channel and
Medium
Selecting the best channel and medium
for your message can make the
difference between effective and
ineffective communication.
 When selecting a channel, you must
consider the media within each channel.

Oral channel

The oral channel includes media such as
face-to-face conversation, speeches,
videotape, voice mail, phone
conversations, and so on.
The written channel

A written channel includes media such
as letters, reports, e-mail, faxes, flyers
and so on.
Decisions

No matter what channel and medium you
use, do your best to match your selection
to your message and your intention.
Governs style and tone
Your channel and medium also govern
the style and tone of your message.
 For instance, you wouldn’t write an email message with the same level of
formality that you would use in a memo.

Media richness

The value of a medium in a given
communication situation.
Richness is determined by a
medium’s ability to:
Convey a message by means of more
than one informational cue (visual,
verbal, vocal)
 Facilitate feedback
 Establish personal focus

Making a choice
Choose the richest media for nonroutine, complex messages.
 See the chart on the next slide.

Media richness chart
LEANER
Unaddressed
documents
Including fliers,
bulletins and
standard
reports
RICHER
Addressed
documents
Including
notes,
memos and
letters
Telephone and e-mail
Including voice
mail and
teleconferencing
Face-to-face
Including conversations,
meetings, presentations,
videoconferences
Rich media

Use rich media to extend and humanize
your presence throughout the
organization, to communicate caring to
employees, and to gain employee
commitment to organizational goals.
Lean media

Use leaner media to communicate simple,
routine messages.
 Face-to-face communication is the richest
medium because it is personal, it provides
both immediate verbal and nonverbal
feedback, and it conveys the emotion behind
the message.
 But it’s also one of the most restrictive media
because you and your audience must be in the
same place at the same time.
Factors in the choice
Your intentions heavily influence your
choice of medium.
 Time and cost also affect medium
selection.
 When choosing the appropriate medium,
don’t forget to consider your audience’s
expectations.

Cultural differences
Some cultures tend to favor one channel
over another.
 For example, the US, Canada and
Germany emphasize written messages,
whereas Japan emphasizes oral
messages—perhaps because its highcontext culture carries so much of the
message in nonverbal cues and
“between the lines” interpretations.

Oral media

Primary oral communications media include
face-to-face conversation (the richest media),
telephone calls, speeches, presentations and
meetings.
 Your choice between face-to-face conversation
and a phone call would depend on audience
location, message importance, and your need
for the sort of non-verbal feedback that only
body language can reveal.
Your purpose is to collaborate with
the audience
Small meetings, Conversations, and
Interviews.
 In general, the smaller the audience, the
more interaction among the members.
 If your purpose involves reaching a
decision or solving a problem, select an
oral medium geared toward a small
audience.

Also

Large meetings, conventions and
presentations.
 At the opposite extreme are formal
presentations to large audiences, which are
common at events such as sales conventions,
shareholder meetings, and ceremonial
functions.
 Their formality makes them inappropriate for
collaborative purposes that require audience
interaction.
Written media

Written messages take many forms. At
one end are the scribbled notes people
use to jog their own memories. At the
other end are long, formal reports that
rival magazines in graphic quality.
Advantages

Regardless of the form, written messages
have one big advantage.
 They let you control and plan the message.
 A written format is appropriate when the
information is complex, when a permanent
message is needed for future reference, when
the audience is large and geographically
dispersed, and when immediate interaction
with the audience is either unimportant or
undesirable.
Letters and memos

Most letters and memos are relatively
brief documents, generally one or two
pages.
Memos

The workhorses of business
communication, used for the routine dayto-day exchange of information within an
organization.
Memo form:
In general, memos lack salutation. They
use a TO, FROM, DATE, and SUBJECT
heading to emphasize the needs of the
readers who usually have time only to
skim messages.
 Good memos discuss only one topic


tone is conversational.
Letters

Letters frequently go to outsiders, and
they perform an important public
relations function in addition to
conveying a particular meaning.
Form letters

Many organizations rely on form letters
(and sometimes form memos) to save
time and money on routine
communications.
Boilerplates

A variation of the form letter is the
boilerplate, a standard paragraph that
can be selected to suit an occasion or
audience.
Three standard types
1) routine, good news, goodwill
messages
 2) bad news messages
 3) persuasive messages.
 We will be spending at least a week,
sometimes more, on each of these
categories.

Reports and proposals.

Reports and proposals are factual, objective
documents that may be distributed to insiders
or outsiders, depending on their purpose and
subject. They come in many formats,
including preprinted forms, letters, memos,
and manuscripts. In length, they range from a
few to several hundred pages. They are
generally more formal in tone than a typical
business letter. We will be spending a number
of weeks on them, and you will be writing a
formal business report as your final project.
Electronic forms

In general, use electronic forms of
communication for speed, to overcome
time-zone barriers, and to reach a widely
dispersed audience personally.
Voice mail

Can be used to replace short memos
and phone calls that need no response.
Reduces paperwork.
Teleconferencing
An efficient alternative to face-to-face
meetings
 Not good for negotiation.

Videotape

Often effective for getting motivational
messages out to a large number of
people.
Computer conferencing
Allows users to meet and collaborate in
real time while viewing and sharing
documents electronically.
 We use this in this course when we chat
on MSN Messenger.


I can give students real time help at barely
any cost to either party.
Faxing

Good way of getting hard copies to
distant places, but remember, it lacks
privacy.
E-mail
Offers speed, low cost, increased access
to other employees.
 Very useful tool, but be careful.
 We can get careless with language on email.
 You can’t write in txt code on business email


U cn type txt mss in e-mail. U look s2pid
E-mail addresses

Also, if you use your private e-mail address for
business (including school business), make
sure you have an appropriate address.
 I’m not impressed receiving an e-mail from
Sexybabexxx@hotmail.
 Or even Mangafan, meatnbunz, and you get
the picture. Save that for your friends, please.
 Best is to have a professional address like one
from school or a company (my
[email protected] address).
Website
Offers interactive communication through
hyperlinks, allowing readers to absorb
information non-sequentially.
 They can take what they need and skip
everything else.

Disadvantages
Electronic forms have their
disadvantages, such as tactless remarks
causing tension.
 Stupid e-mails get leaked to the media
all the time.
 E-mail has the same privacy as a
postcard.


Remember that before you complain about
your boss!
Establishing a good relationship with
your audience

Think about who you are and who your
audience is.



Are you old friends with common interests, or are
you total strangers?
Are you equal in terms of status, experience, and
education, or are you clearly unequal?
Your answers to these questions will help give
you the right impression in your message.
Be yourself!
Probably the best thing you can do to
establish a good relationship with your
audience is to be yourself.
 People can spot falseness very quickly,
so just be you and be sincere.

Things to remember

Remember to:
use the “you” attitude,
 emphasize the positive,
 establish your credibility,
 be polite,
 use bias-free language
 project the company’s image

Use the “You” Attitude:
That means speaking and writing in
terms of your audience’s wishes,
interests, hopes and preferences.
 You can adopt the “you” attitude by
replacing terms that refer to yourself and
your company with terms that refer to
your audience.

For example

Instead of saying:


To help us process this order, we must ask
for another copy of the requisition.
Say this:

So that your order can be filled promptly,
please send another copy of the requisition.
And

Instead of


We are pleased to announce out new flight
schedule from Atlanta to New York, which is
every hour on the hour.
Use this:

You can now take a plane from Atlanta to
New York every hour on the hour.
Finally

Instead of this:


We offer the printer cartridges in three
colors: blue, black and green.
Use this:

Select your printer cartridge from three
colors: blue, black and green.
Things to remember
Too many businesses have an “I” or “we”
attitude.
 Using the “you” attitude needs some
finesse or you might end up with some
very awkward-sounding sentences.
 It’s not meant to be manipulative or
insincere.

It’s the thought that counts
Not the pronoun you choose to use.
 If you’re talking to a retailer, try to think
like a retailer.
 If you’re talking to a production
supervisor, put yourself in that position.
 If you’re dealing with a dissatisfied
customer, imagine how you would feel at
the other end of the transaction.

Sometimes avoid the ”you” attitude
There are times that you should
definitely avoid using the “you” attitude.
 If using it will make you sounds
dictatorial or that sounds impolite.

Mistakes
Also avoid it when someone makes a
mistake.
 Then you will want to minimize ill will by
pointing out the error impersonally.
 You might say, “We have a problem”
instead of “You caused a problem.”

Emphasize the positive
Another way of establishing a good
relationship with your audience is to
emphasize the positive side of your
message.
 Most information, even bad news, has
some redeeming feature.
 Explain what you have done, what you
can do and what you will do—not what
you haven’t done, can’t do or won’t do.

Establishing your credibility
People are more likely to respond
positively to your message if they have
confidence in you.
 If you’re unknown to your audience
members, you’ll have to earn their
confidence before you can win them to
your point of view.

Credibility
You want people to trust that your word
is dependable and that you know what
you’re doing.
 If you’re communicating with a familiar
group, your credibility has been
established, so you can get right down to
business.

An unknown or hostile audience?
First, show an understanding of your
audience’s situation by calling attention
to the things you have in common.
 If you’re talking to people in the same
field, you might say, “as a fellow teacher
(or whatever), I’m sure you can
appreciate this situation.”

Building credibility
You can also gain your audience’s confidence
by explaining your credentials, but be careful
not to sound pompous.
 Your title or the name of your organization
might be enough to impress your audience
with your abilities.
 If not, you might mention the name of
someone who carries clout with your
audience. Something like “Professor Jones
suggested I write to you.”

Give good information
Your credibility is enhanced by the
quality of the information that you
provide.
 If you support your points with evidence
that can be confirmed through
observation, research, experimentation
or measurement, audience members will
recognize that you have the facts, and
they’ll respect you.

Be polite

Being polite is another good way to earn your
audience’s respect.
 By being courteous to members of you
audience, you show consideration for their
needs and feelings.
 Express yourself with kindness and tact.
 Although you may be tempted now and then to
be brutally frank, try to express the facts in a
kind and thoughtful manner.
Higher-ups
Use extra tact when writing and when
communicating with higher-ups and
outsiders.
 Don’t let the informality of e-mail trap you
into mistakes of initimacy or
brusqueness.

Be prompt!
Promptness is a sign of courtesy, and it’s
something very important when you’re
dealing with Westerners.
 Remember, most Europeans have a
different view of time than most Asians.

Use Bias-free Language
Most of us think of ourselves as being
sensitive, unbiased, ethical and fair.
 But being objective and fair isn’t enough.
You must also appear to be fair.

What to avoid
Bias-free language avoids unethical
blunders in language related to gender,
race, ethnicity, age and disability.
 Make every effort to change biased
language.

Gender bias

Avoid sexist language by using the same label
for everyone.


For instance, don’t call a woman a chairperson and
a man a chairman. Either call them both
chairperson or even just chair.
Reword sentences to use they instead of he or
she, or worse, he/she.
 In the US and Britain, the preferred title for
women is Ms, unless the individual asks to be
addressed as Miss or Mrs. or has some other
title such as Dr. or Prof.
Racial and ethnic bias
The central principle is to avoid language
suggesting that members of a racial or
ethnic group have stereotypical
characteristics.
 The best solution is to avoid identifying
people by race or ethnic origin unless
such a label is relevant, and it rarely is.

Age bias
Remember, the West has a bias against
older people.
 We mention age only when it is relevant.
 When referring to older people, avoid
such stereotypical adjectives such as
spry or frail.

Disability bias
No painless label exists for people with
physical, mental, sensory or emotional
impairment.
 Avoid mentioning it unless it’s necessary.

Project the company’s image

Even though establishing a good relationship
with the audience is your main goal, give some
thought to projecting the right image for your
company.
 When you communicate with outsiders, serve
as a spokesperson for your organization.
 If you must, subordinate your own style to that
of the company.