Archive for business communication
Communication For Business
Posted by: | CommentsIntroducing Successful Communication For Business
By Kadence Buchanan
Whenever we face the task of writing a report, preparing a proposal, completing a staff study, or composing a business letter, we go through the same series of logical steps. First we recognize the problem and/or the purpose with which the message must deal. Then we plan the content of the communication to achieve our goal. Next we organize our ideas so that they will be presented in an order that is logical and psychologically effective. Later we have to write the first draft, which must be followed by careful editing. It is imperative to make sure that what we have written is stated clearly, completely, correctly, and concisely. Writing the final draft from the edited version then becomes almost a simple formality.
In sum, the planning step pays dividends to both the writer and the reader. A working outline gives the writer an agenda to follow in creating a clear, organized document. That outline, as translated into headings and paragraph beginnings, serves the reader as a road map for following the writer’s thoughts. The end result of such orderly sending and receiving is successful communication for business.
When we communicate, we attempt to transmit ideas. We select words, order them into sentences and connect the sentences to build paragraphs. The way business people handle those three elements largely determines how effective they are in making themselves understandable to others. Creating and maintaining high standards for written communication in the workplace is hard work on the part of the manager. But the effort is well repaid as subordinates begin to practice the same standards set by the manager. The alternative -simply letting poor writing go forward- backfires eventually on the bottom line, as clients, stockholders, and the public lose faith in a company that can’t communicate accurately and clearly. Effective written communications succeed in both rational and emotional ways. Skilled business writers convey and arouse feelings as well as communicate facts and ideas.
Every company, big or small, communicates to dozens of different publics. These publics are either internal or external to the firm: employees, suppliers, dealers, distributors, manufacturers, customers, vendors, prospective purchasers, government agencies, community groups, educational institutions, and so on. Of the many types of written or printed communication forms, such as newspaper and magazine advertisements, direct mail pieces, telegrams, reports, and letters, it is certainly letters are used most frequently.
Our modern world of computer and electronic communication, like the Internet and the use of e-mails, has made a striking difference in our use of business letters, as information now can be send quicker and at less cost than in the past. But although the transmission of the business letter is changing, the essential act of sending a message from one person to another remains the same. Since one person is still communicating with another, it is important to be aware of and practice the basic principles of successful communication for business
By Kadence Buchanan
Ten Ways Women Sabotage Communication in the Workplace…..
Posted by: | CommentsAccording to Diane DiResta there are ten ways women sabotage communication in the workplace. Here is an ezine article that she wrote…
Have a read and let me know what you think by posting in the comments box on the left hand side of this page
By Diane DiResta
Glass ceiling or partners in sabotage? While the glass ceiling exists, very often women undermine their success by how they communicate in the workplace. We’ve learned to dress for success but have we learned the language of success? When Catalyst, a non-profit organization dealing with women’s issues asked.
What holds women back from top management?
Fifty-two per cent said Male stereotyping and preconceptions of women.
When they asked, How can women succeed?
Sixty-one per cent said Developing a style with which male managers are comfortable. It seems communication style is vitally important.
Here are ten ways women weaken their image and what they can be do about it.
1. Too much head nodding-When women nod, they mean I hear you,
I understand. Men interpret head nodding as agreement with their ideas.
Too much head nodding will be perceived as weakness and may result in miscommunication. Continual head bobbing creates a subliminal message of submissiveness.
2. Uptalk-A rising inflection at the end of a sentence sounds tentative, as if posing a question. This is a real credibility killer. Women will not be taken seriously with this vocal pattern. To speak with authority practice bringing the voice down at the end of a sentence. American intonation patterns use a downward inflection to declare or demand and a rising inflection to question or indicate uncertainty.
This is not true for all cultures. In Canada, India, Pakistan, France and China it is more commonplace to hear the voice rise at the end of a sentence. This pattern is sometimes used by American men in the South or by Generation X. It is not effective for either sex.
3. Weak Language
Tag lines-Some communicators make a statement and then ask for validation. This is a good idea, don’t you think? We have the best team, right? Tag lines weaken conviction and authority. Eliminate them.
Modifiers-Words such as some, just, only, hopefully, and guess, minimize the message and the messenger. This is just a thought. I’m only a beginner; Hopefully, I’ve done a good job; I guess I have a question, are weak statements. They signal a lack of confidence and tell the listener that its not very important. Constant apologizing is not appropriate and will have the same effect. Weed out wimpy words and replace them with powerful language. This is most commonly a female pattern.
time to sound confident and full of conviction.
4. Allowing interruptions-Men jump in and say what they think. They tend to interrupt more than women. Women are more likely to allow themselves to be cut off and lose credit for their ideas. Instead, they can say, I’m not finished, Please hold your questions,These interruptions break everyone’s train of thought or continue talking and finish your point.
5. Not speaking up (Waiting to be called on)-Still waters may run deep but in our business culture, people who don’t speak up are perceived as not knowing anything. Commit to making one contribution at every meeting. It may be as simple as underscoring a point or adding to what’s been said. Some women wait to be called on or have difficulty taking the floor. It may be necessary to interrupt to have your say. Do it. You must be heard to be a counted.
6. Dressing too sexy-A visual impression takes seven seconds or less. Clothing and appearance are a visual shorthand. Women who wear spiked heels, low cut blouses, heavy make-up, and micro-mini skirts are communicating sexual availability rather than career mobility. To succeed in the workplace, women must dress the part. You don’t have to sacrifice femininity, but don’t appear too flashy. The goal is to look professionally attractive. To achieve advancement, dress one level above your present position. If you are a supervisor, dress, like a manager. On the opposite end of the continuum, executive women may dress too frumpy. At senior levels it’s no longer what you know but who you are as a leader. If a woman executive doesn’t look the part, she’ll lose respect and credibility.
7. Too soft spoken-A soft or breathy voice may sound sexy but it indicates insecurity or lack of confidence. Breathe from the diaphragm and project the voice so that every person at the meeting can hear. If they have to strain to listen, they will tune you out. A speaker loses conviction when ideas are presented in a soft voice. Confident women project their voices.
8. Allowing others to take credit for ideas-A common complaint of women is that men take credit for their ideas. When this happens women must learn to speak up and claim their contributions. Excuse me, I just said that a minute ago. How is that different from what I just proposed? Do not sit quietly while someone intercepts your idea.
9. Weak Body posture-Cute gestures such as shrugging shoulders, not making direct eye contact, standing with one leg crossed at the ankle and a weak handshake will weaken ones visual impact. Men naturally take up more space. Hold your ground. Stand tall and sit up straight, make direct eye contact and ground your energy. Channel nervousness by using hand gestures about the waist. Act like you belong. You have a right to be there.
10. Avoiding public speaking. This is one of the biggest mistakes women can make in their careers. Men don’t have a glass ceiling. Public speaking is an opportunity for visibility and equal exposure. Confront your fear, get some coaching, and get out there and shine.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Diane_DiResta
http://EzineArticles.com/?Ten-Ways-Women-Sabotage-Communication-in-the-Workplace&id=992
So, What are your views on this ? I’m intrigued to discover your thoughts….
How to Improve Communication Skills and Your Personal Style
Posted by: | CommentsHere are six tips for improving your communication style:
1.
Knowing how to improve communication skills will come easier once you become aware of your own communication style.
Each person has a unique way of communicating. Listen to your own speech. What sorts of words do you use? Which sort of body language and what tone of voice are you using? Now, think of someone who, in your opinion, is a good communicator. Compare your style to theirs. You’ve just taken an important first step in how to improve communication skills.
2. Now that you are aware of your own style, study the style of those around you. How do the most important people in your life converse? How do they say things? Look for approaches you can model and make your own.
3. Adjust to the other styles of communication. Don’t think it is too late to change your way of conversing because it’s been years. You had to learn to communicate in the first place and you can unlearn certain behaviors or change them. Sometimes we get stuck in a communication rut.A father once was having a hard time with his teenaged daughter. She was growing and he thought she didn’t tell him what was going on in her life. They were in a heated discussion when he asked, Why didn’t you tell me?Her answer was that she had, but he was too busy lecturing her to hear her. He learned that adjusting his style to his daughter would involve listening first before jumping right into solving the problem.
4. To build rapport, during a conversation try and match the other persons movements, posture and verbal style. Don’t do everything they do, but mirror one or two things. For example, if the person gives mostly short answers to questions, you follow suit.Or, maybe they talk at a slower pace than you usually do-slow your speaking speed to match theirs. This may sound simplistic but it is a very potent way to make someone feel very relaxed and comfortable in your presence.
5. The way you communicate at home may not be the same as in a different environment. Make sure you change your style to suit the different setting. Some comments you might want to tell your best friend, in private.Other things can be shared in a group setting. Learn how to improve communication skills by altering your style for the appropriate setting. Many of us know someone who offers far too much information in a group setting.
6. Dont criticize others for communicating differently. If we all communicated in the same way, we’d soon be bored with each other.Getting a good grasp of your communication style and finding ways to accommodate other peoples styles, is a good way to improve your communication skills.
Peter Murphy is a peak performance expert. He recently produced a very popular free report: 10 Simple Steps to Developing Communication Confidence. Apply now because it is available only at: how to communicate
expert=Peter_Murphy
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Improve-Communication-Skills-and-Your-Personal-Style&id=149358
The 5 Pitfalls Of Poor Business Communication Skills For Managers
Posted by: | CommentsEveryone knows that effective business communication skills are a necessity for any successful manager. But what are the pitfalls of poor business communication skills by managers?
1. Lowered Efficiency
Poor business communication skills can hamper the efficiency of your company or department through vague emails that need to be clarified, rewriting of vital documents, and the inefficient preparation of speeches and presentations.
2. Low Employee Morale
Poor business communication skills demoralize employees by forcing them to sit through boring presentations and by providing them with unclear direction on projects. The monotony and confusion associated with poor business communication skills is a chronic complaint of employees everywhere.
3. Inability To Complete Large Or Complicated Projects
Business communication skills are essential to efficiently completing large and complicated projects. When multiple people or departments are involved in a project, the value of effective business communication skills increases exponentially.
Without the ability to clearly communicate project responsibilities and objectives, your organization’s projects will never get off the ground.
4. Lack Of Motivation
An often overlooked impact of effective business communication skills is how they serve to motivate employees. A collaborative and communicative environment fosters employee creativity and inspires them to action. In contrast, if your business communication skills are lackluster, your employees will drag their feet on their assignments and question the wisdom of projects.
5. Decreased Innovation
The inability to adequately handle current projects due to poor business communication skills will decrease any organization’s innovation. The ability to innovate is predicated on the ability to communicate tasks and outcomes and the ability to get things done.
Being a successful manager means having the ability to communicate with your employees and outside vendors and customers. Improving your management skills is really just a question of improving your business communication skills. All effective managers are, first and foremost, effective communicators.
By Matt Nadell
Communication in the workplace is essential for many reasons.
All of your planning and monitoring of business processes depend on your ability to convey the facts needed to get the task done . This can take many forms and may include modern electronic methods or a simple office circular .
What is crucial is that your meaning is comprehended by the recipient . Communication is based on telling people your requirements in a manner that the recipient can decode it and still know the exact meaning of what you said.
The Anglo saxon language is crammed with ambivalent words that can have numerous meanings depending on the context they are used in. It’s a bit like the childrens game called Chinese whispers. I’m sure that you can remember the hilarity when the message eventually got back to the original sender .
Children love this sort of game in business there’s more at stake .
So… How do you. know that your message has been understood in the way that you wanted it to be?
It’s easy …
Just ask !
By confirming that your message has actually been decoded in the way that you meant it to be ask the recipient of your email do they understand your meaning and the thinking behind sending it .
You can also train your teams or other business partners to actively listen to what you have said or written .
eg : You have just sent out an email to all of your team informing them that revenues are down and if the sales figures don’t improve then your financial targets won’t be met .
Active listening is where the person who gets your communication will reflect back to you what they understood about what you said .
” So, Mary , what you are telling theteam is that we have to increase our sales this month or we will be deep in trouble”
Your options are then to either clarify the message , If it isn’t received correctly or you can state that Yes that’s correct . The advantage of reflective listening is that all parties are clear right from the start and this will reduce lost time, later when you have to clean up any mistakes created by bad communication .
There are so many ways that you can have more powerful business communication.
Business Communication Skills Needed in Glasgow Airport?
Posted by: | CommentsSometimes, it seems impossible to use excellent business communication skills with your customers. Especially when they themselves are not the most polite when communicating with you. How do you think business communication skills could improve the overall business in the following story I found recently:
“An extensive survey of airport staff throughout the United Kingdom appears to show that customers at Glasgow airport in Scotland are the rudest and most ill-mannered in the country.
A questionnaire was sent to over 2000 airport employees asking them a number of probing multiple choice questions about the behaviour and politeness of their customers. The questions they were asked included:
‘Do customers ever raise their voices angrily?’ and ‘Has a customer ever been confrontational or argumentative?’.
The UKs busiest airports at Heathrow and Gatwick were among the worst but the list was topped by Glasgow airport. Survey results appear to indicate that customers at Scotland’s premiere airport have the worst manners of any airport customers in the UK.
It was clear that certain areas of the airport were bad-behaviour hotspots. The worst area for rude outbursts from passengers was found to be the check in desks. People appear to become very stressed by the restrictions on hand baggage size and luggage weight restrictions and this provokes many toward angry outbursts.
Another area in which people lose their cool very easily is in the Glasgow airport parking lots. People become impatient when waiting for shuttle buses and blamed airport parking staff when they couldn’t remember where they left their vehicles.
Airport staff are trained in dealing with passengers who can be stressed by tight schedules. But noboby should be required to tolerate rude, belligerent and even hostile behavior when at work.
Glasgow airport managers have said that they are now considering a campaign intended to improve customer behaviour at their busy airport. They are acutely aware of the stress and even illness that can be caused to staff as a result of having to deal with problematic passengers.
A spokesmn for Glasgow airport said: ‘If our customers could be encouraged to be less rude then our stafff would have less stress in their daily working lives. We’re likely to see a reduction in staff turnover and the workforce are likely to be a lot happier.
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You may choose to fly from an alternative Scottish airport like Aberdeen or Edinburgh. Remember to book your Edinburgh airport parking in advance for some great savings.”
Managing Without Walls
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Book Description: Worldwide, companies like yours are rapidly adopting a new business model: the virtual office, where team members use technology to break down geographic boundaries and collaborate on projects from around the globe. New ways of doing business require fresh new approaches to management, and this is particularly true when managing IT resources that may be located almost anywhere…from Baltimore to Bangalore. Managing Without Walls shows managers like you how to leverage the virtual business model for maximum effectiveness. With it, you\’ll learn special techinques for being successful at managing, coaching, and developing team members in this new and exciting, but challenging, environment. Many managers and team members still try to cling to traditional management processes, often with limited success. Researchers tell us that 80% of human communication is non-verbal, but this valuable face time is lost in a virtual team setting. Therefore, managers must learn to both manage and communicate differently. This book demonstrates why traditional methods fall short in this new paradigm and offers effective alternatives. The authors discuss at length the management and communication issues youll face. They then explain how to conquer those issues and share proven methods to handle virtual teams. With this practical advice, aspiring as well as existing virtual managers will acquire the skills and tools they need to be successful in todays new business reality. Managing Without Walls shows not only the how and what but also the why of managing virtual teams. Youll learn tips and solutions that can be applied immediately. Soon youll be optimizing the effectiveness of your teamsno matter where they are. With Managing Without Walls, you will: ???•?Understand the differences between traditional, hybrid, and virtual teamsand the keys to successfully managing each kind ???•?Learn the secrets of hiring team
Business Communication (Advanced) CD-Rom Training Software: Business Writing for Results
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Price: $179.00 Training Course ID : 45272 Training Course Description / Outline: In the Advanced Business Communication Training: Business Writing for Results course, students will learn about writing reports, proposals, and case reports with the audience in mind. The training program will teach
VoIP Business IP Phone, RJ-45
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D-Link?, an industry leader in networking, introduces the DPH-140S Business IP Phone, for use with VoIP phone services. The D-Link DPH-140S Business IP Phone is a full-featured, cost-effective, standard-compliant telephone that can be easily plugged to your home or office network via Ethernet cable.The DPH-140S Business IP Phone is compatible with most VoIP service providers. It operates like a regular telephone, but is especially made for use with a VoIP phone service. With a VoIPphone service and this IP phone, avoid expensive long-distance and international phone toll charges.The DPH-140S has a built-in Ethernet interface to simply connect to a DSL modem, cable modem, or to your broadband router. Once connected and logged on to the Internet, you are ready to make and receive calls.The DPH-140S Business IP Phone incorporates Quality of Service (QoS) functions to deliver clear, high-quality voice communication in a variety of network conditions. With QoS, voice packets get a higher priority over data packets. Other features to improve call quality include acoustic echo cancellation, voice activity detection/comfort noise generation, and adaptive jitter buffer.The DPH-140S Business IP Phone includes an integrated speakerphone, as well as a 2.5? LCD screen to display call information, such as the numbers you dial, address book entries, and caller ID numbers. Navigational menu keys make browsing the address book an easy process, while 10 memory function keys give you instant access to your most frequently called numbers. The DPH-140S also supports features such as redial, mute, transfer, voicemail LED, 3-way calling, call waiting, call forwarding, and hold.Using the DPH-140S Business IP Phone gives you the advantages of VoIP, while retaining the same look and feel of a traditional advanced desktop telephone.
Adobe Web Standard CS4 Windows 65009187
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Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Standard software helps you complete your tasks quickly and efficiently with the primary tools for web and interactive design and development. Move your creations from design to deployment without re-creating assets to maximize your skills and time. Collaborate with clients and colleagues in real time without leaving your toolset for optimal results. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Standard combines full new versions of: Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Adobe Fireworks CS4 Adobe Contribute CS4 Move from one suite tool to another and take advantage of the common user interface and shared formats. Create wireframes, prototypes, and web pages with the workflow enhancements of Adobe Fireworks CS4, and then convert them to standards-compliant HTML and CSS for deployment in Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. Flash CS4 Professional and Fireworks CS4 to craft interactive movies and rich application interfaces without re-creating assets. Fuel your creativity and optimize your collaborations with the new online communication options accessible from within Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Standard. Share your ideas with up to three coworkers or clients in real time by accessing Adobe ConnectNow, the web-based meeting room service. Browse, create, and share harmonious color themes through the Adobe Kuler web-hosted application. Take advantage of Adobe Community Help for quick access to tool tips, Adobe Help content, and community-generated tutorials. System Requirements: Computer: 1GHz or faster processor. Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (Service Pack 3 recommended) or Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1 (certified for 32-bit Windows XP and Windows Vista). Memory: 1GB of RAM or more recommended. Hard Drive: 3.1GB free hard-disk space for installation; additional hard-disk space required during installation (cannot install on flash-based storage devices). Display: 1,024×768 display