Business Communications

Lesson Three
FJU/AIEDL
Dr. M. Connor
Based on Excellence in Business Communication,5/e
Thill and Bove

Busy communications life

Youll

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 audiences point of view.

Concise:
Business

messages respect everyones

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 audiences
expectations.
And finally, establish a good relationship
with your audience.
Planning business messages is the
focus of this weeks lecture.

Writing:
Once

youve 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 weeks 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, whats left, for
completing your message.

That way you wont 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 dont 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 bosss 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 customers goodwill.
Your response must reflect the
organizations 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 youll need to
cover and how to cover it.

Friends or stranger?
If

youre 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 strangerscustomers or suppliers
youve never met, a new boss or new
employees, so youll 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 audiences level of
understanding.
Estimate your audiences 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 everyones
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 audiences level of

understanding.
If

audience members share your general

background, theyll 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.

If

Everything else is irrelevant and must be eliminated.

Otherwise it will overwhelm your audience and divert
attention from important points.

audience members do not have the same level

of understanding, gear your coverage to your
primary audience (the key decision makers).

Estimate your audiences probable

reaction.
Next

week well 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 audiences
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 elses

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

youre unsure of what audience

members need from your message, ask
themwhether 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 audiences

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 havent thought things through or they
simply dont 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 didnt specifically ask for it.
Although adding information like this
lengthens your message, doing so
creates goodwill.

Provide All Required Information

Once

youve defined your audiences

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.

Theres

no point in answering all of your

audiences 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 someones 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 youre writing, you

know the audience youre 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
audiences 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 wouldnt 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
mediums 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 its 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,
dont forget to consider your audiences
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
messagesperhaps 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 cant 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.
Im 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
connor@fillibabba.com 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

your boss!

that before you complain about

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
use

to:

the you attitude,

emphasize the positive,
establish your credibility,
be polite,
use bias-free language
project the companys image

Use the You Attitude:

That

means speaking and writing in

terms of your audiences 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.
Its not meant to be manipulative or
insincere.

Its the thought that counts

Not

the pronoun you choose to use.

If youre talking to a retailer, try to think
like a retailer.
If youre talking to a production
supervisor, put yourself in that position.
If youre 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 donot what
you havent done, cant do or wont do.

Establishing your credibility

People

are more likely to respond

positively to your message if they have
confidence in you.
If youre unknown to your audience
members, youll 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
youre doing.
If youre 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

audiences situation by calling attention
to the things you have in common.
If youre talking to people in the same
field, you might say, as a fellow teacher
(or whatever), Im sure you can
appreciate this situation.

Building credibility
You

can also gain your audiences 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
theyll respect you.

Be polite
Being

polite is another good way to earn your

audiences 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.
Dont let the informality of e-mail trap
you into mistakes of initimacy or
brusqueness.

Be prompt!
Promptness

is a sign of courtesy, and its

something very important when youre
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 isnt 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, dont 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 its necessary.

Project the companys 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.