Concepts of Effective Business Communication
The scope of effective communication in business is massive. In the unit we learnt about various concepts of effective business communication. I have elaborated about the significance of the concepts that were discussed. I have stressed on the importance of public speaking as it holds great importance in my future career path. Along with that I have provided a literature review of the same, in addition to another concept that will be significant to me in my future careers. I will start by discussing the most important concept that I have picked up.
I have always found the concept of public speaking highly challenging and the same will hold great significance in my future career. They ability to give a good presentation depends on the efficacy of good speaking ability. I discovered through the week’s lectures that there exists various styles of speaking. There are four such styles. Extemporaneous, Impromptu, verbatim from knowledge and verbatim form manuscript. The technique of speaking which is employed after the spokesperson has tediously examined the subject after which they deliver the speech is known as impromptu style of speaking (Heinz, 2013). The style of speaking in which the speaker gives a speech by not rehearsing at all is known as Extemporaneous style of speaking (Auffray, 2015). The impromptu style of speaking becomes necessary when the speaker has to communicate or converse with the audience directly about any topic or it can even be an extempore speech. This style of speaking can be applied in scenarios such as pitching of a marketing idea or at a conference where the speaker has to modify the speech according to the demand of the audience. In instance when the speaker has to listen and then formulate speech can be scenarios when this style of speech can be applied. It can be cases such as redressal of grievances or any case that involves an audience. The speaker can choose to speak using verbatim from knowledge or verbatim form manuscripts or texts. The latter can be deemed to be more reliable that the former as the latter involves actual facts. However, the verbatim form knowledge can also be trusted if the speaker is speaking from experience. Individuals can gain great deal of knowledge form experience which can be formulated into speech and can be shared with the audience.
I have also become aware of the fact that a great deal of fear and anxiety can be associate with speaking in front of an audience. This anxiety or fear can be as a result of the anticipation of negative appraisal of reaction of the audience. One can also say that such anxiety arises out of being humiliated and embarrassed in front of huge gathering of people. This is better known as communication apprehension (Blume, Baldwin & Ryan, 2013). The speaker generally experiences communication apprehension since they anticipate the differences that arise out of difference in status, novelty, unfamiliarity and dissimilarity. To overcome such scenarios, a speaker can develop a contingency plan through which they can tackle such fear and anxiety. One can choose to rehearse time and again, develop what they are best at and try to improve what they lack.
Importance of Public Speaking in Future Career
Some of the topics discussed in the last ten weeks were identified by me to be more significant than the rest in terms of my future career aspirations. They are:
- Ethical communication: Some fact or type of speech that might be ethical for one person, might not be received in the same way by another person ((Hodgson & Gaff, 2013). I have to be careful in being ethical in my style of communication as I am sure that my work environment will feature diversity. I have to do so in order to not offend my peers.
- Listening: The essence to giving feedback depends on listening (Renukadevi, 2014). The ability of active listening will be important to me in my future as I will involve sharing my feedback to people on topic such as marketing pitches and company strategies.
- Reports: It will be important to me in my future since it will require me to prepare nicely structured reports which will showcase my ability to collectively organize data and present the same.
- Public speaking: the method of communicating to a gathering of people is known as public speaking (Tanveer, Lin & Hoque, 2015). In my career I will be involved in giving speeches to subordinates and giving speeches in conferences and thus the concept will be important to me.
- Intercultural communication: I would have to be aware of my colleague’s cultural background and ethnicities before passing judgmental comments in the workplace. I would have to be aware of the same and not offend people of different cultural backgrounds and thus the concept will be important for me.
- Organizational structure: management- employee relationships, as well as inter personal relationships are determined by the structure of the organization (Bustinza et al., 2015). In future if I’m ever in place to decide the structure of the organization I would have to be tactful in doing so by studying the nature of the organization before passing decisions.
- Group decision making: It is important to let everybody speak and express their points of view (Kaner, 2014). I would need to give my peers a chance to speak and take inputs from basic group decision making.
- Paragraphs: Formulating paragraphs assist the writer to structure their ideas in a sequence (Graham et al., 2014). This give them the ability to gradually explain the thesis of their work.
- Self-reflective essay: In my future career, I would need to explain to people about certain experiences that I had. Experience related to my sales work can be reflected upon through which I would be able to inform the desired people.
- Assertive communication: I would need to be assertive in while communicating in the future. There would be scenarios when I have to take stands and be firm on my decisions.
The quality of a good public speaker lies in their ability to convey a piece of information precisely, clearly and with confidence. Public speaking can be defined as any type of communication that takes place amid a group and the speaker (German et al., 2017). This statement can be challenged by mentioning the huge public speaking scope.
Public speaking is of utter significance for the following reasons:
- Highlights the knowledge of the speaker: Communication to an audience clearly and effectively in public through a speech that is rehearsed or developed through knowledge can be termed as effective public speaking. It showcase the speaker’s knowledge about a topic and their understanding of the topic.
- Showcases confidence: the confidence of an individual is highlighted by effective pubic speaking. Confidence makes and individual stand out from the crowd (Carnegie, 2017). It will be applicable to me during college seminars and conferences.
- Leadership: The number of people that one has to lead rises with advancement in their career. Highlighting the ideas helps leader to communicate their visions effectively and develops admiration for the lead in the subordinates (Latu et al., 2013).
The type of communication that is takes place in between persons belonging to dissimilar cultural upbringings is knows as intercultural commination (Martin & Nakayama, 2013). Issues related to the same are being faced by companies worldwide (Jenaibi, 2017). Racism, discrimination and favoritism are some issues that are faced by the people who are working in culturally diverse environments (Nelson, 2013). As a result of such issues, fundamental human rights and violated along with violation of ethics related to the same. Disputes arise as a result of such violations. Following factors are responsible:
- Different values and etiquettes in culture,
- Difference in language spoken,
- Differentiated cultural upbringing that lead to different reaction to different situations.
The organization can grow by taking advantages of the diverse expertise possessed by people belonging to different cultures. So it is best for organizations to overcome their difference and use individual competencies effectively. Organizations could tackle the problem by learning from other individuals and using the same to enhance each other skills.
I can imagine myself working in as the head of a company in the future. For this reason, I will not underestimate the importance of effective public speaking. As a leader of an organization, I would need to communicate with my colleagues, and will have to showcase my confidence while doing the same. Understanding of the objectives of the organizations and synchronization with the same will help me in gaining good impressions in the eyes of my seniors. Impressing my seniors will help me get promoted quickly.
During my role as the leader of an organization, I would need to identify the diverse needs and decision making systems of individuals. The needs of different members of the company will have to be understood by me and before passing decisions I would require to be ethical. If I am able to establish an ethical code of conduct, my subordinates will carry out the same. My role would be to modify or introduce a code of conduct. In addition to that a strict regulation framework would be needed to be established in order to protect the right of all the individual with the company.
Various Styles of Speaking
Conclusion
Every component and topic that I learnt in the last ten week’s effective business communication lessons will hold great importance to me in the coming days. I will not find myself outweighing the importance of one concept over the other. However, public speaking will be much more significant to me that the other conceptions as it will be playing the most important role in my future career/s. I believe that I have been able to grown as a result of the facts that I have discovered and for the concepts that I have understood.
References
Al-Jenaibi, B. (2017). The scope and impact of workplace diversity in the United Arab Emirates–A preliminary study. Geografia-Malaysian Journal of Society and Space, 8(1).
Auffray, J. P. (2015). Quantum Meteorites: An Extemporaneous Description of the System of the World. Journal of Modern Physics, 6(07), 878.
Blume, B. D., Baldwin, T. T., & Ryan, K. C. (2013). Communication apprehension: A barrier to students’ leadership, adaptability, and multicultural appreciation. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(2), 158-172.
Bustinza, O. F., Bigdeli, A. Z., Baines, T., & Elliot, C. (2015). Servitization and competitive advantage: the importance of organizational structure and value chain position. Research-Technology Management, 58(5), 53-60.
Carnegie, D. (2017). How to develop self-confidence and influence people by public speaking. Simon and Schuster.
Chen, L., Feng, G., Joe, J., Leong, C. W., Kitchen, C., & Lee, C. M. (2014, November). Towards automated assessment of public speaking skills using multimodal cues. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction(pp. 200-203). ACM.
German, K. M., Gronbeck, B. E., Ehninger, D., & Monroe, A. H. (2017). Principles of public speaking. Routledge.
Graham, S., Capizzi, A., Harris, K. R., Hebert, M., & Morphy, P. (2014). Teaching writing to middle school students: A national survey. Reading and Writing, 27(6), 1015-1042.
Heinz, M. (2013). Impromptu speaking and interpretation studies: A preliminary study. Journal of International Education Research, 9(4), 387.
Hodgson, J., & Gaff, C. (2013). Enhancing family communication about genetics: ethical and professional dilemmas. Journal of genetic counseling, 22(1), 16-21.
Kaner, S. (2014). Facilitator’s guide to participatory decision-making. John Wiley & Sons.
Latu, I. M., Mast, M. S., Lammers, J., & Bombari, D. (2013). Successful female leaders empower women’s behavior in leadership tasks. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(3), 444-448.
Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts. New York: NY: McGraw-Hill.
Nelson, J. K. (2013). Denial of racism and its implications for local action. Discourse & Society, 24(1), 89-109.
Renukadevi, D. (2014). The role of listening in language acquisition; the challenges & strategies in teaching listening. International journal of education and information studies, 4(1), 59-63.
Tanveer, M. I., Lin, E., & Hoque, M. E. (2015, March). Rhema: A real-time in-situ intelligent interface to help people with public speaking. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (pp. 286-295). ACM.