Business Communication -You need to Get That all Important Message across
Business communication skills are essential for many reasons.
Your organisations planning and monitoring of business processes require you to convey the information needed to get the task completed . This can be done in many ways and may include email fax or good old fashioned snail mail .
What is crucial is that your message is understood by the recipient . Language is based on encoding your requirements in a manner that the recipient can understand it and still know the exact meaning of what you said.
The English language is full of ambivalent words that can have numerous interpretations depending on the circumstances they are used in. It’s a bit like the kids game you may have played at parties when you were young of Chinese whispers. A classic example is “Send reinforcements we’re going to advance” which is eventually transformed into “Send three and fourpence, we are going to a dance”.
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 quite simple …
Just ask !
By confirming that your message has actually been decoded in the way that you meant it to be simply ask the receiver of your message do they understand your meaning and the reason for sending it .
You can also empower your colleagues or other business associates to reflectively listen to what you have communicated .
For example: You have just sent out an email to all of your team telling them that sales are down and if the sales revenues don’t improve then your financial targets will be less than you need to stay in business .
Reflective communication is where the recipient of your message will say to you something like .
” So, Mary , what you are telling theteam is that we have to increase our sales this quarter or we will be deep in trouble”
Your options are then to either clarify the message , If it hasn’t been received correctly or you can confirm that your message has been understood . The benefit of active 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 mess created by bad communication .
This is just one of many examples where you can improve yourbusiness communication.
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