Sumita Roy - Mastering the Art of Business Communication

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Mastering the Art of Business Communication
2008, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
ISBN 978 81 207 3729 7

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Effective Communication and relationships go hand in hand with one promoting the other. It is the key to success in business and social understanding. Good communication leads to good business.

English being the language spoken in most of the countries of the world, its use is widespread in business and commerce. This book is a comprehensive guide on business English and a must for students specially from science and management disciplines, business professionals and people in the corporates. From business vocabulary, language usage and letter writing to developing oral communication including telephone etiquette, and leadership skills, this book offers practical guidelines along with models to improve reading, writing and conversational skills particularly from the business angle. A guide to sure success, it helps you to acquire the skills necessary to climb the corporate ladder and leave a mark in the business world.

Sumita Roy is a professor of English at Osmania University, Hyderabad. She has been teaching English for the Last 20 years to professionals in various fields and the corporate world. She has prepared a set of CDs for Learning English for Jawahar Knowledge Centre, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh for the students of professional institutions.

The marketplace is the arena in which we test our skills. This adage has been true from time immemorial.

Language and communication are skills which need to be tested in the context of business. To hone these skills we should have the right environment afforded by professional life and then analyse and improve performance with the help of advanced competence in these skills.

But before we arrive at the marketplace, we should first spend some time equipping ourselves with the basics of language and communication. This is what the present book on business English will help in doing. Since English is the language of communication in the global contexts of business, we need to acquire efficiency in its use if we want to succeed in the world of business.

The three parts of the book address various skills of communication such as listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW) and the aspects of language which help to sharpen these skills: structures, pronunciation and punctuation as well as vocabulary. In conjunction these aspects of English help to gain recognition in both professional and personal life because communication is the basis of all our tasks and achievements.

It is hoped that this book will encourage readers to begin the journey of self-improvement in language competence and make them masters of the use of English in all the varied contexts of business both oral and written.

Introduction

Listening and speaking are the two components of oral communication. Communication is an exchange between two people/groups and the roles of both are very significant. If one of the participants fails to fulfill his/her role in this two-way process, the whole purpose of communication is defeated.

Imagine that you have gone to your boss and want to discuss the changes you propose to bring about in the project which you are handling. Your boss is busy looking through some files and only half his/her mind is on what you are saying. He/She agrees to your suggestions without really understanding the implications of what you have suggested. Later, the same person may raise many objections and find fault with you when the fault in the first place was of his/ her partial listening.

Communication involves the sending and receiving of a message. Unless the intended recipient [listener] receives the message we cannot call it effective communication. It is not enough to assure that the message is transmitted because in the process of exchange, receiving is also equally important. Often we see that in spite of a person speaking clearly and precisely, if there are ten people listening, each listener may understand the words of the speaker in a different way. Therefore, it is important that the person who is giving out the message checks up whether the message has been received in the manner in which it is meant to be received and understood.

Two important ways of receiving information in a business context are listening and reading and both these activities take up most of the time in business situations. Of these, listening is a primary activity because, of the two, listening is more frequent in communication contexts than reading; a persons success in the field of business depends much on the manner in which he/she listens, accepts and comprehends information. Many people listen well but with a preconceived negative notion already in their minds. Many times the only aim of the listener is to raise objections or to rule out all the suggestions that are being made. One has to be careful to make the mind neutral before one is participating in the activity of listening because only through proper and impartial listening can one equip oneself to meet all the needs arising in any business context.

Five Components of Complete Listening

Listening is composed of five distinct activities: hearing, understanding, interpretation, evaluation and response. All these stages have to function in consonance for the entire process of listening to be successful.

The first act in the process of listening is to hear accurately what is being said. There may be physiological or technological problems in the process of hearing or it may be that the speakers style, pitch, rhythm is not conducive to hearing what is being said. But to be a good listener we have to overcome all these problems and continue to make an attempt to hear and grasp the words and expressions that go into the making of the message being transmitted.

Coming to the second stage, language and speed of speaking may make the understanding of a message difficult. A listener has to be sure that these two are not impeding his/her listening. Often attitudes, prejudices and culture make listening and understanding difficult. In todays global village it is essential to be able to understand messages across regional and national boundaries.

Without interpretation, understanding alone is not enough for listening. A message is supposed to be coded by the speaker and the listener is expected to decode it. That is why it has been said that all communication is actually translation where the listener reconstructs the message to suit the mental capabilities of his/her own mind before he/she can make use of the information being given. Often, misunderstandings and conflicts arise out of the inability to interpret a message correctly. Suppose someone praises you, you may hear and interpret it as sarcasm and get angry even when the compliment is sincere. Or, a person may be insulting you by excessive flattery and you interpret it on its face value and get deceived.