Business Communication Skills Pdf
I am the Founder and CEO of Startup Professionals, a company that provides services to startup founders around the world. My background includes a 30-year track record as an executive in general management, computer software development, product management, and marketing. I'm now in 'give-back mode' as a mentor to startup founders, and an Angel investor. My experience with investors includes roles on the selection committee of two local Angel groups, and working from the other side of the table with several VCs in Silicon Valley.
In addition to blogging, I recently released my first book titled “Do You Have What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur?” You can contact me directly at marty@startupprofessionals.com. Feel free to. The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. Every business professional and entrepreneur believes they are good communicators, but how do they know?
It’s really the perception of the recipients that counts, and poor communicators are almost always poor listeners, so they don’t hear the shortcomings. Once told a class of business students that better communication could boost their value by fifty percent. That’s certainly worth going after, so it is time for all to take a hard look in the mirror, recognize the need to improve, and make the commitment to change. But looking in the mirror doesn’t help unless you know what to look for. I see real help a new book, “,” by Dianna Booher, one of the most recognized business communication gurus, which clearly calls out the parameters of effective business communication. In that context, she offers a nine-point checklist for success in the art of communication and persuasion that I believe every professional should use in their own self-evaluation.
I’ll paraphrase a few of her insights here to get you started:. Generate trust rather than distrust. Effective communication requires trust in you, your message and your delivery.
We tend to trust people that we think are like us, or we have social proof that others trust, or we feel reciprocal trust from the sender. People who are optimistic, confident, and demonstrate competence generate trust. Are you one of these?. Be collaborative rather than present a monologue. Collaborating for influence has become a fundamental leadership skill.
Be known for the questions you ask – not the answers you give. Statements imply that you intend to control the interaction, whereas questions imply that other input has value to arriving at a mutually beneficial decision. Aim to simplify rather than inject complexity. Simplicity leads to focus, which produces clarity of purpose. People distrust what they don’t understand, what they perceive as doublespeak, or things made unnecessarily complex. Influencing people to change their mind or actions requires building an intuitive simple path to your answer.
Deliver with tact and avoid insensitivity. Some word choices turn people off because they are tasteless, tactless, or pompous. Phrase your communication to avoid biases that might create negative reactions. Consider using other authority figures or quotes to deliver a more persuasive message while eliminating any sensitive implications.
Position future potential instead of achievements alone. The allure of potential is normally greater than today’s actual achievements.
This is especially true for career advancement, motivation, and the power of systems. For customers and clients, let them have it both ways. Consider what you can package as your own untapped potential.
Consider the listener perspective rather than the presenter. Listeners tend to average all the pieces of information they hear and walk away with a single impression. More is not always better, so reduce the length of presentations and speeches. Perceptions are more important than reality. Avoid the over-helpfulness syndrome. Tend toward specifics rather than generalizations. Many executive speeches miss the mark because they aim for the general constituency and hit no one.
People need to know how a message relates to them personally, not just what has to be done and why. Your challenge is to make the future seem attainable and applicable to each listener. Capitalize on emotions as well as logic. Emotion often overrides logic, but logic rarely overrides emotion. For many listeners, a logical explanation merely justifies and supports an emotional decision that has already been made. Recognize and calm first any emotional reactions of fear. Engage multiple senses to reach a listener’s emotion.
Lead with empathy before your own perspective. Empathy starts with active listening to what’s being said and what’s not being said. Listen for the gaps and distortion between perception and reality, and then focus on closing these gaps before any persuasion to your own perspective is attempted. Let others help you listen, and tune your response. As the economy continues to improve, and the competition gets tougher, you need every ounce of communication skill you can muster to land the career and business opportunities that will be coming your way. Standing still means falling behind.
Are you listening and changing at the right pace to get your fifty percent advantage?
Click the PDF icon below to download the eBook from the Online Library. Book Description - ISBN 978-1-62620-962-6 (45 Pages) Strong communication skills are arguably the most important attribute a manager can possess. This free eBook explains the basic principles of communication so that you can create an open and honest communications environment in any situation. Chapter 1 - The ability to communicate is an essential life skill and one that can be continually developed. Individuals who are good communicators find it easy to develop empathy and trust with others.
These people adapt their style of communication to suit the audience and situation they are presented with. Chapter 2 - Each person's communication style is a unique combination of their own innate skills and those learned both formally and through experience. What makes some people better than others at communicating is their ability to adapt their style to suit the message, environment, and exchange. Chapter 3 - Whilst individuals may favor a particular way of communicating, they can alter their behavior to other communication styles if necessary to suit a particular situation.
This flexibility helps them to come across as knowledgeable, confident, and empathetic. Chapter 4 - People may be naturally visual, auditory, or kinesthetic communicators. Using a supplementary form of communication can help your message to be correctly interpreted. Chapter 5 - Effective communication depends on your ability to read the attitude of the other person or group. This is something that can be picked up from the behavior you see and will reflect their emotions and feelings towards the communication.
Chapter 6 - There is a whole industry built on helping you to become a better communicator. Unfortunately, some of what is written about this topic is rather misleading. Chapter 7 - The RESULT principle can help you to improve your communication skills. The acronym stands for Reason, Environment, Specific, Understanding, Listen, and Timeframe.
Chapter 8 - Problems with communication occur when the way in which we express ourselves is not fully understood and appreciated by those we want to communicate with. Some of these differences are within our control, others are not, and being forewarned about such obstacles influences how successful your communications will be. You will learn how to:. Determine your own preferred communication style. Use this information to develop and enhance your communication skills. Identify and respond appropriately to other people's emotions.
Apply the six components of the RESULT communications principle. Overcome the most common barriers to successful communication. Recommended by I can highly recommend this book It pretty much goes without saying that communication is one of the most important skills to have in business - or in life in general. This book on Effective Communications caught my eye because I am always excited to improve my professional performance. I think it is important to get better each and every day, so reading this short book provided me with an opportunity to improve my understanding of basic communications techniques and elements.
In the end, I came away pleased with having spent some time reading this book. While not all of the information was new to me, it was well-presented and did offer me some points to take away and think about. Surprisingly, one of the most memorable elements of the book comes right away in the introduction. The book makes a point of defining successful communication as when everyone involved comes away understanding the same thing. That is a simple definition, and one that I had not thought about before. When you have a clear understanding of the goal (i.e.
Making sure everyone understands the same thing), the process of communication suddenly seems a little simpler. The 'Communications Styles' section was another that I enjoyed, because I find value in thinking critically about what I do and how it can be improved. I was able to see myself in some of the examples that are offered, and came away with a better understanding of my general communication style. Just being self-aware in that way is a big step in the right direction toward more effective and efficient communication. In the same vein, the 'Attitudes to Communications' section was an eye-opener in terms of how different attitudes and personalities can affect how communication works. Not only was I able to perceive myself in these different attitudes, but also those around me.
With an understanding of different attitudes and what they mean, I feel better prepared to deal with a range of different people and still communicate effectively with each of them. The only section of this book that I wasn't very interested in was the section called 'Communication Research'. I'm sure the content contained within can be valuable to some, but I found myself drifting while reading this section and not drawing much constructive from it. I would recommend still reading this section for yourself as the content might be more relevant for you than it was for me.
'Communication Barriers' toward the end of the book was a section that I found interesting to read and informative at the same time. Each of the five barriers to communication that are addressed I found relevant to my experience in some way.
The discussion of each of these points and the examples provided helped me gain an understanding for how to potentially sidestep some of these problems down the road. Overall, I can highly recommend this book on effective communication as a building block for your professional skill set. In fact, I feel like the points within this book will even help me communicate more effectively in my personal life as well. Communicating more effectively is something that everyone can benefit from, and this book will only take a short amount of your time to read. Ollie Lorrimer Worth reading even if you are already a confident communicator For the longest time I have equated communicating with being able to speak with people in both personal and professional settings. I have been blessed with the gift of gab and as such, fancied myself as quite the communicator.
After a recent promotion at work, I have been encouraged to work on my professional communication skills and as part of the process I have read this guide to effective communications. Upon doing so, I have realized there is a distinct difference between being a good speaker and being a good communicator. One of the first thinks that caught my attention in this book was the importance of listening. I am certain that is where many people fail as communicators and I hope to avoid that pitfall myself, so if you take nothing else from this book, learn to be an active and honest listener.
Business Communication Skills Training Pdf
Aside from listen I found this guide to provide good insight into the styles of communicating and how to determine which one is best for you. The primary methods of communicating discussed in the book are active, logical, connector, thinker, and combiner. The book does a good job of clearly and simply defining each of these methods in an easy to follow chart and if nothing else, you should look over that section. In addition to the methods of communicating, you will also learn about the attitudes of communication which are passive, passive aggressive, aggressive, and assertive, each of which has its pros and cons.
Mehrabian's rule of the '3 v's' is another unique topic covered and contrary to mainstream belief in shows that non-verbal cues are not more important that spoken words. This theory has apparently been misquoted numerous times leading to the confusion. If for no other reason, I would suggest reading the book to learn the truth about Mehrabian's theory, one that has held true for over 40 years now. Another area of particular interest for me was the section outlining the importance of Para-verbal signals which include things such as tone, speed, and emphasis. When you correctly Para-verbal signals can change the complete meaning of a statement and leave a meaningful impact on the listener. Written Para-verbal signals of the other hand include things like punctuation, layout, and grammar. Each of those items can also completely change the meaning of a sentence and should not be overlooked.
Lastly, I found the RESULT communication principle to be particularly interesting. RESULT is an acronym for reason, environment, specific, understanding, listen, and time frame. Reason is of course the purpose for your communication. Environment takes into account the specifics of whom and where you will communicate. Specific is the reason for your communications; what do you want to achieve? Understanding as you can imagine is arguably the most important part and is where you must ensure the listener understands what you need from them. A common theme among communication, the listen portion refers to you being an active listener and the time frame is making reference to how long you have to make the needed communication.
Business Communication Writing Skills Pdf
Overall, I found the RESULT principle to be simple and effective, certainly one of the best parts of this book for me. The final section of this book looks at some common barriers to communication and the best ways to identify and avoid them. Overall a good read but some sections are redundant, still worth reading in my opinion though. Sarah Brewer.