Communication is a sophisticated activity that requires words and phrases, gestures, mimics, voice tone, main theme, participants’ prejudgments, and communication history. Only then communication can be considered efficient in any aspect of human life when the receiver gets the main idea of the sender correctly. The meaningful feedback is the proof of the properly understood message. Ineffective communication can lead to the adverse consequences. In terms of the professional environment, effective communication can create new partnerships, generate profits, develop competitive advantage, raise product’s demand, etc. However, ineffective communication with partners, suppliers, distributors, or especially customers may cause a total business disaster.
Role of Communication in Personal Career
First of all, it is difficult to imagine successful employee without corresponding communication skills. Every employer expects to see this point in the applicant’s resume. The level of candidate’s resume depends on his communication skills as well as the knowledge of the basic standard. For instance, an applicant should “ avoid second person and passive voice and use spell-check, grammar-check, and proofread” (Henriksson, 2001) before submitting his CV. So, somehow this knowledge is required for a career start-up. It is checked during the interview stage. It is obvious that people do not stop at one position for the entire life: everybody expects career growth and higher wages. Moving up the professional ladder partially depends on the ability to make decisions and express own desires to the recruiters. Workplace progress reminds of building any relationships. Just as two people have to find common speech to create a family, co-workers have to reach compromise in any deal to make it effective. At the same time, communication skills alone are not enough for further self-actualization. They have to be supported by the technical, managerial, marketing, and other necessary set of skills.
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Communication saves time and maximizes effort. A businessman having a great start-up idea won’t carry it out without proper assistance. He can hold maximum one more position except for the CEO if he expects positive results. It means that a business owner will have to hire people responsible for accounting, marketing, office administration, content management, IT, legal issues, and more in order to implement the project. However, only by mastering the art of professional communication he will select the right people. It is impossible to choose people only by assuming their resumes and cover letters; face-to-face communication gives an opportunity to evaluate candidate’s real knowledge and experience. I would say that HR managers or any other recruiters demand communication skills most of all. Ineffective communication leads to the friction between people, waste time, and errors in the production.
Approaches to Communicating Business Needs Effectively
Effective communication can be achieved through tolerating and appreciating differences in temperaments. Every worker needs an individual approach: while the best way to motivate some employees is to promise a reward, others just hope for the worthy treatment and understanding. It is crucial to dedicate some time to talking with each worker to find out the existing gaps. Personal conflict is a serious problem for the overall company’s efficiency, and it can be resolved only through productive conversation.
The best set of strategies for the appropriate communication processed includes self-knowledge, knowledge of others, desire to “really” hear, and willingness to make changes. Also, it is important to realize the purposes of any dialogue with your co-workers. They include delivering a correct message, proving personal view with evidence, remaining objective, expressing emotions in an adequate manner, and solving a problem. Actually, the final target of any professional conversation is to make a decision. Often, graphical communication helps a lot. “ Graphical excellence consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision, and efficiency” (Tufte, 1983).
Steps in Proposing Efficient Solution
Successful technique might be sharing a story from own experience. Other professionals prefer turning to statistics. Conducting a research is always a good way to obtain necessary information. Proving every data set is essential to making others trust the speaker. A good orator does not forget about the necessity of allowing the audience to ask questions. If the professional conversation goes beyond the business ethics, it is crucial to prevent it from turning into a conflict. To do so, it is recommended to find a common goal that unites all workers. It’s necessary to abandon blame and stop arguing. Everyone should have an opportunity to express own pros and cons because offering a solution is the most critical step. Not only solid communication skills are required at this stage, but the knowledge of professional ethics and legal aspects. That is why it is better to replace “We must…” by more friendly and hypothetical “I feel that…” before learning the points of others.
To conclude, the most difficult part is also keeping the conversation open and easy as professional communication involves certain rules. Despite professional communication requires certain business ethics and corresponding behavior, still there is no need to sound too official at the internal company’s meeting. After all, one of the main goals of the true leader is to become not only a partner, but a reliable friend.
References
Henriksson, A. (2001). Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College
Students. New York: Workman.
Tufte, E. (1983). The Visual Display of Quantitative Data . Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.