Let’s face it, business and communication run hand in hand, and good communication can be seen as an advantage for improved business operations. Business communication is tactful and integrates business perspective and client’s perspective to gravitate in various business ambits. Apparently, emphasizing the potential of virtual communication and revamping the source can promote cross-cultural communication.
Business communication is not only limited to the team or client interaction; it’s vast and encompasses extensive coverage – Persuasive and Negative Communication, Crisis Communication, Corporate Communication, and Technology-Enabled Communication. Backed by a strong theoretical grounding and understanding of communication phenomena, business communication can strengthen company relationships with clients and employees for better performance.
Communication is not a mere exchange of words or information; it is an exchange of tone, context, presentation skills, posture, non-verbal cues, volume, feelings, etc. It shows your eloquence, your factual relevance, your honesty, your politeness and genteel tone etc. That’s not all, communication involves not only spoken words but presentations, business e-mails, meetings negotiation reports for formal and non-formal purposes. Using the right words at the right time to explain or defend yourself can be a subtle way to communicate.
The Concept of Business Communication
The requisite of business communication is to understand its purpose and concept. Most of what we say is intended to fulfil a particular purpose, and it could be through verbal, non-verbal and visual communication. However, the continuous flow of information from department to department, between teams and agencies, clients and suppliers, etc. requires professionalism. It should be free from mistakes and misunderstandings. Besides, business communication follows an end goal, irrespective of what medium you use – email, video conferencing and instant messaging.
Written and oral modes of communication are two main types of business communication. Written communication covers messages, reports, documentation, emails presentations, etc. And oral communication covers telephone conversation, group discussions, face-to-face interviews, informal chats and meetings. Apart from this, the end goal of communication is to build a good rapport and instil trust in your listener or reader. It’s been seen that people delve more into oral communication as it’s less likely to get misunderstood, and it’s quite flexible and open-ended. While communicating through a call or F2F, you can use the intonation of voice and expressions to put forward your point of view and invite the person to participate in communication with you for direct and transparent discourse.
Oral discourse is a great time-saver and contains an element of efficiency. If you are running short on time, you can communicate on important topics to come up with decisions instantly. Oral discussion can be between two or more people, and hence it maintains privacy and confidentiality. However, it requires no maintenance of official records, which can be counted as a downside of oral communication. Things told may get forgotten later, thus leaving a detrimental effect on efficiency. Without legal documentation, anyone can break the ethics or rules of an organization without any line of proof.
Next comes written business communication with all its pros and cons. While counting its advantages, one can’t miss that it remains forever once recorded. It can always be rechecked and relied upon as it gives a clear view while eliminating all instances of a false impression. Being a valid record of communication, it can be relied upon during legal situations. However, maintenance of these documents may be a grind as it involves a lot of cost fractions to be managed. It includes electricity cost, technological stuff, and transfer cost, and the response to the initial question may remain unanswered; thus, making it worthless. Besides, while writing, you have to focus on every single word as a slight mistake that can change the entire context of your ‘wiring’, oops… ‘writing’. Also, as a representative of a company, you have to keep a hold on your words to avoid both redundancy and shortage to be succinct and relevant.
Theory of Effective Business Communication
Various theories are proposed by renowned corporate personalities to promote effective business communication. It requires you to be competent in language and vocabulary and possess a certain skill set that can differentiate you from being a mere communicator. That’s rights, but there is a lot more to it. However, traditional approaches and theories may help you unburden it a bit, but then we have to frame a path that we can move on for better communication.
One theory says that getting all the information to achieve goals is important and that communication within an organization affects people, their behaviour and productivity.
Others say that communication can be convergent and divergent and that divergent people try to reflect or transfer their style and the essence of their strong backgrounds to keep themselves recognizable in their group. And convergent people juggle with their communication style in search of social acceptance.
With so many theories out there, experts concluded that coordinated and coherent conversation can make a combination. They believe that a central source, say a TV or a laptop, can provide a sense of reality. Since we have no valid theory, formulating business communication based on previous experiences with the clients and experiences that you have gained over the years would be the best source. Besides, the behaviour of humans varies greatly and mulling over the facts may leave you clueless about what and how to lead. Take it as a challenge and strategize before implementing an approach to it.
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