Effective Business Communication

Miscommunication: If you write it, they will read it! (Top 10 funniest church communiqués.)

10. Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.

9. Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don’t forget your husbands.

8. For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

7. Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack’s sermons.

6. Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

Top 10 funniest church communiqués.(Cont’d)

5. The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.

4. The cost of the Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.

3. This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends.

2. The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind. They can be seen in the church basement Saturday. 

1. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice. 

Part 1: You are here!

Current Communication Environment: Framework of 3 Areas and 5 Common Attributes

Audience

Classification – Demographic,Gender, Generational

Culture – Global and Corporate

Connectivity – Shaking hands over the Internet

Competition – What is your competitor doing and how fast?

Collaboration – Synergy of sharing (Wikinomics)

Application

Augmentation

Writing: Ticket to Work.., or Ticket Out!

* FIRE = Finance, insurance, and real estate

Writing: Ticket to Work.., or Ticket Out!

What % of Employees Have It?

Business Communication Skills & Promotion

• More than half of all responding companies take writing skills into account in making promotion decisions for salaried employees.

• Corporations in the construction sector are least likely to frequently consider writing in promotion decisions (only 33.3 percent say they frequently or always do so);

• Companies in manufacturing are the most likely (57.5 percent).

• With regard to hourly employees, 95 percent of respondents indicate that writing is “never” or “only occasionally” considered as part of promotion decisions.

Writing Training for Some EmployeesWhich?

• More than 40 percent of responding firms offer or require training or retraining in writing for salaried employees who need it.

• Construction and manufacturing are more likely than others to provide writing training to salaried employees who need it.

• All responding mining and service employers report they “never” or “only occasionally” provide employees with writing training.

• Relatively few responding firms provide writing training for hourly employees (81 percent of respondents report they “never” or “only occasionally” provide such training).

Salaried professional: Who is responsible for the skills Salaried professional: Who is responsible for the skills (or lack thereof) and the consequences of these hiring (or lack thereof) and the consequences of these hiring and training practices of hourly employees? and training practices of hourly employees? Answer: U Answer: U RR

Why Don’t They Train?• Where employees need training in writing skills and employers provide such assistance, the average cost of such training is approximately $950 per employee across industries.

• Extrapolating the findings from Roundtable companies (by industrial sector and hourly and salaried employees), we estimate that annual private-sector costs for providing writing training could be as high as $3.1 billion.Answer:

•Scale makes it too expensive.

•How does this effect global competitiveness?

Who is to blame?

Schools ?

Parents ?

Teachers ?

Students ?

Universities ?

Society ?

Perhaps, learning is not taking place. No lifestyle change or experience gained.

If you don’t use it, you lose it!

What Skilled Business Communication Means to the Receiver/Sender

Receiver Sender

Intelligent Motivated

Industrious Mobile

Innovative Marketable

Interactive Manageable

Note: All of these traits command a higher pay scale.

What are the needed skills noted by corporations? Presentation, writing, speaking, use of email, and telephone

conversations.

10 Real Business Communication Maxims1.     Speak to every person you meet as if they were your next customer.

2.     Speak to every fellow worker as if your next promotion depended upon it.

(Lifting you up!)

3.     Approach every audience as if they “know nothing” about the subject at hand.

4.     Listen purposely as if the next statement was the secret to solving your worst nightmare.

5.     Learn from customers as if their comments were the source of the highest wisdom.

6.     A complaint is a gift. Always say: “Thank-you.”

7.     Approach every ethical dilemma as if “everyone knows everything.”

8.     If nobody wants to deal with the difficult customer/employee—be an original. You might just create the next big success story.

9.     Confrontation is not necessarily conflict. Though you may not know the answer to anyone’s problem, you can simply admit: “I do not know, until I have listened and understood you to the best of my ability.”

10.    Forgiveness is one thing everyone needs and wants to give. When there is no way to fix the problem, admit the failure and ask: “Will you forgive me?”

Part 2 It’s not luck! How we learn/change

Forgotten Skill #1

Learning is Changing •Change is hard work!

• It is not reading a book or walking a mile.

•Change is the painful learning process, that requires action and daily practice.

•More like learning a new language or how to solve a math problem. Hard! Change or Die by Deutschman

•Listening is an example. It is the most used business communication skill. Listening the Forgotten Skill by Madelyn Burley-Allen

40% Listening 35% Talking 16% Reading 9% Writing

Which one do we spend the most time learning?

Training vs Usage

. . . due to filters

None of us hear the same. . .

Filters Lead to Listening Problems• What are your filters?

• How might this affect your ability to learn and collaborate?

• Does listening impact the bottom-line of your business? How?

• What happens when I don’t make sure that I know what the customer is talking about? (The BC Story) This ever happened to you?

What happens when I don’t make sure that I know what the customer is talking about?

(The BC Story) This ever happened to you?

A woman writes a camping ground to ask if they have a BC (bathroom commode). The campground manager assumes she is referring to the BC (Baptist Church). She answered:

“Our BC seats 150”; “I will go with you the first time”; “We’re planning picnic when we all go together”; “The whole town is raising money to build an additional 100 more seats.”

Part 3 It takes practice! Learning from Forgotten Skill #2—Conflict Resolution.

What do you think the top ten conflict resolution skills are?

Why this focus? Dr. Raiffa’s research @ key skills of

negotiation/conflict resolution

What do you think top 10 skills of a negotiator are? 1. Preparation/planning 2. Subject Knowledge

3. Critical Thinker 4. Verbal Expression

5. Listening 6. Judgement/Intelligence

7. Integrity 8. Persuasion

9. Patience 10. Decisiveness

Let’s Make Sure We Are On the Same Wave Length:       If I could motivate students to learn these skills by focusing on one communication process, wouldn’t I be saving time (less redundant)?

       If I could do this by putting them in problem situations to solve and interaction with each other, would they be so motivated?

         If they were motivated, would they be more likely to keep at the process going? (Remember change/learning is painful and time consuming.)

         If they could learn these skills in interactive conflict resolution situations and business-problem scenarios, would they learn to apply these same skills sets in writing?

         Could I implement this same teaching/learning methodology in an online environment?

         If I could motivate students to learn these skills would you hire them?

What Skills Do Employers/Businesses Want?

Critical Thinking

Problem Solving

Team Management

Conflict Resolution Lessons

Complaints are gifts say: “Thank you!”

 Example: Goldsmith’s What Got You Here…

 Learn to ask forgiveness .

 Example: We lost your photographs, forever.

 Seek to understand, then be understood.

 Example: I just want to my daughter a bike

Win-Win or No Deal! 

Example: Horse traders and teenagers

 

More Conflict Resolution Lessons

Biggest killer of negotiated agreements are time constraints.

It is not how much you offer, it is how many times!

 Example: The 5-minute before closing, one-nickel raise.

 

Does this make you want to learn more by having fun practicing these skills sets?

So What?Learning is changing!

Technology is a force to be reckoned with.

Peter Drucker: Noted that with all of the technological changes in the first half of the 21st Century, the biggest challenges in business would be how we treat and value people.

Jim Collins: Not one of the “Good to Great” companies determined that technology was the source of major paradigm shifts, but great companies used technology as tools to manage stakeholder needs most effectively.

So What? Lesson #1

Learn to use technology as a tool-- not a solution in itself.

Only people find solutions. (“The right people’)

Technology can offer great efficiency, but you will determine whether it is effective.

(Lost pilot: Ladies and gentlemen, I have good news and bad news. Bad news: We are lost. I have no idea where we are. Good news: We are

making great time!)

 

So What? Lesson #2Business communication skills must be learned!

Just like skating and baseball.

Efficiency comes in the form: (You decide 3 metrics)

1. 2. 3.

Effectiveness will be measured in the form of: (Your call—3 metrics)

1. 2. 3.

Five MindsetsIt is about: Can you do it, whenever needed, or have a ready reference?

What we are talking about here is this is NOT about grades, a course you take in college, or a certificate you get for attending a seminar.

 

Even more vital: Will you do it? This part cannot be taught or written.

 

Five mindsets one MUST have for effective business communication:

Love people!Love people! (Jack Welch, Jim Hunter, Titanium Rule vs Golden Rule.)

Work Hard!Work Hard! (As if you were working for God. Isn’t that the employee you want? So, what kind of leader should you be?)

Learn Tirelessly !Learn Tirelessly !

Create Fearlessly !Create Fearlessly !

Finish Graciously !Finish Graciously ! (Winston Churchill-“Never quit!”; Apostle Paul “Run to win”

Questions or Comments?