Modules 1 & 2

Module 1 is about Business Communication, Management, and Success. This module highlighted many important aspects of communicating in a business setting and how it relates to management and success. The module continuously stresses the importance of communication skills and that the better your communication skills the more successful you will be in your life. Communication is used in all levels of the work world and it is really important for modern supervisors. Not only do they want you to be able to Communicate, but you should also have good writing skills. Good communications skills in the workplace are vital to how well you do with the company.

Another important aspect is how business writing differs from other school writing. In school writing you show what you have learned and how you can demonstrate your intelligence. In business writing it is to meet organizational need. There are also other dimension they differ in like audience, information, organization, style, document design, and visuals. Managers are very important when it comes to unifying people and helping them work together to achieve the goals of the company. The three basic jobs of a manager are to collect and convey information, to make decisions, and to promote interpersonal unity. All of this could not be established without the correct form of communication. There is a certain level of communication skills a manager must possess to reach to small groups and to do formal presentations.

There are three basic purposes of messages in an organization. They are to inform, request or persuade, and to build good will. It is important to explain something to your readers. When you request or persuade the reader you want there to be some kind of action there and to be able to convince them. Building good will is creating a good image for you and the organization and keeps that rapport where people want to do business with you. Writing a correspondence is not a very cheap process. When writing something for a company it has to be run through a cycle. That is where it will cycle from writer to superior and so on. This could take a lot of times to do so and it cost money. What cost even more money is a poor correspondence. It takes more time to read and it requires more revision. There are five things that make a good message effective. The message is clear, complete, correct, saves the reader time, and it builds goodwill.  PAIBOC can be used to understand how to analyze your business situations.

Module 2 is centered on adapting your message to your audience. There are five kinds of audiences in an organizational setting.  You have your initial audience who is the  first receive and assign the message, the gatekeeper has the power to stop the message before it gets to the primary audience. If it makes it to the primary audience they decide whether to accept recommendations. The secondary audience comments on the message and finally the watchdog has the political, social or economic power. To be successful the message must meet the audiences’ needs. The audience is very central to the communication process. Empathy and common sense should always be used because every situation may not be the same and the audience is not just like you.  When analyzing individuals or members of a group it is easier to analyze them as individuals and you can find out how aware the audience is of your topic, demographics, personalities, values and beliefs, and past behaviors.

After analyzing the company you can use the information to strategize, organize, style, document design, and visuals. If your audience has different needs the focus should be on the gatekeepers and the decision makers.  You can reach your audience by using important messages requiring multiple channels. Some of these are speed, accuracy, cost, number of messages, and number of people reached, efficiency, and the ability to promote.  A written message is easier to go into detail on and present extensively and you can minimize undesirable emotion where as in oral messages you can answer questions and resolve conflicts immediately and use emotion to persuade the audience.