BCOM MIDTERM
Idea Development for Public Relations Messages
1.Clarify your company's brand and gain a shared sense of the brand message.2.Write the PR story.-Use a headline, dateline, story, and boilerplate or positioning statement.-Or can use the op-ed style.
Behaviors that Drive Diversity
1.Making sure everyone is heard.2.Making it safe to let team members express novel ideas.3.Giving team members decision-making authority.4.Sharing credit.5.Giving useful feedback.6.Putting feedback into action.
Ensure Ease of Reading
1.Provide a short, descriptive subject line.2.Keep your message brief yet complete.3.Clearly identify expected actions.4.Provide a descriptive signature block.5.Use attachments wisely. •Components•Subject line.•Greeting*.•Message.•Closing*.•Signature block*.•Attachments*.•*optional.
Maintaining Civil Communications
1.Slow down and be present in life.2.Listen to the voice of empathy.3.Keep a positive attitude.4.Respect others and grant them plenty of validation.5.Disagree graciously and refrain from arguing.6.Get to know people around you.7.Pay attention to small things.8.Ask, don't tell.
Asking the Right Questions
A crucial skill is the ability to ask the right questions.Good questions reflect the learner mind-set, and poor questions reflect a judger mind-set.
Showing Appreciation
A sincere expression of thanks: •Helps achieve business goals. •Strengthens work relationships.•Can be formal or informal.
Conduct a FAIR Test
Access•Have you granted enough access to message recipients about decision making and information? •Have you granted enough access to the message recipients to provide input? •Are you open about your motives, or do you have a hidden agenda? Impacts•Have you thought about how the message will impact various stakeholders? •Have you evaluated impacts on others from ethical, corporate, and legal perspectives?•Respect•Have you demonstrated respect for the inherent worth of others: their aspirations, thoughts, feelings, and well-being? •Have you shown that you value others?
Be Accurate
Accuracy strongly impacts your readers' perceptions of your credibility.One inaccurate statement can:•Lead readers to dismiss your entire message.•Lower their trust in your future communications.
Solve Problems with Discussion Forums
Actions to Avoid•Leading posts.•Ignoring competing points of views.•Strong, rigid language.•Complaining.•Blaming.•Off-topic points.•Excessively short or lengthy posts.•Sarcasm. •Read your peers' comments completely and carefully.•State the purpose of the forum clearly.•Use flexible, open, and inviting language.•Build on the ideas of others and pose questions.•Show appreciation for your teammates and their ideas.•Participate often.•Meet in real time for touchy points.•Summarize and, as appropriate, identify next steps.•Talk with your team about ways to make forums help your decision making and coordination.
Use Email for the Right Purposes
Advantages•Best suited for routine, task-oriented, fact-based, and nonsensitive messages.•Few constraints (low cost, little coordination).•High control (the writer can think them out carefully, and they provide a permanent record). Disadvantages•Not rich (lack verbal and nonverbal cues and immediate feedback).•Should not be used to criticize others.•Rarely appropriate for sensitive or emotional communication tasks. •Inefficient for facilitating discussions.
Creating and Distributing the Agenda
Agenda Components-Agenda items.-Time frames.-Goals/expected outcomes.-Roles.-Materials needed.
Use Short Sentences in Most Cases
Allows your readers to comprehend your ideas more easily.•For routine messages, aim for average sentence length of 15 or fewer words.•For more analytical and complex business messages, you may have an average sentence length of 20 or fewer words.
Making Apologies
An apology typically includes the following elements: -Acknowledgment of a mistake or an offense.-An expression of regret for the harm caused. -Acceptance of responsibility.-A commitment that the offense will not be repeated.Effective apologies should be timely and sincere.
Creating Announcements
Announcements are:•Updates to policies and procedures.•Notices of events.•Other correspondences that apply to a group of employees and/or customers.The subject line must be specific and must create interest. Components•Gain attention.•Give announcement.•Provide details.•Call to action.•State goodwill.
Use Parallel Language
Apply a consistent grammatical pattern across sentences or paragraphs.Parallelism is most important when you use series or lists.
Perspective-Getting and Note-Taking
Approach•In the body of your notes, write their comments and points of view.•In the margins of your notes, write your reactions, your ideas, and your questions.•Document shortly after the end of your conversation.
Estimating Your Credibility
Audiences must judge you as credible.Many entry-level professionals have relatively low professional credibility because they are viewed as the newcomers.
Recognizing Barriers to Effective Listening
Barriers•Lack of time.•Lack of patience and attention span.•Image of leadership.•Communication technology.•Fear of bad news or uncomfortable information.•Defending.•Me too statements.•Giving advice.
Principles of Effective Team Communication
Basic Principles1.Focus on performance.2.Go through four stages to reach high performance.3.Build a work culture around values, norms and goals.4.Meet often.5.Focus on psychological safety and ensure all voices are heard.6.Recognize and actively seek to avoid groupthink.7.Embrace diversity.8.Solve problems and generate creative solutions.9.Provide positive feedback and evaluate performance often.
Improving Ease of Reading with Completeness
Basic Strategies •Provide all relevant information.•Be accurate.•Be specific.
Use Blogs and Status Updates for Team Communication
Blogs-Posts that are arranged chronologically, similar to a journal format.-Help leaders, managers, and supervisors to keep employees aware of announcements and updates. •Microblogs (status updates)-Short comments that typically contain just a few sentences.-Tools for broadcasting quick announcements and urgent information.
Motivational Value Systems
Blue MVS •Most often guided by motives to protect others, help others grow, and act in the best interests of others.Red MVS •Most often guided by concerns about organizing people, time, money, and other resources to accomplish results. Green MVS •Most often concerned about making sure business activities have been thought out carefully and the right processes are put into place to accomplish things.•Hubs•Professionals who are guided almost equally by all three of these MVSs.
Credibility
Business Ethics -The commonly accepted beliefs and principles in the business community for acceptable behavior.-Adhering to laws.-Safeguarding confidential or proprietary information.-Avoiding conflicts of interest and misuse of company assets.-Refraining from accepting or providing inappropriate gifts, gratuities, and entertainment.•Transparency is important in corporate communications.
Use Short and Familiar Words and Phrases
Choose short, conversational, and familiar words.Using longer, less common words slows processing and distract from the message.
Making Claims
Claims•Requests for other companies to compensate for or correct the wrongs or mistakes they have made.•What the claim is.•A rationale for the claim.•A call to action.•Goal is to have your claim honored.•Focus on facts first and emotions second, if at all.•Lay out a logical, reasonable, and professional explanation for your claim.
Creating Internal Persuasive Messages
Common Elements between Internal and External Messages•Gain attention.•Raise a need.•Deliver a solution.•Provide rationale.•Show appreciation.•Give counterpoints.•Call to action. Internal Persuasive Messages•Focus on promoting ideas•More direct and explicit•Based on logical appealsTypes•Influence a superior•Influence employees
Strategically Selecting Channels for Communication
Communication Channel•The medium you use to communicate.-Email.-Phone.-Face to face.•Three considerations related to limitations:-Richness.-Control.-Constraints. Richness -Richer communication leads to more trust building, rapport, and commitment.-Face to face is the richest. Immediacy -Relates to how quickly someone is able to respond and give feedback.-High-immediacy requires more cues. Control -The degree to which communications can be planned and recorded, allowing strategic message development. Planning -Implies that the communication can be tightly drafted, edited and revised, rehearsed, and developed before delivery. Permanence -The extent to which the message can be stored, retrieved, and distributed to others. Constraints -Practical limitations of coordination and resources.Coordination-Effort and timing needed to allow all relevant people to participate in a communication. Resources -Financial, space, time, and other investments necessary to employ particular channels of communication. •Two Communication Channels•Spoken: high in richness but low in control.-Synchronous communication.•Written: low in richness but has a lot of benefits; more formal than spoken.-Asynchronous communication.
The Role of Competence in Establishing Credibility
Competence •The knowledge and skills needed to: -Accomplish business tasks. -Approach business problems. -Get a job done. •Most people will judge your competence based on your track record of success and achievement. How Do You Establish Competence?•Through study, observation, and practice and real-world business experiences. •In the ways you communicate with others. Caring -Understanding the interests of others. -Cultivating a sense of community. -Giving to others and showing generosity. Understanding the Interests of Others •To gain credibility, show that you care for the needs of others. •Connect with others to gain trust. -Understand others' needs, wants, opinions, feelings, and aspirations. -Develop an other-orientation. The Importance of a Sense of Community and Teamwork •Effective corporate business leaders recognize this. •Communicate using a "we" and "you" orientation. -Engenders trust and helps you find mutually beneficial solutions. •Giving to Others and Showing Generosity •Companies with higher percentages of givers have higher profitability, higher productivity, higher customer satisfaction, and lower turnover. •Being a giver opens up opportunities. Character -Staying true to commitments made to stakeholders. -Adhering to high moral and ethical values. -Central to creating trust.
Persuasive Messages
Components•Gain attention.•Raise a need.•Deliver a solution.•Provide a rationale.•Validate the views, preferences, and concerns of others.•Give counterpoints (optional).•Call to action.
Press-Release Style Blog Posts
Components•Headline•Dateline•PR story•Boilerplate•Contact information•Call to action
Information Gathering
Components•Identify the business problems.•Analyze the business problems.•Clarify objectives.
Congratulations and Celebrations
Congratulation Messages•Reserved for major professional and personal milestones.•Should communicate deep and positive emotion.•Express validation for the milestone. Components of Congratulation and Celebration Messages•Display happiness, joy, and other positive sentiments.•Validate their accomplishment or milestone.•Express confidence in their future.
How to Disagree Diplomatically
Disagreeing Well•Validating others means that you recognize their perspectives and feelings as credible or legitimate. It does not necessarily mean that you agree. •I-statements begin with phrases such as I think, I feel, orI believe. -Soften comments to sound more conciliatory and flexible and less blaming and accusatory.
Displaying Cultural Intelligence withOther Groups and Appreciating Other Forms of Diversity
Diversity•Gen Yers and Gen Zers are the most sensitive to issues of diversity. •More focus on: -Neurodiversity.-Physical disabilities.-Mental illness.
Using Social Media Tools for Communication within Organizations
Effective Social Tools•Organize your dashboard to control your communication and information flow.•Create a complete and professional profile.•Use blogs and status updates for team communication.•Use shared files to collaborate. •Solve problems with discussion forums.
Egalitarianism and Hierarchy
Egalitarian Cultures-People tend to distribute and share power evenly, minimize status differences, and minimize special privileges and opportunities for people just because they have higher authority. Hierarchical Cultures•People expect power differences, follow leaders without questioning them, and feel comfortable with leaders receiving special privileges and opportunities.•Power tends to be concentrated at the top.
Manage Emotion and Maintain Civility
Emails invoke emotions, whether intended or not.•Neutrality effect -Recipients are more likely to perceive messages with an intended positive emotion as neutral.•Negativity effect -Recipients are more likely to perceive messages that are intended as neutral as negative. •Cyber Silence-When an email receives no response. •Cyber Incivility -The violation of respect and consideration in an online environment based on workplace norms.-Can be activeincivilityor passive incivility. Steps to Address Uncivil Emails•Reinterpretation •Relaxation •Defusing Defusing an Uncivil Email•Focus on task-related facts and issues in your reply.•Focus on shared objectives and agreements.•Express interest in arranging a time to meet in person.•If meeting is not possible, attempt to establish a richer channel of communication than email.
Emotional Hijacking
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) •Understanding and managing emotions to serve goals.•Empathizing and effectively handling relationships with others.•Single best predictor of workplace performance.•Emotional Hijacking •A situation in which emotions control our behavior causing us to react without thinking.
Characteristics of the Social Age
Evolution of the Internet•Web 1.0:-Most web pages read-only and static.-User 1.0.•Web 2.0:-Read-write web where users author content, express opinions, and customize and edit web content.-Social media.-User 2.0.
Information Gathering
Excellent Business Thinkers•Clearly and precisely identify and articulate key questions and problems.•Gather information from a variety of sources.•Make well-reasoned conclusions and solutions.•Remain open to alternatives to approaching and reasoning about the business problem.•Are skilled at communicating with others to figure out and solve complex problems.
Constructing External Persuasive Messages
External Persuasive Messages •Employ you-voice and describe tangible benefits.•Should be personalized, upbeat, positive, and pressure-free.•Avoid guilt trips and extremely negative terms.
Nonverbal Signals
Eyes•Smiles and Nods•Hands and Arms•Touch
Identifying and Analyzing the Business Problem(s)
Facts -Statements that can be relied on with a fair amount of certainty and can be observed objectively. •Conclusions -Statements that are reasoned or deduced based on facts. •Positions -Stances that you take based on a set of conclusions.
Conduct a FAIR Test
Facts•Are you confident in your facts? •Are your assumptions clear? •Have you avoided slanting the facts or made other logical errors?
The AIM Planning Process for Effective Business Messages
Focus on Three Areas•Audience analysis.•Information gathering.•Message development.
Managing Your Digital Communication Efficiently
Follow these guidelines:•Check digital messages just four to five times each day at designated times.•Wean yourself off checking your mobile devices constantly. •Develop strategies to manage your inbox.•Turn off message alerts. Follow these guidelines: (continued)•Use rich channels, such as face-to-face and phone conversations, to accomplish a task completely. •Reply immediately only to urgent messages. •Avoid unnecessarily lengthening an email chain.•Use automatic messages to help people know when you're unavailable.
Stages of Development in High-Performance Teams
Forming-Team members focus on gaining acceptance and avoiding conflict. Storming-Team members open up with their competing ideas about how the team should approach work. Norming-The team arrives at a work plan, including roles, goals, and accountabilities. Performing-The team operates efficiently toward accomplishing its goals.
Message Development
Framing the primary message:•What is the primary message?•What simple, vivid statement (15 words or fewer) captures the essence of your message?Setting up the logic of your message:•What are your supporting points?•What do you want to explicitly ask your readers to do (call to action)?•How will you order the logic of your message?
Understanding Cultural Dimensions
GLOBE Group's Cultural Dimensions1.Individualism and collectivism2.Egalitarianism and hierarchy3.Performance orientation4.Future orientation5.Assertiveness6.Humane orientation7.Uncertainty avoidance8.Gender egalitarianism
Avoid Wordy Prepositional Phrases
Get your ideas across as efficiently as possible.Reduce word count by 30 to 40 percent simply by converting many prepositional phrases into single-word verbs.
Avoiding the Traps of Empathy
Givers •Frequently help others out in the workplace, sometimes at the expense of their individual performance.•Three potential barriers to performance associated with empathy:-Timidity.-Availability.-Emotional concern for others.
Use Active Voice
Grammatical Patterns•Active voice: doer as subject + verb + object•Passive voice: object as subject + be verb + verb + doer (optional)•Allows for faster processing.•Emphasizes the business orientation of the action.•Specifies the doer.•Results in fewer words.
Getting the Tone and Style Right for Persuasive Messages
Guidelines for Tone forPersuasive Messages•Apply the personal touch.•Use action-oriented, lively language.•Write with confidence.•Offer choice.•Show positivity.
Use Headings
Headings help identify key ideas and navigate the document to areas of interest. Be consistent in font style and formatting.•Use the formatting features in a word processor.
Use Shared Files to Collaborate
Helpful Tips•Discuss with your team members and colleagues what the protocol should be for sharing and co-editing files.•Organize your files by project.•Manage permissions. •Add comments constructively and carefully read your colleagues' comments.
Participating in and Leading Group Voice and Video Calls•
Helpful Tips•Practice using the technology before the group call.•Use your webcam effectively.•Use interactive tools wisely.•Start the call with purpose and take charge.•Follow the guidelines of effective virtual meetings.
Common Types of Incivility in the Workplace
Ignoring othersTreating others without courtesyDisrespecting the efforts of othersDisrespecting the privacy of othersDisrespecting the dignity and worth of others
Embracing Differing Viewpoints
Inherent Diversity -Involves traits such as age, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Acquired Diversity -Involves traits you acquire through experience, such as customer service experience, retail experience, or engineering experience.
Instant Messaging in the Workplace
Instant Messaging (IM)•A relatively new and undeveloped form of communication in the workplace.•May be considered as impersonal, uninteresting, rude, intrusive, or inadequate. •Helpful Tips•Evaluate the meta message of instant messaging•Use for simple and brief conversations, not for important decisions.•Use a positive, supportive, and appropriately fun tone.•Don't ask questions you can get answers to yourself.•Be careful about abbreviated language, emoticons, acronyms, and emoji. •Helpful Tips (continued)•Avoid sarcasm and jokes in most cases.•Avoid rescheduling meeting times or places.•Consider turning off sound alerts for incoming messages/emails.•Identify yourself.
Understanding the Interpersonal Communication Process
Interpersonal Communication Process•Sending and receiving verbal and nonverbal messages between two or more people.•The exchange of simultaneous and mutual messages to share and negotiate meaning between those involved.-Meaning -Encoding-Decoding One goal of interpersonal communication is to arrive at shared meaning.•The people involved in interpersonal communication attain the same understanding about ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Physical noisePhysiological noiseSemantic noisePsychological noise Physical Noise•External noise that makes a message difficult to hear or otherwise receive.•Ex., loud sounds. Physiological Noise •Internal noise.•Ex., illness, hearing problems, and memory loss. Semantic Noise •Communicators apply different meanings to the same words or phrases.•Especially when strong emotions are involved. Psychological Noise •Interference due to attitudes, ideas, and emotions experienced during an interpersonal interaction. Filter of Lifetime Experiences •Accumulation of knowledge, values, expectations, and attitudes based on prior personal experiences.-The more shared experiences, the easier communication is.
Differences in Communication Preferences Based on Extroversion-Introversion
Introverts•Tend to get much of their stimulation and energy from their own thoughts, feelings, and moods.•Extroverts •Tend to get much of their stimulation and energy from external sources such as social interaction.
Holding Judgment
Learner Mind-Set •You show eagerness to hear others' ideas and perspectives and listen with an open mind.•You do not have your mind made up before listening fully. Judger Mind-Set •People have their minds made up before listening carefully to others' ideas, perspective, and experiences. •Judgers view disagreement rigidly, with little possibility of finding common ground. Learner Statements•Be willing to hear different opinions.•Judger Statements•Closed off to hearing people out.•Shut down honest conversations.
Sight-Reading Nonverbal Communication and Building Rapport
Learning to Sight-Read•Consciously practice each day.•Pay attention to congruence.•Sight-read in clusters, not in isolation.•Sight-read in context.
Control Paragraph Length
Long paragraphs can signal disorganization and disrespect for the reader's time.•Typically, paragraphs should contain 40 to 80 words. •For routine messages, paragraphs as short as 20 to 30 words are common and appropriate.•Don't place more than one main idea in a paragraph.
Clarifying
Making sure you have a clear understanding of what others mean. Double-checking that you understand the perspectives of others and asking them to elaborate and qualify their thoughts.
Show Positivity
Maslansky's research asked consumers to identify which of three pairs of phrases were more persuasive in promotional material.
Composing Mass Sales Messages
Mass Sales Messages -Messages sent to a large group of consumers and intended to market a product or service.•Emails, online ads, or sales letters.•Low success rates.-Benefits include:•Less expensive than hard-copy sales letters.•Can raise brand awareness.•Structure can be adjusted to increase sales rate. Structure•Gain attention.•Generate interest.•Build desire.•Call to action. •Central Sales Theme•A coherent, unified theme that consumers can recognize quickly.•A common theme is price.•More effective with a direct approach.
Following Up After Meetings
Meeting Follow-up/Minutes Components-Date and time.-Team members present.-Meeting roles.-Key decisions.-Key discussion points (optional).-Open issues (optional).-Action items and deadlines.
Sending the Right Meta Messages
Meta Messages •The overall but often underlying messages people take away from a communication or group of communications.•A combination of content, tone, and other signals. •Mixed signals occur when the content of a message conflicts with its tone, nonverbal communication, or other signals.•Sending mixed signals is not only confusing, but it also frequently results in negative meta messages.
Setting Up the Message Framework
Most business arguments employ a direct or deductive approach. •They begin by stating the primary message.•Then they lay out the supporting reasons and conclude with a call to action.In some cases, such as delivering bad news, an indirect or inductive approach is helpful.•This approach provides supporting reasons first followed by the primary message.
Improving Ease of Reading with Conciseness
Omitting needless words so that readers can rapidly process your main ideas.•Say as much as you can in as few words as possible.Strategies include:•Controlling paragraph length.•Using shorter sentences.•Avoiding redundancy.•Avoiding empty phrases.•Avoiding wordy phrases.
Avoid Buzzwords and Figures of Speech
Overused or out-of-place words or phrases are distracting.Buzzwords-Workplace terms that become trite because of overuse.-Can stir negative feelings among some readers.Figures of Speech-Contain nonliteral meanings.-Are generally out of place or inappropriate in business writing.
The Writing Process for Routine Messages
PLAN: Get the content right.•Identify the exact needs of your audience.•Gather relevant, accurate, and up-to-date information.•Create a front-loaded, direct, complete, and detail-oriented message.•WRITE: Get the delivery right.•Aim for a helpful, professional, reader-centered tone Show respect for your reader's time.•Apply a concise, easy-to-read, action-oriented style.•Use subject lines and formatting to create a simple navigational design.•REVIEW: Double-check everything.•Get feedback when writing on behalf of a team or unit.•Ensure your message is FAIR.•Make sure to proofread.
Taking Initiative, Showing Persistence, and Adapting to Various Decision-Making Styles
Persuasion requires persistence and initiative.Kessler's Five Touch Points1.The sniff.2.The story.3.The data.4.The ask.5.The close.
Managing Meetings
Planning for Meetings: Essential Questions•What is the purpose of the meeting? What outcomes do I expect?•Who should attend?•When should the meeting be scheduled?•What roles and responsibilities should people at the meeting have? •Planning for Meetings: Essential Questions (continued)•What will be the agenda?•What materials should I distribute prior to the meeting?•When and how should I invite others?•What logistical issues do I need to take care of (reserving rooms, getting equipment, printing materials)?
Creating Effective Emails
Primary form of written business communication. Writing emails uses the basic principles of writing style. •Principles of Effective Emails•Use for the right purposes.•Ensure ease of reading.•Show respect for time.•Protect privacy and confidentiality.•Respond promptly.•Maintain professionalism and appropriate formality.•Manage emotion effectively.•Avoid distractions.
Guidelines for Using Social Media in the Workplace
Principles for Professional Social Media Use•Be an active contributor.•Read, listen, and learn.•Focus on content.•Make your content accessible.•Make your messages authentic and friendly.•Respect boundaries.•Participate in communities.
The Process for Creating Business Messages
Process Steps•Plan.•Write.•Review. Business writers tend to move back and forth between stages.Expert writers are more likely to: •Analyze the needs of the audience.•Generate the best ideas to tackle a problem.•Identify the primary message and key points before starting a formal draft of a business message.
Avoid Inappropriate Stereotypes
Projected Cognitive Similarity -Tendency to assume others have the same norms and values as your own cultural group. Outgroup Homogeneity Effect -Tendency to think members of other groups are all the same.
Avoid It Is and There Are
Readers naturally want to know precisely who or what the subject of a sentence is.Most sentences that begin with it is or there are fail to provide a specific subject and generally contain more words than necessary.
Maintain Professionalism and Appropriate Formality
Recommendations•Avoid indications that you view email as casual communication.•Apply the same standards of spelling, punctuation, and formatting you would for other written documents.•Use greetings and names.
Differences in Communication Preferences Based on Motivational Values
Relationship Awareness Theory•Nurturing (identified as blue in this model).•Directing (identified as red).•Autonomizing (identified as green).Motivational Value System (MVS) •Blend of these primary motives and refers to the frequency with which these values guide their actions.
Relationship Management
Relationship Management •Using your awareness of emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully.•Adapting communication to the preferred styles of others and ensuring civility in the workplace.
Reviewing Persuasive Messages
Review Process•Can potentially provide you with more professional opportunities and enhanced credibility.•Can also close off future opportunities and diminish your credibility.•Do the following before sending a persuasive message:•Get feedback and reread.•Apply the FAIR test.
Developing Routine Messages
Routine Messages•Require less time than other business messages.•Still need the writing process of planning, drafting, and reviewing.•Most important step is message development. Components•State the primary message (ten words or fewer).•Provide details in paragraphs of 20 to 80 words.•Restate the request or key message in more specific terms.•State goodwill.
Self-Awareness
Self-Awareness •The foundation for emotional intelligence.•Involves accurately understanding your emotions as they occur and how they affect you.•Particularly important for stressful and unpleasant situations.-Triggers.
Communicating in the Workplace in the Social Age
Social Age -An era in which people engage in networked communication, collaborate across boundaries, and solve problems communally.
Summarizing and Sharing
Summarizing •Restate major themes so that you can make sense of the big issues from the perspective of the other person.•Active listening also involves sharing your own perspectives and feelings.
Use Blogs and Status Updates for Team Communication
Team Blogs -Typically organized around formal work teams •Project Blogs -Organized around particular projects that generally involve temporary teams
Principles of Effective Team Communication
Team Culture•Shared perceptions and commitment to collective values, norms, roles, responsibilities, and goals.•Typically during the norming stage.•Team Charter •Provides direction to the team. •Includes purpose or mission statements, values, goals, team member roles, tasks, ground rules, communication protocol, meeting protocol, decision-making rules, conflict resolution, and feedback mechanisms. Symptoms of Groupthink•Collective rationalization.•Moral high ground.•Self-censorship.•Illusion of unanimity. Symptoms of Groupthink (continued)•Peer pressure.•Illusion of invulnerability.•Complacency.•Mindguards.•Stereotyping.
Expressing Sympathy
The foremost requirement of any expression of sympathy is that it be sincere.•When possible, handwrite on a nice card.•Make it personal.
The Importance of Credibility in an Era of Mistrust and Skepticism
The importance of credibility is heightened for persuasive messages.•Goal is to help audience members identify with and find merit in your positions.•The post-trust era.
Audience Analysis
Think about the needs, priorities, and values of audience members. Components•Identify reader benefits and constraints.•Consider reader values and priorities.•Estimate personal credibility.•Anticipate reactions.•Consider secondary audiences.
Reflecting
Thinking about the ideas and emotions of others.To make sure you really understand others, you should frequently paraphrase what you're hearing.
Setting Expectations
Tied to your credibility and ability to foster interpersonal trust in the workplace.Three Components:•Describing responsibilities.•Providing deadlines.•Discussing coordination.
Group Writing
Tips for effective group writing:•Start right away.•Work together at the planning stage.•Make sure your roles and contributions are fair.•Stay flexible and open.•Meet in real time consistently and ensure the writing reflects the views of the group.•Discuss how you will edit the document together.•Consider a single group member to polish the final version and ensure a consistent voice.
Running Effective Virtual Meetings
Tips to make the meeting more productive:•Start the meeting with social chat.•Start with a contentious question.•Ask "what do you think about" questions.•Make sure each team member is involved.•Articulate views precisely.•Take minutes in real time.•Focus on your teammates and avoid multitasking.•Use video when possible.
Responding to Inquiries
Tips•Set off each question so your readers can quickly identify responses to particular questions.•Use bullets or numbered lists and/or special formatting.•Components•Provide responses.•State goodwill.
Setting the Tone of the Message
Tone-Overall evaluation the reader perceives the writer to have toward the reader and the message content. Principles for Setting the Right Tone•Demonstrate positivity.•Show concern for others.
The Role of Character in Establishing Credibility
Trust-building behaviors include:•Extending trust.•Sharing information.•Telling it straight.•Providing opportunities.•Admitting mistakes.•Setting a good example by following rules. •Corporate and Personal Values -Corporate values:•Stated and lived values of a company.-Personal values:•Values that individuals prioritize and adhere to. Code of Conduct or Code of Ethics -Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires publicly traded companies to have a code of ethics available to all employees and to ensure that it is enacted. •Open and Honest Communication1.Avoid open and honest communication of business problems, employees doom a business to poor financial performance.2.Dishonesty is among the primary reasons for lower employee morale.3.Dishonesty can be reason for dismissal. •A Stakeholder View of Accountability -Implies an obligation to meet the needs and wants of others. -Involves an enlarged visionof those affected by your business activities. -Takes a stakeholder view that includes all groups in society affected by your business. Fairness in Business Communications-The FAIR test helps you examine how well you have: •Provided the facts. •Granted accessto your motives, reasoning, and information.•Examined impacts on stakeholders.•Shown respect.
Displaying Cultural Intelligence with Other Groups and Appreciating Other Forms of Diversity
Types of cultural groups include:•People from certain regions.•People from urban, suburban, or rural areas.•Ethnic groups.•Occupational groups.•Companies.
Uncertainty Avoidance and Gender Egalitarianism
Uncertainty Avoidance•How cultures socialize members to feel in uncertain, novel, surprising, or extraordinary situations. Gender Egalitarianism•The division of roles between men and women in society.
Improving Ease of Reading with Natural Style
Use Action Verbs When Possible•First, find nouns that you can convert to action verbs.•Second, find forms of the verb to be (e.g., be verbs such as is, are, am) and convert them into action verbs.
Other Suggestions
Use White Space Generously•Too much text is daunting.•Too much white space looks insufficient.Keep It Simple•Focus first on easy navigation.•Avoid distracting formatting.
Highlight Key Words and Phrases
Use bold, italics, or underlining to draw and keep your readers' attention.However, if you use too much special formatting, your main ideas will not stand out.•Only apply one type of formatting to a word or words.
Considering Reader Values and Priorities
Values -Enduring beliefs and ideals that individuals hold. Priorities -Involves ranking or assigning importance to things, such as projects, goals, and tasks.
Working in Virtual Teams
Virtual Teams •Generally consist of team members located at various offices (including home offices) and rely almost entirely on virtual technologies to work with one another. Focus on building trust at each stage of your virtual team.Meet in person if possible.Get to know one another.Use collaborative technologies.Choose an active team leader.
Developing Quick Trust and Working in Short-Term Teams
Ways to Develop Trust•Get to know each other. •Self-disclosure.•Hold an effective launch meeting.•Commit to working together and separately. •Set up a deliverable schedule and evaluate performance regularly.
Characteristics of the Social Age
Web 2.0 Communication Tools•Also called enterprise social software and Enterprise 2.0.•Contain many of the features available on social networking websites: -User profiles.-Status updates or microblogs.-Blogs.-Co-authoring tools or wikis.-Shared files.-Group messaging or chat boxes.
Active Listening
What Is Active Listening? •"A person's willingness and ability to hear and understand."•Active Listening Components•Paying attention.•Holding judgment.•Reflecting.•Clarifying.•Summarizing.•Sharing. Paying Attention•Involves devoting your whole attention to others and allowing them enough comfort and time to express themselves completely. •As others speak to you, try to understand everything they say from their perspective.•Requires active nonverbal communication. Holding Judgment•People will share their ideas and feelings with you only if they feel safe.•Particularly important in tense and emotionally charged situations.•Demonstrate a learner mind-set rather than a judger mind-set.
Self-Management
What Is Self-Management? •Ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and to direct your behavior positively.•Involves the discipline to hold off on current urges to meet long-term intentions.•Involves responding productively and creatively to negative feelings.-Mitigating information.
The Role of Trust in the Post-Trust Era
What should you do when communicating? -Operate from a position of trust or credibility. -Gain trust or credibility from colleagues, clients, customers, and other contacts. The Public -Increasingly views companies with less trust.Companies -Also have a deficit of trust. -Employees often do not trust their own business leaders. Post-Trust Era •The public overwhelmingly views businesses as operating against the public's best interests. •Most employees view their leaders and colleagues with skepticism.
Taking Initiative, Showing Persistence, and Adapting to Various Decision-Making Styles
Williams' and Miller's Decision-Making ApproachesFollowersCharismaticsSkepticsThinkersControllers
Generation, Gender, and Other Group Identities
Working across Generations•Traditionalists (Silent Generation)•Boomers (Baby Boomers)•Gen X•Gen Y (Millennials, Digital Natives)•Gen Z (Post-Millennials)
Writing Blogs for External Audiences
Write Posts for Your Organization•Primary goal is effective public relations (PR).-PR is fundamentally about building relationships with employees, customers, communities, the media, and other stakeholders.-A primary goal of building these relationships is to improve corporate reputation or credibility.
Routine Messages Impact Credibility
Your approach to routine messages influences how others evaluate your:•Responsiveness.•Reliability.•Attention to detail.•Commitment.•Professionalism.
mproving Ease of Reading with Navigational Design
Your primary goal for document design is making your message easy to navigate.Use:•Headings.•Highlighting.•Lists.•White space.•Simplicity.
Credibility
Your reputation for being trustworthy. The degree to which others believe or trust in you.
Positivity
•A positive attitude results in:•Better work performance•More creativity.•More motivation to excel.•More helpfulness between co-workers.•More influence on clients and customers.
Assertiveness and Humane Orientation
•Assertiveness•The level of confrontation and directness that is considered appropriate and productive. •Humane Orientation•Degree to which an organization or society encourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, friendly, generous, caring, and kind.
Use Social Media Ethically
•Both your online reputation and the reputation and performance of your company are at stake.•Your private actions can damage your employer and hurt your career.
Providing Directions
•Components of Directions•State goal.•Give step-by-step directions.•State goodwill.
Reviewing Your Message
•Conduct the FAIR test.•Proofread.•Get feedback.
Making Requests
•Coordinating work efforts.•Buying and selling products and services.•Maintaining work relationships. Components of Requests•Make request.•Provide rationale.•Call to action.*•State goodwill.*Optional—appropriate at the end of lengthy messages
Principles of Effective Team Communication
•Divergence•Working independently can increase the number of ideas and solutions generated. •Convergence•Evaluating the proposed ideas and solutions and narrowing them to a small set of feasible solutions to address the problem.
Write Posts for a Professional Blog
•Establish thought leadership with a blog post that focuses on expertise or interests.•Create own blog or use LinkedIn.•Develop a theme.•Maintain a professional, fun, and helpful tone.•Make your content is accurate.
Building and Maintaining Cross-Cultural Work Relationships
•Establish trust and show empathy.•Adopt a learner mind-set.•Build a co-culture of cooperation and innovation.
How You Can Improve Your Communication Skills
•Establishing credibility will help you build high-trust relationships and communicate more effectively.•This textbook is designed to help you improve your communication skills.
Tips for Working with Different Generations
•Focus on individuals and their professional goals. •Recognize the similarities across generations. •Pay attention to preferred approaches to communicating.•Observe appropriate formality and attire.
Learning the Etiquette of Another Culture
•Following the rules of etiquette in other cultures can gain favorable first impressions and show respect.•There are rules for everything, including appropriate versus taboo topics of conversation, conversation style, punctuality and meetings, dining, touching and proximity, business dress, and gift giving.
Identifying Reader Benefits and Constraints
•For many messages, this is the single most important planning step.•Your readers respond when you provide them with something that they value.
Building Connections with Phone Conversations
•Guidelines for one-to-one calls in the workplace:•Schedule and plan for your phone calls.•Ensure quality audio.•Open with a warm greeting and use your caller's name.•After brief small chat, direct the conversation to the issues at hand.•Speak with a pleasant, enthusiastic voice. •Guidelines for one-to-one calls in the workplace: (continued)•Share conversation time equally.•Apply the rules of active listening and avoid multitasking.•Take notes on important points and summarize next steps at the end of the call.•Close with appreciation.•Follow up on agreements.
Show Respect for Others' Time
•Helpful Advice•Select message recipients carefully.•Provide timelines and options.•Be careful about using the priority flag.•Let others know when you will take longer than anticipated to respond or take action.•Avoid contributing to confusing and repetitive email chains.
Maintaining Civility and Avoiding Gossip
•Incivility in Society and the Workplace•A recent survey showed that incivility is common in the workplace.•Especially common in retail stores.•Many employees who are targets of incivility lose work time or leave their jobs.
Individualism and Collectivism
•Individualism•A mind-set that prioritizes independence more highly than interdependence.•Emphasizes individual goals over group goals.•Values choice more than obligation. •Collectivism•A mind-set that prioritizes interdependence more highly than independence.•Emphasizes group goals over individual goals.•Values obligation more than choice.
Tips for Communicating across Genders
•Notice when professionals use speech patterns for task-based versus relationship-based reasons. •Purposefully and consciously adopt your own style.•Do your part to overcome biases.
Performance and Future Orientation
•Performance Orientation-The extent to which a community encourages and rewards innovation, high standards, and performance improvement. •Future Orientation•The degree to which cultures are willing to sacrifice current wants to achieve future needs.
Applying the AIM Planning Process to Persuasive Messages
•Persuasion involves:•Analyzing your audience.•Gathering the right information. •Developing a message. Understand Your Audience•Understand wants, needs, and values.Persuade through Shared Purpose and Shared Values•Credibility, caring, character, and competence are important.Show people they are sincerely needed and appreciated. Understand Methods of Influence •Reciprocation.•Consistency.•Social proof.•Liking.•Authority.•Scarcity. Persuade through Emotion and Reason •Resistance to ideas, products, and services is often emotional.•Audiences often possess strong emotional attachment to competing ideas, products, and services.•Use logical appeals. Gather the Right Information•First establish credibility.•Understand products, services, and ideas in depth. Set Up the Message•Most business writing is direct and explicit.•Persuasive messages are sometimes indirect and implicit.•Tasks:-Gain attention.-Tie needs, solution, and rationale.-Validation.-Provide counterpoints.-Call to action.
Provide All Relevant Information
•Plan, write, and review your message strategically. •Include only information necessary for the purpose of your message.
Avoid Redundancy
•Reduce word count.•Avoid words or phrases that repeat the same meaning.
Gaining Credibility
•Set up a time to talk with your boss.•Ask your boss if you can take on any higher-responsibility projects.•Make sure you fit in with the corporate culture in terms of professional dress and communication style.•Attend a lot of meetings to get to know as many colleagues as possible.•Create a professional blog about a niche area.
Read, Listen, and Learn
•Strategies•Identify the 20 to 50 sources of information that are most helpful to you. •Use hashtag and other topical searches to track important information to you. •Take time to read important articles and posts. •Recognize and praise the contributions of others.
Be Curious about Other Cultures
•Study abroad.•Learn a language.•Develop friendships with international students on your campus.•Take an interest in culture and routinely learn about it.
Be Specific
•The more specific you are, the more likely your readers are to have their questions answered.•If you are not specific, your readers may become impatient and begin scanning and skimming for the information they want.
Anticipating Reactions
•Tips•Envision how others will respond to your message. •Imagine how your readers will think, feel, and act as they read it. •Think about what you want to achieve in terms of workplace relationships.
Keeping Secondary Audiences in Mind
•Tips•Individuals other than primary recipient will view your messages.•Modify them accordingly.
Manage Language Differences
•Working with Non-Native English Speakers•Avoid quickly judging that others have limited communication proficiency.•Articulate clearly and slow down.•Avoid slang and jargon.•Give others time to express themselves.•Use interpreters as necessary.
Types of Meetings
Coordination Meetings-Primarily focus on discussing roles, goals, and accountabilities. Problem-Solving Meetings-Typically involve brainstorming about how to address and solve a particular work problem.
Running Effective Meetings
Create tradition, culture, and variety.Set expectations and follow the agenda.Encourage participation and expression of ideas.-Use a facilitator.Build consensus and a plan of action.Closing the meeting.Dealing with difficult people.
Developing Cultural Intelligence
Cultural Intelligence (CQ) •A measure of your ability to work with and adapt to members of other cultures.•Can be developed and improved over time.•Culture •Shared values, norms, rules, and behaviors of an identifiable group of people who share a common history and communication system.•There are many types of culture, such as national, organizational, and team.
Respect, Recognize, and Appreciate Cultural Differences
Cultural Intelligence •Built on attitudes of respect and recognition of other cultures.•Viewing other cultures as holding legitimate and valid views of and approaches to managing business and workplace relationships.•Diversity•Presence of many cultural groups.•Leads to better decision making.
Adjust Your Conceptions of Time
Culture Impacts Conceptions of Time•People high in CQshow patience.•Cultures differ in priorities as related to time.
Managing Your Online Reputation
Develop a Personal Brand -A unique set of professional skills and attributes that others associate with you.-Use social media tools.
Empathy
Developing Empathy •Empathy is the "ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on with them."-Listening.-Sight-reading nonverbal communication.
Gender and Communication Patterns
Differences still exist in the way men and women communicate.•Women tend to be more relationship oriented, collaborative, and interconnected in thinking.•Men tend to be more independent, competitive, and linear in thinking.
Managing Difficult Conversations
Difficult conversations often center on disagreements, conflict, and bad news.Many people prefer to avoid difficult conversations because they want to avoid hurting the feelings of others or want to avoid conflict. Principles of Difficult Conversations•Embrace difficult conversations.•Assume the best in others.•Adopt a learning stance.•Stay calm/overcome noise.•Find common ground.•Disagree diplomatically.•Avoid exaggeration and either/or approaches. Steps1.Start well/declare your intent.2.Listen to their story.3.Tell your story.4.Create a shared story.
Providing Directions
Directions •Typically include specific—often step-by-step—guidelines for accomplishing particular tasks.•In messages with procedures and directions, make the steps stand out clearly by enumerating each one.
Concern for Others
•Avoid relying too heavily on the I-Voice.•Respect the time and autonomy of your readers.•Give credit to others.