Business Reflection For Business Communication Places

Understanding Communication: Theory and Professional practice

Discuss about the Business Reflection for Business Communication Places.

Communication takes place everywhere to facilitate exchange of information, facts and thoughts between two persons. Effective communication is required for business to establish efficient working environment and increase productivity. This is because it helps in decision-making, convincing, enhancing professional image and increase productivity. In this context, study of communication module has helped me in clearing the theoretical concepts of professional communication and provided required learning to communicate effectively. Communication skills of writing, reading and listening carefully are very important for students as well as businessperson.

This essay is a reflection on my understanding of effective communication module and covers the different aspects of communication that have helped me in increasing the effectiveness of professional communication. It covers six modules that integrate the dilemma of effective business communication, such as fundamentals of communication, oral presentations, organizational communication, soliciting information for interview, small group communication and process, cross culture communication. It also discusses how learning of communicate effectively can be helpful to become a competent communicator. Furthermore, this will be helpful in improve knowledge about the concept and opportunity to better communication and will develop new ideas through interaction with various cultures people.                 

Understanding Communication: Theory and Professional practice 

The first week of the module coved different theories related to communication. However, professional communication and ethics and verbal and non-verbal communication caught my attention as I found these two topics most useful. In this module, I learnt about the importance of communication that can help me to inform, persuade and entertain the other party easily. Communication is very important everywhere to exchange the information and for the effective decision-making. Non-verbal communication is a way of communication to share the message through gestures, eye contact and different posture.  In context of this module, I also read an article named “The Concept of Communication” by Frank Dance.  This article mainly focused on the various definitions of communication that can contribute to understanding the concept of communication. It explained the different components in relation to the concept of communication. In this journal 15 different components were described and the conceptual components were critically divide on the basis of three points viz. level of observation, presence and absence of intend on the part of sender and the normative judgment.

Everyone, to share the required information uses communication. Professionals communicate to transfer information regarding the important goals and objective that need to be achieved by the organization. From this module, I also learnt about the ethical communication that is important for the professional communicator. In this module, I studied about the verbal and non-verbal way of communication. I identified that non-verbal as well as verbal communication plays an important role for the professional leader. After studying this module I am able to differentiate the importance of the verbal and non-verbal communication. Additionally, I understood about the importance of active listening that establishes a connection between speaker and listener. Moreover, I learnt that there are many barriers to listening that can affect the meaning of information being communicated and I know that how can a professional share the communication by the non-verbal cues. I reckon that models and theories focus on different aspects of the communication, and the most famous transmission model is described which helped me to understand the process of communication. I also discovered that communication competency of a manager is helpful in giving feedbacks, motivating, instructing and advising the team, and this competency has an impact on the followers.                       

Communicating to an Audience: Vocational Presentations

In professional life, better communication has become a crucial aspect to build image among the co-workers. In future, understanding of the professional communication and ethics of communication would be helpful to enhance my communication skill. After getting the knowledge of verbal and non-verbal communication, I would be able to easily share the information at workplace. Hence, the understanding of the concept of professional communication would add value to my professional skills. 

Communicating to an Audience: Vocational Presentations

The second module covered the different aspect of oral presentations and how oral presentations impact the listener. Oral presentation is an effective form of communication that can persuade audience easily. In professional life vocational presentation plays important role to inform the employee orally. Presentations on training can be undertaken to inform the workforce about their job that they need to perform better and increase the production efficiency.  

For the oral presentation, I read an article on training and the need of adult learners that focused on the fact that learning needs of adults are different from children. I learnt about the principles of the adult learning that can make learning useful for the adults. In addition to this, adults learn better through goal based training that can be applied in real life challenges. This article encompassed different strategies for adults to learn during training. These strategies are lecture-based training, problem based learning, case studies, role play and discussion. In this article, andragogy is discussed that was introduced by Malcolm Knowles in 1970s and that focuses on the six assumptions of adult learning. These are need to know, self-concept, prior experience, readiness to learn, learning orientations and motivations to learning.

From the point of view of oral presentation, I learnt that effective oral presentation attracts more audience. Oral presentation module taught me ways through which I can improve my public communication. In professional life, apprehension about the communication is very high at the subordinate level. This module helped to understand that it is only though practice that one can overcome the apprehension. I also learned the importance of developing an effective speech to add value in the professional competency. After reading this topic, I learnt how to design an effective oral presentation. Furthermore, two different format of presentation described in the module, enabled me to prepare a structure of the oral presentation. This module discussed about the different pattern of oral presentation based on the information such as chronological, spatial, topical and casual. This module talks about the importance of visual aids and different type of visual aids that would be helpful in interpreting the information effectively. In regards to this, I know the importance of the visual aids that can entertain the audience. In this module, the examples of sales presentation and training presentation also explained that how I could improve my presentation skills when I need to grab the persuasion of audience for selling the product.

Organizational Communication

In professional life, oral presentations have become an important tool to communicate with the audience. In the module two, basic rules and regulations were described that would be important in future to implement in real professional life. Oral presentation module empowered me to learn the techniques to inform the audience. From this module, I learnt the importance of training that would be supportive tool to motivate the sales person and to improve the skills of the employees in organization. Additionally better oral presentation influences audience to buy the product. Overall, this module was helpful for me to become a persuasive public speaker that will add value in my professional carrier.

In this module, organizational communication and right communication medium were the concepts that I found most useful. Organizational communication refers to a process of delivering the information from top level to the lower level and vice-versa. Nowadays effective organizational communication has become an important factor for overall functioning and success of the organization. Organizational communication can be defined as a tool that controls, co-ordinates and maintain all activities within the organization. Many functions are performed through communication within organisations. Implementing the right channel for communication helps in optimizing the worker productivity and ensure smooth running of the organization.     

 To understand more about organisational communication, I read a few chapters from G.M. Goldhaber’s “Organisational Communication”. It explained different concepts of communication and discussed ways in which better communication can affect the efficiency of the organization. Furthermore, it reviewed the seven key concepts of the organizational communication such as message, network, relationship, interdependence, environment, network and uncertainty.     

From this module, I learnt about the functions of the organization communication that would enable me to utilize the resources efficiently. I understood the structure of the organization that helped me to know the formal and informal process of organization. From organizational communication module, I got familiar with different channels of communication such as face-to-face communication, broadcast media, mobile, web, and written communication that are used by the organisations. I learnt about media richness theory (MRT) that covers the feedback, cues, language variety and personal focus for the strong communication environment. I understood that many barriers affect the sharing of actual message. These barriers distort the right meaning of the message that affects the work efficiency of the workers. I learnt that clear delivery of the message reduces the cost that is associated with the overall profitability of the firm.

To learn about the basic structure of organizational communication will be helpful in my professional life to adopt right way of sharing the information. I would be able to choose the effective and cheap communication channel for delivery of the message at right time. Through this module, I understood the whole structure of communication, barriers of communication, process of communication that would enable me to detect the mistakes in the communication delivery. I also learnt the dual capacity model of media choice through which I will choose the right channel considering all the factors that affect the communication process and how I can analyze and easily mitigate them.        

Soliciting Information: Interviewing and Asking Questions 

This module was based on conducting interviews in professional context. I found interview structure and interview ethics most useful and practical. Interview is also a medium of communication through which a suitable candidate is selected for the organization. Interview can be defined as a face to face conversation between two persons. Interview is a two way conversation between interviewer and interviewee. This module also includes the ethics that are needed for conducting a proper interview. Interview plays important role in assessing the candidate’s capability. At the same time, ethics contain code of conducts that are followed by the interviewer because he represents the organization and takes interview as per the prescribed code of conduct.  During this module, I read an article named “Literacy and information interviews”. The article discussed about the importance of informational interview for understanding different categories of people. Informational interviews helps in improving the writing, editing and interview skills for learners. Soft skills are important part of professional life and help in enhancing confidence, adaptability and ability to manage risk in business.

Nowadays interviewing has become an important tool for assessing the perfect candidate or for entering into the professional line. This module is about soliciting information about interview and related to this. This module taught me about the process of taking interview and ethics at the time of interview. From the study about the interview module I learned about the structure of the interview that would help me to be a perfect communicator while taking interview. It will develop my skills that I can use to select a candidate for business. This chapter describes the structure of the interview also, that will help me to ask relevant questions to the candidate in a formal way. From this module I learned the ethics that we need to follow at the time of interview and it will also develop my skills those are required for a perfect interview. In addition to this I learned the schedule of the interview questions which support me to prepare a list of relevant questions to ask the interviewer.

This module of interview will help to me in my professional life to be a good interviewer. I would be able to ask relevant questions to the candidate and select best candidate out of pool. It will also develop my soft skills to manage the risk in this competitive market and I can lead the team easily. Learning of this module will support me to being an ethical manager in the organization.

Small Group Communication and Processes

Module 9 related to group communication and processes. In this module, I found effective business communication, small group communication and processes and meeting useful. Group communication can be defined as interpersonal communication between two or more than two persons. It is an internal communication through which information is shared. These types of small groups in organization are created to solve particular problems, to take important decision and submitting the report to the management. In organization many small groups are formed such as management committee, decision making committee and personal committee. At the same time, meeting is also important to discuss the problem with the staff of the organization. Meeting is a tool for organization to interact with employees, discuss and take important decisions. In journal, stages of small-group development revisited, different stages of group development are discussed. Tuckman suggested that, a small group in the organization goes through four different stages. In this article, Tuckman proposed a model to create a small group in organization for easily sharing information between the members.

In each and every organization many small groups exist to resolve the problems that occurred at this time. Understanding the process of small group communication will help me to know the process of sharing information in organization. I understood the different stages of small group communication. In addition to this, I know about organizing meeting for the effective planning and the different category of meeting studied such as information sharing meeting and problem solving meeting. With this, I learnt that meeting is an important part of the organization. I also got the knowledge about the difference between group and team. By studying this module, I also learnt about group decision emergence theory. This theory includes four phases viz. orientation, conflict, emergence and reinforcement. Overall, this module taught me about forming small groups for business purposes and conducting group communication and meetings.

This module will help me to form the different small groups in organization to solve particular problems at a time. It also taught me about organizing meetings in company to take many important decisions, so it would help me in my future course of business to reach at conclusion. At the same time, it will also support me to overcome the barriers in small groups.

Cross-Culture Communication: Overcoming Barriers to Understanding  

In this module cross culture communication and different aspect related to the intercultural concepts are described to overcome the barrier between the cultural communications. Cross culture communication can be defined as communication between different cultures in an organization. In cross culture communication, many barriers affect the communication. These barriers include language, culture, perceptions and emotions.

Article “Facework competency in intercultural conflict: an updated face negotiation theory” is selected for analysis. In this article, theory of face negotiation is described for intercultural conflicts. Furthermore, a facework competency model is introduced. With this, major training and research issues are discussed to understand the facework model easily. In addition to this, it is analyzed that conflicts threaten face of individuals.

Cross culture communication affects global business. In every organization different cultures workforce works altogether. This module taught me about the cross culture communication. I understand high and low context culture and cross culture communication styles that would help me in getting over dilemma of cross culture communication. Cross culture communication described the ability to improve relationship with different culture member. Form this module, I learnt about the face negotiation theory that directs me to understand theoretical background that how people accomplish facework in different culture. I learnt that face involves the different feelings of respect, honor, status and loyalty. Facework communicate message by different expressions of body. I also know that how non-verbal and culture are related to each other. I understood that many barriers affect the cross-culture communication such as language, culture, perception or emotions of individuals. We know that in every organization people from different culture are working, they all are having different beliefs, values and communication style so effective business communication need to understand cultural aspect of peoples. I learnt the importance of cross culture communication. It helps in creating more job opportunities, share views and to gain an understanding of the globally diverse market. I also studied about the intercultural competence, it brings me to understand the culture diversity for better communication and develop the awareness of individual cultures.

Learning of this module would help in my professional carrier to understand the cross culture barriers and how can I remove these for effective business communication. It will assist to examine the facial expressions of different cultural workforce working in an organization. It will also develop my cultural awareness the can support me to analyze the nature of individual for good communication. Difference between low context culture and high context culture will enable me to communicate with workforce verbally or non-verbally. Overall study of this module will help me to better communicate that directly impact on the productivity of business.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that these six modules were very informative and improved my current knowledge. This module taught me the fundamentals of effective business communication and enhanced my communication skills. I understood the basic outcomes of communication through verbal and non-verbal way of communication. I became familiar with oral presentation that can help me to emerge as a good public communicator and I can easily persuade and motivate the audience to buy product. In addition to this, I understood the different communication channels through which a message can be shared effectively. I found that how barriers of communication could affect the efficiency of the communication. Furthermore, I updated my knowledge of taking interview in a proper manner by which I can select a suitable candidate for organization through structured interview. I know the consequences of forming small group in organization for solving problem for business. Cross-cultural communication takes place in every organization where people from various culture work together. It enables me to remove the communication barrier. Overall, it can be concluded that the learning from the communications modules will enhance the communication skills that will empower me to become a competent communicator and improved my current knowledge.