Effective Business Communication For Diagnostic Tools

BUSN20017 Effective Business Communications

Diagnosis and Reflection

Discuss about the Effective Business Communication for Diagnostic Tools.

This introduction report is based on the effective communication is a serious factor by which message can get across from everywhere and can be convinced and can inform others by the message. The most important point is the communication skills but be developed at a good level so it can help in personal and professional. It will help in improving the communication skills. In this, it promotes the five diagnostic tools for examining the communication skills and also find out the two issues by which the growth of the communication skills are restricted and due to this it also faces the problem of lack of confidence in presentations and interviews and also does not have the capacity of expressing the thoughts. In this report, the literature review helps in providing the better and full information by which it helps in improving the communication skills. The action plan by which they can find out some activities occurs such as by reading the plan, taking the short courses  and also take the help of mentor by which the communication skills can be improved.

Assertiveness questionnaires. Johari window, interview skills checklist, communication style questionnaire and interpersonal commutation are the diagnostic tools which are used for evaluating my communication skills. These methods are harder in relation to my communication skills for enlightened my strengths and weaknesses of the situations. The Johari window points out different communication skills for e.g. the open area reveals that my understanding of communication skills regarding usage of verbal and nonverbal communication is clear (Lane, 2016). Now, I can understand the differences across different cultures in communication. The Hidden area consists of things which are known to me but not to others like the heightened ability for perceiving emotions of those based talks which are in their tone. The blind area quadrant states communication skills that I am not aware of but it not known to others suchlike going perception and ability to decipher nonverbal cues (Kharu, 2011).The last quadrant points out the aspects which are unknown and here requires the skills to enhance better communication through cultural groups. Communication style questionnaire highlights the communication style of an individual. It is an effective method. In the amiable score, I got 9 out of 18 which makes it my dominant style. Amiable individuals viewed themselves agreeable, dependable, respectful and supportive who have their focus on the present (Kuhnke, 2012). Amiable people’s environment preference like me or me involves formally relaxed, personal, friendly and orderly settings which mean that why I get frustrated and why I am not able to communicate easily informal settings like an interview and official presentations. Amiable individual’s communication patterns consist of being quite at the time, good listener, accurate and up-to-date written work also the warmness. Dominant style efficiently matches that how I am viewing myself.  

Literature Review

Another method is assertiveness questionnaires which are used for evaluating my communication skills (Davies, 2014). Out of 15points, I scored 12 in passive attitude scale. Evenly when I am pressurized I never become aggressive. This attitude limits the effective communication like I am not able to save myself or voice   concerns mainly in groups when communicating with seniors. 

Interpersonal communication competence was considered for pointing out that how an individual communicates with other individuals. This self-assessment revealed that my score was totally 71 out of 90 points. Through this point, it can be assessed that I am a competent communicator. 71 is a high score and I believe that I have to work on my interpersonal communication skills as they are not much mature and needs to be enhanced. Therefore interpersonal communication training is essential to improve those skills. 
Interview skills checklist is a self-assessment which looks to point out individual’s skills at the time of interview (Cenere & Gill, 2015). This diagnostic equipment identifies my major weakness of getting stressed and worried at the time of interview even after preparing well. I got panic and fail in maintaining the contact of the eye while giving answers after a wide preparation and in understanding the questions which are asked during the time of interview.  I also loose the ideas for dealing with the interview.

These diagnostic methods help a lot in highlighting the issues related to communication like feeling difficult in expressing the thoughts mainly in professional interactions due to panic and getting nervous. Lacking confidence at the time of interview or presenting the presentation. These weaknesses are also seen in the recent professional communication which I have experienced last year. Hai resort which is located in Hoi an, in Vietnam. I have the call for an interview and I was not able to retain the eye contact and I was giving the wrong answers because of my nervousness but I managed it and passed the interview. And in the second professional communication again my weakness was point out and it was evident when I was communicating with businessmen who were from various countries at the Hotel Holiday Inn in Australia. They were from different countries, such as- Russia, Canada, South Korea and Japan besides this; they were high-ranking officials of big travel companies. I had to manage their time schedule and I have to satisfy their demands.

Through these five diagnostic tools, the main problems or weaknesses in having difficulty for expressing thoughts and the lack of confidence having at the time of interview and presentation are well ruled over with the result (Hakim, 2016). For an example, the problem of having lack of confidence well points out by interview skills checklist which looks out at that I am always stressed in the interview because of lacking ideas for dealing with interview excitement.  The problem of confidence while communicating with other is the other issue and it is well enlightened with the results of the assertiveness assessment which looks at my assertiveness attitude as amiable (Bourne, 2015). Amiable is defined as I am not straightforward and the lack of aggressiveness needed for controlling my situation.  Communicating with others shows my lack of confidence and it can be attributed to my assertiveness attitude of being amiable.

Major hurdles in effective communication with other persons are lack of preparation and planning, language problem, nervousness, badly expressed thoughts & ideas, fear, unclear objectives etc.  All these factors/ things lead to ineffectiveness and hamper our communication skills. In passive communication, our ideas are not fully expressed. In order to pass these obstacles, one should adopt assertive communication skill (Kharu, 2011). By using assertive communication skill we will be able to the communication I am our feelings more freely and openly to the parties. Assertive. Skills will be productive in forwarding the messages. Assertive communication skills also aim at improving problems in the cases where we are not able to express the feeling properly to the parties concerned. One of the important factors of effective communication is the preparation of ideas, thoughts, agenda of the meeting, and aims before interaction with professionals.  

Assertive communication skills are the one used to be adopted by you and others in the exchange requisite in order to communicate effectively. This attitude forms an environment of open and honest and communications where people can express believe as well as feelings. This attitude involves people to feel easy while conveying themselves for the reason that they know that communications will be listened to and appreciated whether they agree with it or not. The skill is gaining knowledge to adopt what you say during the exchange so that you effectively achieve your objective without alienating anyone (Kharu, 2011). Assertive communication can be described as messages, thoughts, as well as aims of members, should be plain clear and understood to all. The message should be proper and meaningful. It should be well developed and conveyed to the individual. 
Interpersonal skill is to be of very high quality. Ideas are to be delivered effectively to the concern parties involved. Communication skill helps in finding out the needs of the party.

For effective communication one should develop Interpersonal skills. Interpersonal skills are those pertaining to a relationship with people. An effective manner to improve your interpersonal skills is to conceive how you would you like to be treated by others (Cenere & Gill, 2015). Interpersonal skills represent the way; how good you are at interrelating with others.  For instance, when an individual knows how to communicate with others in a respectful manner is called ‘ active listening’. This skill embraces many different soft skills, including:

• Mentoring- providing training to one or more people.
• Communication- conveying ideas efficiently through verbal and nonverbal means(O’Toole, 2016).
• Leadership- leading and supporting another individual by representing an example.
• Problem Solving- determining personal, business and group problem.
• Negotiations- approaching to an agreement with others when there is the difference in opinions.
• Empathy- accepting individuals in the organization.
• Teamwork- working together with various people to achieve different goals.

Interpersonal communication has been improving as a result of it an individual can point out the problem of lack of confidence in presentation, and with the help of training, communicators can manage the conversations during the presentations and also help in changing the topic by controlling the quality of the communications (McKay & Davis, 2009). The progress of interpersonal communication skills is very dangerous while attractive the knowledge of the communicators while managing in front of the various audiences. The interpersonal communication skills are defined as it is used for encouraging understanding the process of it when given the presentation in front of various parties. In addition to this understanding the verbal and nonverbal indication by this indication it helps in improving the interviews and presentations given by them and it also important while given the presentations how the other parties react to message when communicating.

The most important factor is that there must be a confidence while passing the message towards the audience and communicators must have the ability so that the audience can believe what message the communicators passing to them. In this, some issues may take place due to communication hesitation which is known as the level of anxiety while facing the problem during communications with others. Communication apprehension is used for the poor communication which comes while facing the interviews and presentations. The communication anxiety is the reasons for the creating the issues.

The oral presentation is a difficult task and it is not possible to embark on, due to lack of confidence while speaking in front of others and due to this it reduces the efficiency of speaking in front of others.  After understanding the anxiety factor it is because of the lack of confidence and the most important is to build the confidence and also try to build how to prepare for the presentations (Hayes, 2013). With the help of communicators, it can examine the needs of the audience and what is the audience need from the communicators before the presentations. The most important factor is to understand the role of communicators it includes to notify, convince, instruct and motivate the audience is a very serious step while improving the communication skills. When going for interviews or for the presentations enough presentations must be needed and it is very difficult to build the confidence and also ensuring that correct message has been passed or not to the audience. In this case, it also becomes difficult to do research on the company where going for interviews but the current trends factors of the company can also help in building the confidence while facing the interviews.

In this report it is also important to make a planning with dealing with the anxiety factor it includes while giving the presentation and interviews it recognized the skills required for the interviews and also check the confidence that what message they are passing in presentations. In this firstly examining the whole topic and also examine the every features related to presentations so it helps in building the confidence and also helps in passing the better massage during the presentations. The most important is while facing the interviews understand the questions first and then given the answers with full confidence and the correct one.

Activities will be pursued by me for gaining knowledge in regards to communication concept and to enhance the skills of communication. The activities that will be undertaken for improving the communication skills involves- mentoring from CQU, pursuing short courses from institutes and reading articles as well as books. In addition to this, the action plan also includes an area related to the measurement of the activities undertaken (Angelo, 2014). This measurement or evaluation will be done after the completion of the commenced activities. Through the measurement, improvement in the communication skills after carrying out certain activities will be evaluated.

Activities	Description of activity to be undertaken	Time period for completing the activity (in months)	Evaluation after completion of undertaken activities
Undertaking short courses	To know about the topic communication short courses will help me for my knowledge improvement and it will also assist me in improving communication skills. The short courses taken by me are Effective communication course run over by Australia Institute of Management.  For improving communication skills training course from a professional development training Institute  Queensland University of Technology’s course. It will help in communicating in front of large group of people and in the formation of meaningful messages.	1-3	To check the knowledge taken by me at the time of course or training session a communication assessment will be taken. A KWL chart is made for concluding the accomplishments for the period of activities carried out.  For assessing the skills of communication and for relating the results with possessed skill after the session of training; the five diagnostic tools – The Communication Style Questionnaire, Johari window, Assertiveness questionnaires, interview skills checklist and interpersonal commutation will be used to identify the communication gaps use to be experienced by me. It will help in considering the enhancing level of communication skills which are being realized through this time period.
Reading plan	In order to enhance the skills of communication and to gain a better understanding of the concept of communication, Articles and book will be read. For instance- ·         Communication Skills for Business Professionals, written by Philip Centre in the year 2015. ·         Communication Skills For Dummies written by Elizabeth Kuhnke in the year 2012.	2-5	The reading plan will be prepared and posted on the wall. All the readings will be done according to the plan and evaluation of all the mistakes will be done so as to make the improvements.
Personal Journal	The lessons which will be learned all through the training sessions and the learning courses will be recorded by me in a personal journal. In case, if an issue arises in future then these lessons will be read out to resolve the issue.	3-5	Personal journals will be developed to refine the writing skills. Journal will help in developing professional writing skills and reducing grammatical errors.
Mentor	In order to learn the communication skills and the techniques to apply these skills in the real world will be learned through the mentor, who will be selected through CQU. Emphasis will be done on learning professional communication skills. This will support me in aligning my professional skills of communication with necessities of the business world.	2-5	Mentoring will help in providing a relevant set of guidance at each and every stage and helps in refining working skills.

 

Gantt Chart

References

Allen, M. (2015). Strategic Communication for Sustainable Organizations. Springer.

Angelo, G. (2014). The 7 Effective Communication Skills. Seisnama.

Bourne, E. (2015). The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook. New Harbinger Publications.

Cenere, P., & Gill, R. (2015). Communication Skills for Business Professionals. Cambridge University Press.

Cicinelli , A. (2013). Communication Styles. Academic achievement.

Davies, S. (2014). Johari’s Window. Silverwood Books Limited.

Goldberg, D. (2014). People-Centric Skills. John Wiley & Sons.

Hakim, Y. E. (2016). The Importance of Engagement in the Learning Experience. Retrieved 2017, from https://www.citethisforme.com/blog/2016/02/01/the-importance-of-engagement-in-the-learning-experience

Hargie, O. (2016). Skilled Interpersonal Communication. Taylor & Francis.

Hayes, J. (2013). Interpersonal Skills: Goal Directed Behaviour at Work. Routledge.

Kuhnke, E. (2012). Communication Skills For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons.

Lane, S. (2016). Interpersonal Communication: Competence and Contexts. Routledge.

London, M. (2011). The Oxford Handbook of Lifelong Learning. Oxford University Press.

McKay, M., & Davis, M. (2009). Messages: The Communication Skills Book. New Harbinger Publications.

Moss, C., & Brookhart, ‎. (2012). Learning Targets. ASCD.

O’Toole, G. (2016). Communication – eBook. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Russell, J., & Cohn, R. (2012). Johari Window. Book on Diamond.

Shultz, G. (2016). Learning from Experience. Hoover Press.

Solomon, D. (2012). Interpersonal Communication. Routledge.

West, R. (2010). Understanding Interpersonal Communication. Cengage Learning.