Effective Communication Tools For Business: Analysis And Outcomes

Diagnostic Communication Tools for Analysis

Identify and analyzes the outcomes of various effective communication tools.

The main purpose of this report is to identify and analyzes the outcomes of various effective communication tools. The main objective is to see the findings of these communication tools and to see their usages in the day to day work life. In particular, the emphasis has to be given to those communication tools that will help to communicate for the business purposes. These tools will help to detect the areas of strength, weakness and the area of improvement of the researchers. This report helps to identify the interpersonal skill that is needed by them in order to survive in any business organization (Evans et al., 2017). This report mainly deals with five diagnostic tools that will guide the researcher in understanding the effectiveness of the communication for business purposes.

In order to develop a proper understanding of my communication progress, I have made use of five diagnostic tools. One of the most important and helpful parts of this effective communication tools is that one needs to solve several questions. The results or the outcomes of these questionnaires help to determine the kind of personality and the kind of confidence level that the researchers possess. It is through the usage of these communication tools that the researcher can form a clear idea about the strengths that they have and use them for their future benefits in several professional grounds like meetings, dealing with the internal and the external clients and several other such grounds. The five different communication tools that have been used are as follows

• People Skills
• Verbal Communication
• Self-perceived communication competence (SPCC)
• The Non-verbal Immediacy Scale Self-report (NIS-S)
• Presentation skills

These tests have really been very helpful as they helped me to determine the areas of my strength and also the areas of my improvement. As I believe that self-analysis is one of the most important ways that I should follow if I want to survive in the business organization. It really helped me a lot to get an understanding of the different ways and patterns of communication that is possessed by every individual. The Non-verbal Immediacy Scale-Self-analyses is considered to be the most updated and clear communication assessment tool.

The people skills tools are generally the testimonials of how people behave and interact. It basically talks about the soft skills that are needed for the business organizations. It not only emphasizes on the personal attitude or the behavior of the person but also the way this behavior is accepted by the other people (Tuna, Gulez, & Gungor, 2013). The main idea of this effective communication tool is to help the researcher get an idea about his qualities of social interaction particularly in case of a business organization. The main tenants or the outcomes of this tool are

• The ability to understand and comprehend that the other people are saying
• The ability to interact with others with proper respect
• The ability to work for building a proper communication and a good rapport with all the coworkers
• The ability to build trust among the employees, initiate moderate behaviors, and being less impulsive. This, in turn, will help in initiating agreeableness.

Non-verbal Immediacy Scale-Self-analyses

SPCC is a tool that helps to determine the extent of the willingness of an individual to communicate with others and his willingness towards initiating communication, particularly in the business grounds. There are various kinds of people than a business person has to go converse with. So, it is of utmost importance for an individual to know how much competition he is in speaking with the different kinds of business clients or the stakeholders. There are parameters like speaking with a friend, talking in a small meeting or speaking in a large meeting or speaking in a group of strangers.

Presentation skills talk about the level of confidence that is present within an individual to conduct the presentations or the seminars in any business meetings. So, it is of utmost importance that the researcher undertakes this particular tool in order to understand the level of confidence that one has. Delivering presentation in front of so many people can often be a great challenge, especially for those people who have a little less confidence level than others (McQuail & Windahl, 2015).

I have been greatly influenced by the results that I have received from the usage of the communication tools. This has really helped me a lot in order to identify my areas of strength and weakness. I will be now able to nurture my strengths to a greater extent so that I can use them for my betterment. This is of immense help because this will really help me to work on my weaknesses as well. Identifying the areas of strength and the areas of weaknesses are really very helpful for the future days in my professional lives because it will help me to find out several means of coming up with those areas of weakness (Gelles, & Haeupler, 2017).

The result that I have got from the analysis of the nonverbal immediacy self-report shows that my positive feeling towards the people is high. This is because my score is 169 which is greater than 104. So as per the rule of this tool, if the score for the males is more than 104, it signifies that they have a high nonverbal immediacy. This means that I have a good and positive attitude towards people.

Verbal Communication is of utmost importance in case of any business meetings or any other business scenario. My score in case of the verbal communication tool was 46. As per the rules of this particular communication tool, individuals getting a score within the range of 20 to 50 are not really very comfortable with group work or with any kind of teamwork. So, after getting this score, I realized that I am really very comfortable in doing those particular works that I do on my own. However, I feel very hesitant when I have to seek some help or have to do some kind of communication with any other co-workers or any other teammates. I often suffer from the lack of proper confidence when there is the need for going and speaking to others. I often have this feeling that I will not be able to narrate all the issue properly, or I might fumble in front of the concerned person due to the lack of concentration. I found it to be quite true to my personality. I have often faced this problem when I am asked to talk with any of my superiors regarding any particular project issue. I often feel that I will fall into the negative impressions of my superiors. Though I sometimes manage to talk to any subordinates I feel that perhaps I will lose my calm and will behave rudely with the junior teammates. Thus, this indeed is one of the most negative aspects because in the modern day scenario, having a proper communicative skill is of utmost importance (Popp, Raneburger & Kaindl, 2013).

People Skills tool

The score that I have got in peoples’ skill is 35 which fall within the range of 16 to 35 and it mainly shows that though I have a sound knowledge of the technical skills, I am not fully utilizing it. So, I need to find out more strategies that will help me to properly collaborate and understand the team and the organizational objectives. So, I need to find out proper ways I which I will be able to mingle with all my teammates. I have to be more open with all my teammates and my superiors as well.

My score in the SPCC was 65.8. It was less than the 68 which shows that my rating. This shows that my competency level is really low and I can very easily get distracted by other people. I find this very much relevant to my own situation. So far in my professional life, I have faced this problem very often. I often suffer from lack of proper confidence and have to be guided by other people while carrying on my communication.

My score is 55 in the presentation skill tool. This shows that I have superior skills in delivering proper presentations in front of all the people. The presentations that I deliver are very interesting and it is well accepted by the people. I realize that if I am able to connect with the audiences well, then I will always stay within their good books.

Thus, it is evident that the major areas of my weakness are verbal communication and peoples skills. I have also faced these issues very recently in my professional fields. The first incident took place when I was working as a team leader. I was naturally in charge of the overall development of the teammates and I had to give a feedback to my manager regarding the professional behaviors and the code of conduct of the teammates. I warned one of my teammates to avoid late arrivals. I had given him several warnings but I was not very strict with him. I realized that he was very casual and was not taking the warnings seriously. Still, I wanted to give him some more chances before giving an escalation against him. The employee took undue advantage of it and arrived very late on a very important business meeting. This had a huge negative impact on the meeting and the company had to suffer a huge loss (PeleckienÄ & Polajeva, 2016).

Speaking in Public and Presentation Skill tool

The second issue that I face is weak verbal communication. I am not really aware of the impacts that my behavior can have on others. I faced this during one of my board meetings. I was really in a bad mood that day and I was frustrated due to the work pressure. I somehow lost my patience and busted on my subordinates. I initially thought that if I am really loud and rude with my juniors then they will do the work efficiently. However, this had a very bad impact on the morale of the teammates and they started becoming inefficient. They developed a negative attitude towards me and stopped reaching out to be like before. They took me in a very wrong way and misinterpreted me.

One of the most severe issues that are faced by people is their inability to understand the verbal language. It usually happens because these people are not really trained in this particular aspect. I faced this problem when I was unable to interpret the growing anger and the distaste that my teammates were developing against me when I was speaking with them in an angry tone. The Burnlund model can of help in this particular aspect. This model says that the sender and the receivers must be equally involved in the communication process when it happens. I was so angry and out of my mind that time that I was not able to understand or comprehend what my teammates were actually saying (Cardon, 2015). A very important aspect of the communication is the speech act. So, it would have been wise for me, of at that time, I would have made it from their comments that whatever I was saying was not being well accepted by them. On the other hand, it was also expected from their end that they would make out from my speech that I was not really in a good mood that time. Owing to my previous records and my usual behavior, they must have been able to realize that whatever I was speaking was not intentional and it was only because of my anger that I was behaving so rudely. I was also not aware that the way I am speaking, my message will also be perceived by the receivers in the same way. As I was speaking in an angry tone, it was also perceived by the receivers in a bad and a negative way. This created a major problem between us. So, this model suggests that both the sender and the receiver must be maintaining a book of codes. In order to avoid this problem, I will make sure that I make this fact clear to all my teammates. I will tell them that whenever I get very angry I might lose my self-control and will speak in this rough manner. So, it is also expected from their end that they keep this thing in mind and do not comprehend my behavior in a negative manner (Sadia et al., 2016).

Outcomes of Communication Tool Analysis

The next problem that I have been facing is the inability to understand the motif or the feedback of that employee who was always late in the office. I was not able to realize that the employee would take the undue advantage of my good and polite behaviour with him. The Interactive model says that often there are several barriers in the process of communication due to the ethnic, graphics, cultural background of the receiver and the sender. It is also influenced by the general experiences that one has gained in his or her life over the time period. Being born and brought up in a very gentle and respectable family I have always been a very soft-spoken person. This is also evident in my professional life as well.  I do not really believe in being too bossy over any of my employees. I do not try to make them do something by force. The same happened in this case. Though I knew that this employee was constantly being late in the office I kept on giving him several chances. I thought that perhaps he would be listening to my advice and will obey me. However, nothing of that sort was really taking place as he was taking the undue advantage of my down to earth nature. It was perhaps because the field of experience that I had. I was mainly working as the team lead. As a result of which I always tried my level best to interact with all my teammates very politely. This model also says that the communication must always be a two way process. Owing to this, I must have waited for getting a proper concrete response from this employee. In order to make him punctual, and to make him obey the office ethics, It was also needed that from my end that I take on this matter to my senior authorities. However I did not do so. I waited for the employee to understand his mistake on his own. Though I did not get any effective feedback from him, I knew that the communication process was incomplete and there was also a big communication gap between me and my senior managers as well. Perhaps, there was also a communication gap between me and the employee. It can also be that he was not really able to comprehend the message that I was communicating to him. So, in order to overcome this problem, I will have to make sure that I also collect feedback from the receiver regarding his or her comprehension of my message (Shwom & Snyder, 2015).

Conclusion

In the previous section, I have identified two communication issues of mine. In this part, I am going to make an action plan to address my communication issues. This action plan is for 6 months (24 weeks) and in this scheduled period; I will make better myself in communication. I am weak in managing people and verbal communication is not strong, through this action plan, I will definitely improve my communication.

Short courses

Communication is important in the workplace to communicate myself in front of others and sharing my thought with people. I have been facing issues in verbal communication and my people-management skill is not good. Short-communication courses can help me to improve my communication skills. In Australia, CQUniversity provides short courses for the young professionals and duration of the courses are two to three months. I have made up mind to do Assertive Communication Course (3 months) and Adult Community Education Course (12 weeks). In addition, I am also thinking to join Active Listening Skills course. These courses are helpful for the young professionals to improve the communication and upgrade the skills to present themselves. Individuals who are above 15 can join these courses under CQUniversity. In addition, I am thinking to continue Masters in Communication from CQUniversity and it is 2 years courses for full-time students. I can continue this course on part-time basis for four years as this will help me to develop myself as competent professionals.

Reading plan

Books provide knowledge and confidence to the individuals. In order to improve communication, I have made a reading plan for myself. I have made my mind that I will finish a book within 15 days. I will read books by famous authors on communication. My reading plan includes Marshall Rosenberg’s ‘A Language of Life’ and Chris Anderson’s TED Talks. In addition, Emilia Hardman’s Active Listening is on my reading list and I will also read Brian Tracy’s ‘The Power of Self-Confidence’. I will read these books at night before going to bed and I have been doing these since my childhood.

Maintaining personal journal

I shall keep a journal to keep an account of my improvement as keeping a daily journal helps to monitor the improvement of the action plan. In this journal, I will make a daily schedule for ‘to-do’ list. Personal journal assists to improve the IQ of an individual and it can enhance the mindfulness. It can enhance my EQ (Emotional Intelligence) and self-discipline as well. 

Identification of mentor

I will select a mentor for myself who can help me to sort out my mistake in communication. I would like to have a mentor with whom I can discuss openly anything. In my childhood, I went to English tuition to Sir Ronald Bailey. He taught us English and he used to teach communicative English to the higher class students. I am going to make him as my mentor as he has enough knowledge about communication and motivation to speak. He used to teach us about personal-discipline. I am going to attend his classes on weekly basis and he has online tutorial also where I can develop my knowledge.

Gantt chart

Set of Activities	Week 1	Week 3	Week 6	Week 10	Week 16	Week 24
Making reading plans
Maintaining a personal journal for accounting communication development
Short courses of communication
Selecting a mentor
Using communication improvement in daily life
Taking admission in Post-graduation courses on communication

Table1: Gantt chart

(Source: Self-developed)

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