Functions and Importance of Business Communication - I

It is not a surprising fact to know that Managers spend as much as 80% of their time communicating, such as press interviews, reading reports, listening to employees' grievances, preparing proposals, etc. It will not be wrong to say that the growth and success of any organization can be gauged by the quantity and quality of information that flows through it's personnel.
To illuminate further, functions and importance of communication can be discussed from the following angles:

1. General Functions and Importance of Communication
2. Functions and Importance of Communication to Individuals
3. Functions and Importance of Communication to Business

 General Functions and Importance of Communication

• Conductive Environment: It is through communication that different persons exchange thoughts and feelings, and transmit understanding. When two/ more persons understand one another totally, conductive environment of understanding is created in which disputes and differences among individuals or groups are amicably settled.
• Technological Process: Communication is essential to publicize and pass on the fruits of scientific discoveries and inventions. Technological progress would have been slow, had been there underdeveloped means of communication. If we compare the technological progress and communication infrastructure of different countries, we find highly positive correlation between them. 
• Economic Advancement: To attain economic development, communication plays dominant role especially when the industrial economy is evolving and ushering into digital economy in which information, services, products and money are transferred and transacted electronically. In the present era of e-commerce, no country can survive and thrive unless it imbibes the e-ways.
• Global Village: With the sweeping waves of liberalisation and globalisation, the world has been reduced to a global village. Modern technology has played and will continue to play significant role in breaking all geographical barriers among different countries and continents and has integrated various communities and cultures under unified network.

Audience Analysis (Part - C)

"Successful communication rests on having a clear understanding of an audience and its needs." ~ Eileen Scholes

Audience Analysis (Part - B)

Analysing Individuals and Members of Audience:

In order to communicate effectively the communicator should have information about the audience:

1. How much the audience knows about the topic, i.e., their knowledge.
2. Demographic factors, i.e.,age, income, number of children, etc.
3. Personality.
4. Values and beliefs.
5. Past behavior.

• Knowledge: The Communicator should be very tactful and careful about the knowledge of the audience.

           Sometimes people in the same organisation do not have upto date knowledge. Most of the time you do not exactly know what your audience knows. However if u told the readers before, they may not remember the old information when they read the new message. In such a situation, the speaker should be very tactful and careful. 

He Should :

1. Preface the statement with such an expression "As you know..."
2. Space out acronyms, the 1st time he uses them e.g., University Grants Commission instead of U.G.C.
3. Give brief definitions e.g., work culture - performing the assigned duty with a sense of devotion.
4. Put the information  the readers are expected to know in a subordinate clause e.g., "Since the college has not functioned for the scheduled days..."

• Demographic Factors: 

Demographic factors should be measured objectively before approaching the audience.
Demographic factors are measurable features that can be counted objectively i.e.,  age, sex, race, religion, educational level, income and so on. Normally these demographic information is not much relevant, but with regard to specific messages it becomes very important. For example, age normally does not matter. But, if you are explaining a change in your company's pension scheme, you would expect older workers to be more concerned than the younger ones. Again, if the message concerns the latest models of air-conditioned cars, people of low income group would be much interested in it. Big business organizations get demographic data by surveying their customers, clients and donors.

• Personality: 

Personality of the dominating individual(s) of the audience should be properly judged. Following are the desired examples:

1. If the audience is an introvert person (a person who likes to be alone and gets energy from within), write a memo/ letter and let him/ her think before responding because written message will give him/her time to think through a proposal activity.
2. If the audience is an extrovert person (a person who likes to interact with other people), try out the idea in an informal setting.
3. If the audience is sensing type individual (who gathers information step by step through his/ her senses), present the proposal through systematic reasoning.
4. If the audience is intuitive type individual (who sees relationship among ideas and omits the logical steps while arriving at conclusions), present him/ her the overall or big picture first and stress the innovative and creative aspects of the proposal.
5. If the audience is thinking type person (who uses logic to reach the decisions), use logic not emotional appeal.
6. If the audience is feeling type individual (a person who trust their feelings than logic), show that the proposal meets the emotional needs of the people as well as profit needs of the organization.

• Values and benefits:

Before designing the message, values and beliefs of the audience are to be  considered. The writer/ speaker should design the message in such a manner that it does not hurt the values and belief system of the audience. Otherwise, the message is likely to provoke reaction and will defeat the purpose of the communication. Therefore, the speaker/ writer should carefully analyze the values and beliefs of the audience.

• Past Behavior:

Past behavior of the audiences shows a lot about their preferences. How people have behaved in the past often predicts how they will behave in future. Examining the records of the purchases of customers in the past, one can understand how they are going to spend their money.  

Audience Analysis (Part - A)

Communication is complete only when the receiver understands the message in the same sense and spirit that sender intends to convey. However, communication does not take place completely because of the illusion that it has been accomplished. The great cause of illusion is sender's inability to understand the audience. Without analysing audience, the chances of effectiveness of the communication decrease.

Understanding the audience is fundamental to the success of any message. The sender needs to analyse the audience and then adapt the message to their goals, interests and needs. Audience like to listen the message that suits their interests, familiar with their level of knowledge and understanding, and seems true and credible.

Types of Audience:

1. Primary Audience 
2. Secondary Audience
3. Initial Audience
4. Gatekeeper Audience 
5. Watch dog Audience

• Primary Audience:  The primary audience is the audience who have to decide whether to accept the sender's message and his recommendations and to act on the basis of that message. For example - in case of advertisement campaign of interior decoration, the primary audience is prospective customers.
• Secondary Audience: The secondary audience consists of people who may be asked to comment on the message after it has been approved. For example - in case of advertisement campaign of interior decoration, the existing users are the secondary audience as the potential buyers ask them about their opinion.
• Initial Audience: is the audience that receives the message first and routs it to oter audiences. Sometimes, the initial audience guides the sender regarding designing of the message. For example,

1. Censor Board which has to permit to broadcasting of films act as the initial audience.
2. The editors of the newspapers also act as the initial audience as they edit the message before publishing in the newspaper. 

• Gatekeeper Audience: has power to stop the message before it reaches the primary audience. For example - the secretary to the minister acts as gatekeeper audience as he scrutinizes the letters before minister's approval.
• Watch dog Audience: is the audience that has political, social and economic power to influence the primary audience's decision to act upon the sender's message. Though such type of audience has power to stop the message yet they influence a lot on primary audience's action. For example,

1. The Industrial reviewers, who read the reports and comment upon them, act as Watch dog audience.
2. The Auditor, who attests the authenticity and accuracy of financial statements, act as Watch dog audience when he gives his expert opinions.

Importance of Audience Analysis:
Audience is center to the communication process. The purpose of communication is to transfer the message with transmission of understanding among the audience. Therefore good communication is always audience-centered. It is the audience that determines how one achieves the objectives of communication.

If the communicator fails to analyse the attitude, interests and knowledge of the audience, he is likely to be failure. Why certain why certain politicians with bad records can grab the votes? it is because their message strict to the waves of that time as well as wavelength of the public and consequently they can manage to manipulate public sentiments to their advantage.

Therefore, audience analyses is essential before designing the message. Communication can take place only when the message is received in the same sense and spirit that sender intends to carry. Therefore, the sender has to devise some common ground between him and the audience. He has to choose the information that audience needs and finds interesting. He should encode the message in words and other symbols that audience will understand easily. Lastly, he should transmit the message along a channel that the audience will attend to.

Strategies for improving Organizational Communication

Following are the tried-and-tested techniques for improving organizational communication:

• Encourage Open feedback: If accurate information is the key to effective communication, then organizations should encourage feedback. After all, feedback is the prime source of communication. But then again there lies some risk factors such as, workers may get afraid of the repercussions they may face when being extremely open with their superiors. Likewise, high-ranking officials may be somewhat apprehensive about hearing what is really on their workers' minds. In other words, people in organizations may be reluctant to give and receive feedback - a situation that can wreak havoc on organizational communication.

           These problems can be coped and curbed out by following some techniques:

1. 360-degree feedback:  A formal system in which people at all levels give feedback to others at different levels and receive feedback from them as well as outsiders - including customers and suppliers. This technique is used in companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and 3M.
2. Suggestion Systems: These are programmes that invite employers to submit ideas about how something may be improved. Employees are generally rewarded when their ideas are implemented. For example, the idea of mounting film boxes onto cards that hang from display stands, which is common today, originally came from a Kodak employee.
3. Corporate hotlines: These are telephone lines staffed by corporate officials ready to answer questions and listen to comments. These are particularly useful during times of change when employees are likely to be full of questions. For example, AT&T used hotlines in the early 1980s during the time period of its anti-trust divestiture.

• Use simple language: No matter what field you are in, chances are that it has it's own special language - it's jargon. The trick of using jargon wisely is to know your audience. If the individuals with whom you are communicating understand the jargon, using it can help facilitate communication. However, when addressing audiences whose members are unfamiliar with the specialized language; simple, straight-forward language is bound to be most effective. In either case, rationale is the same: communicators should speak the language of their audience. Although you may be tempted to try to impress your audience by using big words, you may have little impact on them if they do not understand you. Our advice is clear : Follow the KISS rule (Keep it Short and Simple).
• Avoid Overload: Imagine this scene: You are up late one night at the end of the term. You are writing a paper and studying for finals, all at the same time. Your desk is piled high with books when your roommate comes in to explain what you should do to prepare for the end-semester party. If this sounds familiar to you, then you probably know that it is unlikely that you would be able to concentrate on the things you are doing. After all, when people are confronted with more information than they can process at any given time, their performance tends to suffer. This condition is known as overload.   

           Staying competitive in today's hectic world often requires doing many things at once - but without threatening the performance, which is often the result when communication channels are overloaded. Fortunately,several things can be done to avoid, or at least minimize, the problem of information overloaded.
Some of these are given below:

1. Rely on Gatekeepers : People whose jobs require them to control the flow of information to potentially overloaded individuals, groups or organizations are known as gatekeepers. In making the appointments of top executives, administrative assistants actually provide gatekeeping service to them.
2. Practice Queuing : Queuing involves lining up incoming information so that it can be attended to in an orderly fashion. Air traffic controllers do this when they 'stack' incoming planes in a holding pattern so as to prevent them from tragically 'overloading' the runway.

• Walk the talk : When it comes to effective communication, actions definitely speak louder than words. Too often, communication is hampered by the practice of saying one thing but meaning something else. Also, whenever implicit messages (e.g., 'we may be cutting jobs') contradict official messages (e.g., 'don't worry, the company is stable'), it is bound to result in confusion. 

          This is especially problematic when the inconsistency comes from the top. In fact, one of the most effective ways of fostering effective organizational communication is for CEOs to 'walk the talk', i.e., to match their deeds to their words. After all, a boss would lose credibility if he/ she told his/ her employees 'my door is always open to you', but was never available for a consultation. Good communication demands consistency. For words to be heard as loud as actions, the two must match. 

• Be a good listener : Effective communication involves more than just presenting messages clearly. It also involves doing a good job for comprehending messages sent by others. Although most of us take listening for granted, effective listening is an important skill. In fact, given that managers spend about 40% of their time listening to others, but only 25% on effective listening, the latter is a skill that could be developed in most of us. When we speak of effective listening, we are not referring to the passive act of just taking in information the following. Rather, effective listening involves three important elements:

1. Being non-judgemental  while taking in information from others.
2. Acknowledging speakers in ways that encourage them to continue speaking.
3. Attempting to advance the speaker's ideas to the next step.

In a business scenario, we do not attempt to change individual personality traits, nor, for that matter, is it possible; but we can surely understand the role of an individual in communication breakdown.

Benefits of an Effective Communication

A manager's job is varied and complex. A manager needs certain skills to perform the duties and activities associated with his/ her job. The three essential skills or competencies a manager should possess are: human, technical and conceptual. Of course,  the relative importance of these skills varies according to the manager's level within the organization.

Human skills refer to the ability to work well with other people, individually as well as in a group.
This skill is crucial and is important at the top levels of management as it is at the lower levels, since managers deal directly with people. Managers with good human skills - skills to communicate, motivate, lead and inspire - can get the best out of their people.


Therefore, communication is intricately linked to managerial performance. Almost everything a manager does involves communication. He/ she cannot make a decision without adequate information, and to obtain this information he/ she needs to communicate. Once a decision is made, it needs to be communicated. The finest plan, the best idea, or the most creative suggestion cannot take shape without communication.


Benefits Of Effective Communication: 

1. Increased productivity
2. Stronger decision-making
3. Quicker problem-solving
4. Healthier business relationships
5. Improved customer relations
6. Increased awareness among employees
7. Lesser misunderstanding
8. Better quality of documents
9. Enhanced professional image

How to make the message effective ? ? ?

Use the PAIBOC questions for analysis
Purpose
Audience
Information
Benefits
Objections
Context

• Purpose :  What are your purposes in writing/ speaking ?

Before designing the message, you should ask yourself following questions related with the purpose of writing/ speaking?

1. What exactly do you want your reader/ listener to know, think or do?
2. What image of yourself and of your organisation you want to convey? 
3. What must this message do to solve the organisational problems? 

• Audience : Who is/ are your audience(s) ?

You, as communicator must ask the following questions before designing the message.

1. How do the members of your audience differ from each other?
2. What is the level of knowledge and information of the audience members?
3. What are the needs of the audience members?
4. How will the audience members respond to your message?

• Information : What information must your message include ?

For this you should make a list of points that must be included and emphasized. Then check  whether the drafted message includes those points or not.

• Benefits :What reasons or reader benefits can you use to support your position?

Develop reasons behind your decision and logic behind your argument.

Convey possible benefits to readers.

• Objections : What objections can you expect your reader(s) to have?

Ask yourself the following questions associated with readers objections of the message:

1. What negative elements of the message should be Dis-emphasized?
2. How these objections can be overcome in creative way?
3. Can you rephrase or redefine the negative to make the reader see it differently?

• Context : How will the context effect the reader's response?

For this, think about your relationship to the reader, morale in the organisation, the economy, the time of year and any special circumstances.