Guide to managerial communication Mary Munter

Managerial communication is different from other kinds of communication because a brilliant message alone is not sufficient: you are successful only if your message results in your desired response from your audience.

Communicator’s strategies Communication objectives: Define the general objective and the expected action to follow: the audience will learn something, sign, give me info, engage in defining a strategy, approve a plan Style: (content control vs. audience involvement) –Tell/Sell –Consult/join What is your credibility?

Factors and techniques that increase credibility (persuasiveness) FactorBased on...Stress initial credibilityIncreased acquired credibility RankHierarchical power Emphasizing your title or rank Associating yourself with or citing a high-ranking person GoodwillPersonal relationship or “track record” Referring to relationship or “track record” Building your goodwill by emphasizing audience benefits “what’s in it for them” TrustworthinessOffering balanced evaluations; acknowledging conflicts of interest ExpertiseKnowledge, competence Sharing your expert understanding Explaining how you gained your expertise Associating yourself with or citing authoritative sources ImageAttractiveness, audience desire to be like you Emphasizing attributes audience finds attractive Building your image by identifying yourself with your audience’s benefits; using nonverbals and language your audience considers dynamic Common Ground Common values, ideas, problems, or needs Establishing your shared values or ideas Acknowledging similarities with audience Tying the message to your common ground

Audience strategy Who are they? What do they know? What do they feel? How can you persuade them? –Using audience benefits –Using credibility (check table previous page) –Using message structure

Using message structure Opening and closing: emphasize benefits Problem/solution structure: First convince them that there is a problem so you can then convince them that there is a solution One-sided or two-sided: Two-sided for controversial topics. Helps establishing common ground Pro/con or con/pro. Pro/con for noncontroversial Ascending or descending order. Informed audience ascending, uninformed descending Foot in the door technique: break down your request Door in the face technique: Follow an outregous request with a reasonable one. Wrong structure for your papers: Answering questions like if the paper was an exam

Message strategy THOUGHT PROCESS (drafting) ends with conclusion STRATEGIC PROCESS (writing) emphasizes the conclusion TIME Bad ideas Assumptions Good ideas Facts Data Reach conclusion last State conclusion first (usually) Organized ideas

Message strategy How can you emphasize? –Do not bury things in the middle –Direct approach: front loading or bottom- lining. –Using the indirect approach: back loading or mystery story approach (by enlarge not appropriate in business writing and thus not appropriate in your assignments)

Macrowriting Design document for “high skim value” Signposts to show connection Effective paragraphs or sections Goal:To increase readability, show organization To show logical progression To organize paragraphs or sections Methods:“Headings” White space Typography Throughout the document Openings closings Generalization and support Paragraph signposts

Macrowriting Introduction: What exists, why write, how organized. Closing: closure –Ineffective: Introducing new topic or information Apologizing Ending abruptly. Paragraphs: –(1) heading and when no heading topic sentence –(2) Signposts to clearly connect ideas within each paragraph or section.

Microwriting Editing for brevityChoosing a style Goal:To make writing conciseTo make tone appropriate Methods:Avoiding wordiness Avoiding overlong sentences and paragraphs Businesslike or bureaucratic? Active or passive? Jargon or no jargon? Jargon only as short hand not to show that you know the word

Microwriting Avoid wordiness: See table Munter’s book p. 73 Overlong sentences –Clues: (1) Too many main ideas in a sentence, usually signaled by using the word “and” more than once. (2) Hard to find main idea, usually signaled by using too many piled-up phrases, parenthetical ideas, and qualifiers. Business like or bureaucratic (see p. 77) Active or passive? ActivePassive to avoid wordiness to avoid formality to place responsibility to save readers time to de-emphasize writer To avoid responsibility For transition

Writing Exercise: Writing guidelines Audience: Chair of the Board of Directors (me). Introduction: A couple of lines which state your progression in the practice rounds and outlines the arguments you are going to use in the rest of the document. Body of the document: 2 or 3 headings (titles for sections – you do not need to write the sections). These headings are stand alone sentences that in a nutshell summarize the message the section would discuss if written (see Munter’s book). They must summarize the content of the section that you might have written if you had the time. Remember the document should follow a logical structure so use headings that present parallel structures (headings that look alike in terms of writing) Closing: A couple of sentences that summarize the reasons for your progression during the CAPSIM practice rounds. The whole memo should use white space and indentation to make it pleasing to the eye and easy to read. The purpose of this exercise is to review and practice how to write the assignments due on Friday (meaning easy to skim assignments). It can also serve as outline for your group presentation to the board of directors.