1. Planning Business Messages
Chapter 4
Planning Business Messages
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2. Learning Objectives Using the three-step writing process
Analyzing the situation
Gathering information
Selecting the right medium
Organizing your information
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you will be able to:
Describe the three-step writing process
Explain why it’s important to analyze a communication situation in order to define your purpose and profile your audience before writing a message
Discuss information-gathering options for simple messages and identify three attributes of quality information
Compare the four major classes of media and list the factors to consider when choosing the most appropriate medium for a message
Explain why good organization is important to both you and your audience and explain how to organize any business message
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3. Understanding the Three-Step Writing Process
By following the process introduced in this chapter, you can learn to create successful messages that meet audience needs and highlight your skills as a perceptive business professional.
The three-step writing process helps ensure that your messages are both effective (meeting your audience’s needs and getting your points across) and efficient (making the best use of your time and your audience’s time).
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4. Three-Step Process Compose the message
Planning business messages. To plan any message, first analyze the situation by defining your purpose and developing a profile of your audience. With that in mind, you can gather information that will meet your audience’s needs. Next, select the right medium (oral, written, visual, or electronic) to deliver your message. Then, organize the information by defining your main idea, limiting your scope, selecting an approach, and outlining your content. Planning messages is the focus this chapter.
Writing business messages. Once you’ve planned your message, adapt to your audience with sensitivity, relationship skills, and style. Then you’re ready to compose your message by choosing strong words, creating effective sentences, and developing coherent paragraphs. Writing business messages is discussed in Chapter 5.
Completing business messages. After writing your first draft, revise your message to make sure it is clear, concise, and correct. Next produce your message, giving it an attractive, professional appearance. Proofread the final product for typos, spelling errors, and other mechanical problems. Finally, distribute your message using the best combination of personal and technological tools. Completing business messages is discussed in Chapter 6.
Compose
the message
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5. Optimize Writing Time
The more you use the three-step writing process, the easier and faster it will become. You will also get better at allotting your time for each task during a writing project.
Start by adding up how much time you have to spend on a given project. Then, as a rule, try using roughly half your time for planning, one-quarter of your time for writing, and the remaining quarter for completing the project. Devoting only a quarter of your time to writing might sound odd, but it makes sense for several reasons. First, with careful planning, the actual writing is faster, easier, and less stressful. Second, it is always wise to set aside plenty of time for the completing step. If you rush through the completion phase, you run the risk of spoiling all your hard work by delivering poor quality messages.
Of course, the time allotment can vary significantly from project to project. Start with the “ split” as a guideline and use your best judgment for each project.
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6. Selecting the Right Medium
A medium is the form through which you choose to communicate a message. You may choose to talk with someone face to face, post to a blog, send an message, or create a webcast. The range of media possibilities is wide and growing wider all the time. In fact, with so many options now available, selecting the best medium for a given message is itself an important communication skill.
Although media categories have become increasingly blurred in recent years, for the sake of discussion, you can think of media as being oral, written, visual, or electronic (which often combines several media types).
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7. Oral Media Conversations Interviews Speeches Presentations Meetings
Primary oral media include face-to-face conversations, interviews, speeches, and in-person presentations and meetings—whenever you communicate with someone who is physically in the same space.
By giving communicators the ability to see, hear, and react to each other, traditional oral media are useful for encouraging people to ask questions, make comments, and work together to reach a consensus or decision. On the other hand, oral media limit participation to those who are present, reduce your control over the message, and make it difficult to revise or edit your message. Of course, if you do not want a lot of questions or interaction, oral media can be an unwise choice.
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8. Written Media Memos Proposals Reports Letters
Written messages take many forms, from traditional memos to glossy reports that rival magazines in production quality. Written messages increase your control, help you reach dispersed audiences, and minimize distortion. The disadvantages of written media include the difficulty of feedback, lack of nonverbal cues, and extra time and skill sometimes required to prepare written messages.
Memos are brief printed documents. Traditionally, they were used for the routine, day-to-day exchange of information within an organization. In many organizations, electronic media have replaced paper memos.
Letters are brief written messages sent to recipients outside the organization. In addition to conveying a particular message, they perform an important public relations function in fostering good working relationships with customers, suppliers, and others.
Reports and proposals are usually longer than memos and letters, although both can be created in memo or letter format. These documents come in a variety of lengths, ranging from a few pages to several hundred, and are usually formal in tone.
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9. Visual Media Communicate fast Clarify complexity Overcome barriers
Expedite memory
Traditional business messages rely primarily on text, with occasional support from graphical elements such as charts, graphs, or diagrams. However, many business communicators are discovering the power of messages in which the visual element is dominant and supported by small amounts of text.
For the purposes of this discussion, you can think of visual media as any format in which one or more visual elements play a central role in conveying the message content.
Messages that combine powerful visuals with supporting text can be effective for a number of reasons. First of all, today’s audiences are pressed for time and bombarded with messages; therefore, anything that communicates quickly is welcome. Visuals are also effective at describing complex ideas and processes because they can reduce the work required for an audience to identify the parts and relationships that make up the whole. In a multilingual business world, diagrams, symbols, and other images can lower communication barriers by requiring less language processing. Finally, visual images can be easier to remember than purely textual descriptions or explanations.
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10. Electronic Media
When you want to make a powerful impression, using electronic media can increase excitement and visual appeal with computer animation, video, and music. The growth of electronic communication options is both a blessing and a curse for business communicators. On the one hand, you have more tools than ever before to choose from, with more ways to deliver rational and emotional content. On the other hand, the sheer range of choices can complicate your job, because you often need to choose among multiple media and you need to know how to use each medium successfully.
Here is a quick overview of the major electronic media now used in business:
Electronic versions of oral media include telephone calls, teleconferencing, voic messages, voice recognition, voice synthesis, and audio recordings such as compact discs and podcasts. Electronic versions of written media range from and instant messages to blogs, websites, and wikis. Electronic versions of visual media can include electronic presentations, computer animation, and video. Multimedia refers to use of two or more media to create a message, typically some combination of audio, video, text, and graphics.
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12. Choose the Medium Richness Limitations Cost Formality Urgency
Preferences
When choosing a medium for your message, you certainly want to select the medium that offers you the best fit with the situation and your audience. Just as critical, however, is considering how your message is affected by important factors such as the following:
Media richness. Richness is a medium's ability to (1) convey a message through more than one informational cue, (2) facilitate feedback, and (3) establish personal focus. The richest medium is face-to-face communication. Multimedia presentations are also quite rich. The leanest media provide no opportunity for audience feedback and are not personalized.
Message formality. Your choice of media is a nonverbal signal that governs the style and tone of your message.
Media limitations. Every medium has limitations, so choose carefully according to the situation and the audience.
Urgency. Choose the medium wisely, if a message is urgent. However, be sure to respect the time and workloads of audience members.
Cost. The expense involved in using various media is a real financial factor and a perceived nonverbal signal, as well.
Audience preferences. Make sure to consider which media your audience expects or prefers.
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13. Organizing Information
The ability to organize messages effectively is a skill that can help readers and writers alike.
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14. Good Organization Helps readers Helps writers Understanding Acceptance
Time
Energy
Reputation
Good organization helps your audience in several ways:
It helps your audience understand your message. By making your main point clear at the outset, your well-organized message will satisfy your audience’s need for information.
It helps your audience accept your message. Even when your message is logical, you need to select and organize your points in a diplomatic way.
It saves your audience time. Well organized messages contain only relevant ideas, they are logical, and they are concise.
Organizing your message before you start writing saves you time and consumes less of your creative energy. Your writing will proceed more quickly, and you will spend far less time rewriting. Good organizational skills are also good for your career because they help you develop a reputation as a clear thinker who cares about your readers and listeners.
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15. Define the Main Idea Topic Main idea Overall subject Topic statement
The topic of your message is the overall subject, such as employee insurance claims. Your main idea is a specific statement about the topic of your message, such as your belief that a new web-based system for filing claims would reduce costs for the company and reimbursement delays for employees.
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16. Generating Ideas Brainstorming Journalistic approach
Questions and answers
Storyteller’s tour
Mind mapping
In longer documents and presentations, you often need to unify a mass of material, so you'll need to define a main idea that encompasses all the individual points you want to make. For tough assignments like these, the following techniques can help you generate creative ideas:
Brainstorming. Generate as many ideas and questions as you can, without stopping to criticize or organize. Then, look for the main idea and groups of supporting ideas.
Journalistic approach. Introduced earlier in the chapter, the journalistic approach asks who, what, when, where, why, and how questions to distill major ideas from piles of unorganized information.
Question-and-answer chain. Start with a key question, from the audience's perspective, and work back toward your message. In most cases, you'll find that each answer generates new questions, until you identify the information that needs to be in your message.
Storyteller's tour. Some writers prefer to talk through a communication challenge before they try to write. Pretend you're giving a colleague a guided tour of your message and capture it on a tape recorder. Then listen to your talk, identify ways to tighten and clarify the message, and repeat the process. Working through this recording several times will help you distill the main idea down to a single, concise message.
Mind mapping. When using this graphic method, start with the main idea and then branch out to connect every other related idea that comes to mind.
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17. Limit Message Scope
The scope of your message is the range of information you present, the overall length, and the level of detail—all of which need to correspond to your main idea. Limit yourself to the scope needed to convey your main idea—and no more. Regardless of how long the message will be, limit the number of major support points to half a dozen or so—and if you can get your idea across with fewer points, all the better.
How much you can communicate in a given number of words depends on the nature of your subject; your audience members’ familiarity with the topic and their receptivity to your conclusions; and your credibility. You’ll need fewer words to present routine information to a knowledgeable audience that already knows and respects you. You’ll need more time to build consensus about a complex and controversial subject, especially if the audience is composed of skeptical or hostile strangers.
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18. Choose the Approach Audience reaction Message length Message type
Indirect
Direct
Audience reaction
Message type
Once you’ve defined your ideas and outlined or diagrammed the structure of your message, you’re ready to decide on the sequence you will use to present your points.
With the direct approach, the main idea (such as a recommendation, conclusion, or request) comes first, followed by the evidence. Use this approach when your audience will be neutral about your message or pleased to hear from you.
With the indirect approach, the evidence comes first, and the main idea comes later. Use this approach when your audience may be displeased about the message or may resist what you have to say.
Your choice of a direct or an indirect approach depends on the following factors:
Audience reaction: positive, neutral, or negative
Message length: short (memos and letters) or long (reports, proposals, and presentations)
Message type: (1) routine, good-news, and goodwill messages; (2) bad-news messages; or (3) persuasive messages
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19. Outline the Content Main idea Major points Evidence
After you have chosen the right approach, it’s time to figure out the most logical and effective way to present your major points and supporting details. Even if you’re just jotting down three or four points on a notepad, making a plan and sticking to it will help you cover the important details.
The basic outline formats (1) use numbers—or letters and numbers—to identify each point and (2) indent points to show the relationship between major points, sub-points, and evidence. A good outline divides a topic into at least two parts, restricts each subdivision to one category, and ensures that each group is separate and distinct.
Another way to visualize the outline of your message is to create an organization chart similar to the charts used to show a company’s management structure. Put the main idea, like the top executive in a company, in the highest-level box to establish the big picture. The lower-level ideas, like lower-level employees, provide the details. Using a visual chart can help you see the various levels of ideas and how the parts fit together, develop new ideas, and restructure your information flow.
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20. Message Structure Main idea Major points Examples Evidence
Whichever outlining or organizing scheme you employ, start your message with the main idea, follow with major supporting points, and then illustrate these points with evidence.
The main idea helps you establish the goals and general strategy of the message, and it summarizes two things: (1) what you want your audience to do or think and (2) why they should do so.
Support your main idea with the major points that clarify and explain your ideas in more concrete terms. If your purpose is to inform and the material is factual, your major points might be based on something you can visualize or measure: e.g., activities to be performed, functional units, spatial relationships, or parts of a whole. When you're describing a process, the major points are almost inevitably steps in the process.
After you've defined the main idea and identified supporting points, you're ready to back them up with examples and evidence that help audience members understand, accept, and remember your message. Select examples and evidence carefully. Remember that you want to be not only compelling and complete but also as concise as possible.
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21. The beginning The middle The ending
Inspiration
Teaching
Warning
Persuasion
The beginning
The middle
The ending
Storytelling might seem like an odd subject for a business course, but stories can be an effective way to organize messages in a surprising number of business communication scenarios.
A key reason storytelling can be so effective is that stories help readers and listeners imagine themselves living through the experience of the person in the story. In addition, stories can depict cause-and-effect relationships and share organizational values in business communication.
A classic story has three basic parts. The beginning of the story presents someone the audience can identify with in some way, and this person has a dream to pursue or a problem to solve. The middle of the story shows this character taking action and making decisions as he or she pursues the goal or tries to solve the problem. The storyteller’s objective here is to build the audience’s interest by increasing the tension: Will the “hero” succeed or fail? The end of the story answers that question and usually offers a lesson to be learned about the outcome as well.
Consider adding an element of storytelling whenever your main idea involves the opportunity to inspire, to persuade, to teach, or to warn readers or listeners about the potential outcomes of a particular course of action.
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22. Summary of Discussion
This section covered the following elements involved in Organizing Your Information:
Recognizing the Importance of Good Organization
Defining Your Main Idea
Limiting Your Scope
Choosing Between Direct and Indirect Approaches
Outlining Your Content
Building Reader Interest with Storytelling Techniques
This concludes our discussion of Organizing Your Information. The presentation will close with a review of this chapter’s learning objectives.
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23. Planning Business Messages
Chapter 4
Planning Business Messages
This concludes the PowerPoint presentation on Chapter 4, “Planning Business Messages.” During this presentation, we have accomplished the following learning objectives:
Described the three-step writing process
Explained why it’s important to analyze a communication situation in order to define your purpose and profile your audience before writing a message
Discussed information-gathering options for simple messages and identified three attributes of quality information
Compared the four major classes of media and listed the factors to consider when choosing the most appropriate medium for a message
Explained why good organization is important to both you and your audience and explained how to organize any business message
For more information about these topics, refer to Chapter 4 in Business Communication Today.
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24. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.
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