1. Effective Business Communication
Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter, you will be able to:
Describe the three-step writing process.
List four questions that can help you test the purpose of your message.
Describe the importance of analyzing your audience and identify the six factors you should consider when developing an audience profile.
Discuss gathering information for simple messages and identify three attributes of quality information.
List factors to consider when choosing the most appropriate medium for your message.
Explain why good organization is important to both you and your audience.
Summarize the process for organizing business messages effectively.
Philip B.H. Kelly, MPA
Deputy Director,
Administration and Operations
Department of Financial Services
Adjunct Professor,
Business and Law Department
Schenectady County Community College

2. Presented for the Albany-Capital Region Chapter IPMA-HR

3. Overview of Key Points What is Communication?
Tools for Effective Communication
Adapting to your audience
Producing and Proofreading the message.
This chapter introduces the three-step writing process: planning, writing, and completing business messages. It discusses how the process works and how to schedule your time for each step, which may not occur in order. The majority of this chapter covers the first step of the three-step writing process, which includes four planning tasks.
The first of these is analyzing your situation, which includes defining both a general and a specific purpose and developing a profile of your audience by identifying the primary audience, determining audience size, determining audience composition, gauging your audience’s level of understanding, projecting your audience’s expectations and preferences, and estimating your audience’s probable reaction.
The second task is gathering necessary information by exploring audience needs then collecting information that will meet those needs.
The third task is selecting the right medium; the chapter offered an overview of oral, written, and electronic media.
The fourth task is organizing your message by defining the main idea, limiting the scope, grouping your points, choosing the direct or indirect approach, the crafting an outline.

4. The Communication Process
Step 2
Sender
Encodes Idea
Step 3
Transmits Message
Step 4
Receiver
Gets Message
Step 5
Decodes Message
Step 1
Has An Idea
Step 6
Sends Feedback
Feedback also needs to be
encoded, transmitted, and decoded
Channel

9. Planning Messages

10. Business Messages Purposeful Audience-Centered Efficient
Some of your tasks will be routine, needing little more than jotting down a few sentences; others will be more complex, requiring reflection, research, and careful document preparation. Whatever the situation, your messages will be more effective if they have the following characteristics:
Purposeful. Business messages provide information, solve a problem, or request the resources necessary to accomplish a goal. Every message has a specific purpose.
Audience-centered. Business messages help audiences understand issues, collaborate on tasks, or take action. Each message considers the audience’s needs, background, and viewpoint.
Efficient. Business messages respect everyone’s time by presenting information clearly and efficiently. Every message should be as short as it can be without detracting from the subject.
Efficient

11. Three-Step Writing Process
Planning
Writing
Completing
Analyze Situation
Gather Information
Select Medium
Revise
Produce
Proofread
Distribute
Compose
the Message
Analyze the
Audience

12. Define Your Purpose General Purpose Specific Purpose To Inform
To Persuade
To Collaborate
Your Goals
Audience Thoughts
Audience Actions
All business messages have a general purpose: to inform, to persuade, or to collaborate with your audience. Business messages also have a specific purpose. To help you define the specific purpose of your message, ask yourself what you hope to accomplish with your message and what your audience should do or think after receiving your message.

13. Profile Your Audience Primary Members Size and location Composition
The more you know about your audience, their needs, and their expectations, the more effectively you’ll be able to communicate with them.
Identify the primary audience. If you can reach the decision makers or opinion molders in your audience, other audience members will fall in line.
Determine the size of your audience. A report for wide distribution requires a more formal style, organization, and format than one directed to three or four people in your department.
Determine the composition of the audience. Look for common denominators that tie audience members together across differences in culture, education, status, or attitude. Include evidence that touches on everyone’s area of interest.

14. Profile Your Audience Knowledge Level Expectations Probable Reaction
Gauge your audience’s level of understanding. If audience members share your general background, they’ll understand your material without difficulty. If not, you must educate them. Include only enough information to accomplish your objective. Everything else is irrelevant and must be eliminated.
Project your audience’s expectations and preferences. Will members of your audience expect complete details or will a summary of the main points suffice? Do they want an or will they expect a formal memo?
Estimate your audience’s probable reaction. If you expect a favorable response, state conclusions and recommendations up front and offer minimal evidence. If you expect skepticism, introduce conclusions gradually, and include more evidence.

15. Gather Information Informal Methods Viewpoints of Others Company
Documents
and Reports
Supervisors,
Colleagues,
and Customers
Audience
Input
Before you compose your message, you’ll need to gather some information. When writing long, formal reports, you’ll conduct formal research. Other kinds of business messages, require less formal information gathering.
Whether you’re preparing for an informational interview with your supervisor, writing an message to a close colleague, or gathering opinions for an article to appear in your organization’s monthly newsletter, you can gather information to satisfy your audience’s needs by using these informal methods:
Considering others’ viewpoints. You might put yourself in others’ position to consider what they might be thinking, feeling, or planning.
Reading reports and other company documents. Consider company annual reports, financial statements, news releases, memos, marketing reports, and customer surveys for helpful information.
Chatting with supervisors, colleagues, or customers. Fellow workers and customers may have information you need, or they may know what your audience will be interested in.
Asking your audience for input. If you’re unsure of what audience members need from your message, ask them—whether through casual conversation (face-to-face or over the phone), informal surveys, or unofficial interviews.

16. Provide Information Accurate Ethical Pertinent
In many cases your audience’s information needs are readily apparent; for example, a consumer may send you a letter asking a specific question. In other cases, your audience may not be particularly good at telling you what’s needed. Asking a question or two forces the person to think through the request and define more precisely what is required. Also, try to think of information needs that your audience may not even be aware of.
Once you’ve defined your audience’s information needs, be sure you satisfy those needs completely. In addition to delivering the right quantity of required information, you are responsible for verifying the quality of that information. Ask yourself these three questions:
Is the information accurate? Inaccuracies can cause a host of problems, from embarrassment and lost productivity to serious safety and legal issues.
Is the information ethical? By working hard to ensure the accuracy of the information you gather, you’ll also avoid many ethical problems in your messages.
Is the information pertinent? Remember that some points will be more important to your audience than others.

17. Select the Right Medium
Oral Media
Written Media
Selecting the best medium for your message can make the difference between effective and ineffective communication. A medium is the form through which you choose to communicate your message. You may choose to talk with someone face to face, write a letter, send an message, or record a podcast—with today’s ever-expanding technology, you often have a variety of media options from which to choose.

18. Analysis of Oral Media Advantages Disadvantages Immediate feedback
Ease of interaction
Rich non-verbal cues
Emotional content
Limited participation
May not be permanent
Reduced control
No editing or revision
Primary oral communication media include face-to-face conversation, telephone calls, speeches, presentations, and meetings. Being able to see, hear, and react to each other can benefit communicators, giving oral media several advantages:
They provide immediate feedback.
They allow a certain ease of interaction.
They involve rich nonverbal cues (both physical gestures and vocal inflections).
They help you express the emotion behind your message.
Traditional oral media are useful for getting people to ask questions, make comments, and work together to reach a consensus or decision. However, if you don’t want or need all that interaction, then oral media can have several disadvantages:
They restrict participation to those physically present.
Unless recorded, they provide no permanent, verifiable record of the communication.
They can reduce the communicator’s control over the message, if people interrupt or ask unanticipated questions.
They often rule out the chance to revise or edit your spoken words.

19. Analysis of Written Media
Advantages
Disadvantages
Planning and control
Permanent record
Wide audience
Minimal distortion
Delayed feedback
Few nonverbal cues
Distribution issues
Preparation time
Written messages take many forms, from traditional memos to glossy reports that rival magazines in production quality.
Written media have a number of advantages over oral media:
They allow you to plan and control your message.
They offer a permanent, verifiable record.
They help you reach an audience that is geographically dispersed.
They minimize the distortion that can accompany oral messages.
Disadvantages of written media include the following:
Many are not conducive to speedy feedback.
They lack the rich nonverbal cues provided by oral media.
They often take more time and more resources to create and distribute.
Elaborate printed documents can require special skills in preparation and production.

20. Choosing the Best Medium
Leaner
Richer
Face-to-Face
Telephone
Notes, Letters,
Memos
Fliers, Bulletins,
Standard Reports
Selecting the best channel and medium for your message can make the difference between effective and ineffective communication. You must choose between the oral or written channel, and you must consider the media within each channel. Make sure your channel and medium match your purpose and your audience, and then tailor your message accordingly. Time and cost are also factors that will affect your choice of channel and medium.
Media richness is the value of a medium in a given communication situation. Richness is determined by a medium’s ability to convey a message via more than one informational cue, facilitate feedback, and establish personal focus.
Face-to-face communication is the richest medium because it is personal, it provides both immediate verbal and nonverbal feedback, and it conveys the emotion behind the message. Unaddressed documents, such as fliers, are the leanest media.
Choose the richest media for non-routine, complex messages; to extend and humanize your presence throughout the organization; to communicate caring to employees; and to gain employee commitment to organizational goals. Use leaner media to communicate simple, routine messages.
A Continuum of Media Richness

21. Organizing the Message
Promotes Productivity
Boosts Understanding
Increases Acceptance
What exactly makes a particular organization “good”? Although the definition of good organization varies from country to country, in the United States and Canada it generally means creating a linear message that proceeds point by point.
Organizing your message before you start writing helps you work better. You get on the right track before you spend hours working on your draft. It saves you time and consumes less of your creative energy, thereby boosting your productivity.
Good organization helps your audience understand your message. By making your main point clear at the outset, and by stating your needs precisely, your well-organized message will satisfy your audience’s need for information.
Good organization helps your audience accept your message. Even when your message is logical, you need to select and organize your points in a diplomatic way. Softening refusals and leaving a good impression enhances your credibility and adds authority to your messages.
Good organization saves your audience time. Well-organized messages are efficient. They contain only relevant ideas, and they are brief. Moreover, all the information in a well-organized message is in a logical place. Audience members receive only the information they need, and because that information is presented as accessibly and succinctly as possible, audience members can follow the thought pattern without a struggle.
You can achieve good organization by clearly defining your main idea, limiting the scope of your message, grouping supporting points, and establishing their sequence by selecting either a direct or an indirect approach.
Saves Audience Time

22. Defining Your Main Idea
Business Message
The Topic
The Main Idea
Broad Subject
of the Message
Specific Statement
About the Topic
The broad subject, or topic, of every business message is condensed to one idea, whether it’s soliciting the executive committee for a larger budget or apologizing to a client for an incident of poor customer service. Your entire message supports, explains, or demonstrates your main idea—a specific statement about the topic of your message.
Budget Constraints
Service Problems
Cash-Flow Problems
Seeking Larger Budget
Training Service Workers
Seeking Salary Increase

23. Limiting The Scope Support Points Length Limitations Audience Attitude
Research
Depth
Limiting
The Scope
The scope of your message (its length and detail) must match your main idea. Once you have a tentative statement of your main idea, test it against the length limitations that have been imposed for your message. If you lack the time and space to develop your main idea fully, or if your main idea won’t fill up the time and space allotted, redefine the main idea of your message.
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. Instead of introducing additional points, you can more fully develop complex issues by supporting your points with a variety of evidence.
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, 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.
Moreover, the scope of your message determines the amount and depth of investigation you can conduct. You may need only to glance at your calendar to confirm a meeting, or you may need to spend weeks conducting formal research for a complicated report.

24. Sequencing Messages Direct Approach Indirect Approach
(Deductive)
Indirect Approach
(Inductive)
Audience Reaction
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.
The Direct approach (deductive). 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.
The Indirect approach (inductive). The evidence comes first, and the main idea comes later. Use this approach when your audience may be displeased about 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.
Message Length
Message Type

25. Choosing the Approach Audience Reaction Message Opening Body Closing
Eager/Interested/
Pleased/Neutral
Displeased
Uninterested/Unwilling
Main idea, good
news, or request
Necessary details
Cordial comment or
statement about
specific action
Neutral buffer statement
Reasons/justification,
bad news, positive
suggestion
Cordial close
Attention-getting
statement/question
Arousing interest,
building desire
Request for action
To choose between these two alternatives, analyze your audience’s likely reaction to your purpose and message. Bear in mind, however, that each message is unique. No simple formula will solve all your communication problems. For example, although an indirect approach may be best when you’re sending bad news to outsiders, if you’re writing a memo to an associate, you may want to get directly to the point, even if your message is unpleasant. The direct approach might also be a good choice for long messages, regardless of your audience’s attitude—because delaying the main idea could cause confusion and frustration. The table in this visual summarizes how your approach may differ depending on the likely audience reaction. The type of message also influences the choice of a direct or indirect approach.

26. Adapt to the Audience
Sensitivity
Relationships
Style and Tone

27. Audience Sensitivity Adopt a “You” Attitude Demonstrate
Business Etiquette
Emphasize
the Positive
Use Bias-Free
Language

28. The “You” Attitude Instead of This Use This
To help us process this order, we must ask for another copy of the requisition.
So that your order can be filled promptly, please send another copy of the requisition.
You should never use that type of paper in the copy machine.
That type of paper doesn’t work very well in the copy machine.

29. Emphasize the Positive
Instead of This
Use This
Cheap Merchandise
Fake
Used Cars
Failing
Elderly Person
Pimples and Zits
Bargain Prices
Imitation or faux
Resale Cars
Underperforming
Senior Citizen
Complexion Problems

30. Bias-Free Language
Age
Gender
Disability
Racial
or Ethnic

31. Writing Messages

32. Three-Step Writing Process
Planning
Writing
Completing
Analyze Situation
Gather Information
Select Medium
Revise
Produce
Proofread
Distribute
Compose
the Message
Analyze the
Audience

33. Writing in Plain English
Straightforward
Easy to Understand
Conversational

34. Conversational Tone Business Messages Avoid Using Use Carefully
Pompous
or Obsolete
Language
Preaching
or Bragging
Emotion or
Intimacy
Humor or
Satire

35. The car was rented by Joe.
Using the Right Voice
Active Voice
Passive Voice
Subject + Verb + Object
Joe rented the car.
Object + Verb + Subject
The car was rented by Joe.
Characteristics
Characteristics
Direct
Concise
Vigorous
Indirect
Tactful
Reserved

36. Finding Words That Communicate
Use Strong
Words
Avoid
Clichés
Use Familiar
Minimize
Jargon

37. Completing Messages

38. Three-Step Writing Process
Planning
Writing
Completing
Analyze Situation
Gather Information
Select Medium
Revise
Produce
Proofread
Distribute
Compose
the Message
Analyze the
Audience

39. Editing for Conciseness
Wordy Constructions
Long Words or Phrases
Redundant Wording
“It is/There are” Starters

40. Design Techniques White Space Margins Justification Typefaces
Type Styles

41. Proofreading Advice Make multiple passes Use perceptual tricks
Focus on high-priority items
Get some distance
Stay focused and vigilant
Exercise caution

42. Reviewing Key Points Applying the three-step process
Analyzing the situation
Adapting to your audience
Producing the message
Proofreading the message
This chapter introduces the three-step writing process: planning, writing, and completing business messages. It discusses how the process works and how to schedule your time for each step, which may not occur in order. The majority of this chapter covers the first step of the three-step writing process, which includes four planning tasks.
The first of these is analyzing your situation, which includes defining both a general and a specific purpose and developing a profile of your audience by identifying the primary audience, determining audience size, determining audience composition, gauging your audience’s level of understanding, projecting your audience’s expectations and preferences, and estimating your audience’s probable reaction.
The second task is gathering necessary information by exploring audience needs then collecting information that will meet those needs.
The third task is selecting the right medium; the chapter offered an overview of oral, written, and electronic media.
The fourth task is organizing your message by defining the main idea, limiting the scope, grouping your points, choosing the direct or indirect approach, the crafting an outline.

43. Questions?

44. Philip Kelly Philip.Kelly@dfs.ny.gov

45. Resources:
Business Communication Essentials Courtland Bovee, John Thill