CHAPTER 1

Understanding
Business Communication in Today’s Workplace
SLID1:
Communication is the process of sending and receiving messages.
However, communication is effective only when the message is understood
and when it stimulates action or encourages the receiver to think in new
ways.
Your ability to communicate effectively gives both you and your
organization tangible benefits:
Quicker problem solving
Stronger decision making
Increased productivity
Steadier work flow
Stronger business relationships
Clearer promotional materials
Enhanced professional image
Improved response from colleagues, employees, supervisors, investors,
customers, and other stakeholders

2:The Changing Workplace

Good communication skills are more vital today than ever
before because people need to adapt to a workplace that
is constantly changing. Effective communication will help
you meet challenges such as advances in technology, the
need to access vast amounts of information, the growth of
globalization and workforce diversity, and the increasing
use of teams in the workplace.

3:The Communication Process

Communication is a dynamic, transactional (two-way) process that can be

broken into six phases. The communication process is repeated until both
parties have finished expressing themselves
1. The sender has an idea. You conceive an idea and want to share it.
2. The sender encodes the idea. .You decide on the message’s form
(word, facial expression, gesture), length, organization, tone, and style,
which all depend on your idea, your audience, and your personal style or
mood.
3. The sender transmits the message. To physically transmit your
message to your receiver, you select a communication channel (verbal or
nonverbal, spoken or written) and a medium (telephone, letter, memo,
e-mail, report, face-to-face exchange).
4. The receiver gets the message. For communication to occur, your
receiver must first get the message.
5. The receiver decodes the message. Your receiver must decode
(absorb understand and mentally store) your message.
6. The receiver sends feedback. After decoding your message, the
receiver responds in some way and signals that response to you. This
feedback lets you evaluate the effectiveness of your message.

5:Improving Business Communication

In the coming chapters, you’ll notice that four themes keep

surfacing: (1) committing to ethical communication, (2)
adopting an audience-centered approach, (3) improving
your intercultural sensitivity, and (4) improving your
workplace sensitivity. Close attention to these themes will
help you improve your business communication.

6;Committing to Ethical Communication

Ethics refers to the principles of conduct that govern a

person or a group. Ethical communication includes all
relevant information, is true in every sense, and is not
deceptive in any way. Unethical communication can
include falsehoods and misleading information (or exclude
important information).
An ethical dilemma involves choosing between
alternatives that aren’t clear-cut (perhaps two conflicting
alternatives are both ethical and valid, or perhaps the
alternatives lie somewhere in the vast gray area between
right and wrong). Unlike a dilemma, an ethical lapse is
making a clearly unethical or illegal choice.

7:Making Ethical Choices

How do you decide between what’s ethical and what is
not? You might ask yourself:
Is this message legal?
Is this message balanced?
Is it a message you can live with?
Is this message feasible?
One way to help you make your messages ethical is to
consider your audience: What does your audience need?
What will help your audience the most?

8:
Audience-Centered
Communication

Adopting an audience-centered approach means

focusing on and caring about your audience, making every
effort to get your message across in a way that is
meaningful to them.
Learn as much as possible about the biases, education,
age, status, and style of your audience to create an
effective message. When you address strangers, try to
find out more about them; if that’s impossible, try to project
yourself into their position by using your common sense
and imagination. By writing and speaking from your
audience’s point of view, you can to help them understand
and accept your message.

9:Improving Intercultural Sensitivit

y

To communicate more effectively, be sensitive to and

aware of cultural differences. Culture is a shared system
of symbols, beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations, and
norms for behavior. Members of a culture have similar
assumptions about how people should think, behave, and
communicate, and they all tend to act on those
assumptions in much the same way. However, from group
to group, cultures differ widely.
You can improve your ability to communicate effectively
across cultures by recognizing cultural differences, by
overcoming your tendency to judge others based on your
own standards, by polishing your written intercultural skills,
and by polishing your oral intercultural skills.

10:
Recognizing
Cultural Differences
Problems arise when we assume, wrongly, that other
people’s attitudes and lives are like ours. You can improve
intercultural sensitivity by recognizing and accommodating
cultural differences in such areas as context, ethics, social
customs, and nonverbal communication.
11:Cultural Context
People assign meaning to a message according to cultural
context: physical cues, environmental stimuli, and implicit
understanding that convey meaning between two
members of the same culture. In a high-context culture,
people rely less on verbal communication and more on the
context of nonverbal actions and environmental setting to
convey meaning. In a low-context culture, people rely
more on verbal communication and less on contextual
cues.
Contextual differences are apparent in the way cultures
approach problem solving, negotiations and decision
making.
In lower-context cultures, businesspeople try to reach
decisions as quickly and efficiently as possible. They are
concerned with reaching an agreement on the main
points, leaving the details to be worked out later by others.
However, this approach would backfire in higher-context
cultures where businesspeople consider it a mark of good
faith to spend time on each little point before making a
decision.

12 Legal
; and Ethical Behavior
Cultural context also influences legal and ethical behavior.
For example, because low-context cultures value the
written word, written agreements are binding. High-context
cultures put less emphasis on the written word and
consider personal pledges more important than contracts.
They also tend to view law with flexibility; low-context
 cultures value the letter of the law.
As you conduct business around the world, you’ll find that
legal systems differ from culture to culture. These
differences can be particularly important if your firm must
communicate about a legal dispute in another country.
When communicating across cultures, keep your
messages ethical by applying four basic principles:
✔ Actively seek mutual ground.

✔ Send and receive messages without judgment.

✔ Send messages that are honest.

✔ Show respect for cultural differences.

Social Customs
13;
In any culture, the rules of social etiquette may be formal
or informal. Formal social rules are specifically taught
“rights” and “wrongs” of how to behave in common social
situations (such as table manners at meals). When formal
rules are violated, people can explain why they feel upset.
However, informal social rules are usually learned by
watching how people behave and then imitating that
behavior, so these rules are more difficult to identify (such
as how males and females are supposed to behave, or
when it’s appropriate to use a person’s first name). When
informal rules are violated, people often feel
uncomfortable without knowing exactly why.
Differences is social values are apparent in the way
various cultures define manners, think about time,
recognize status, and value wealth. For example, the
predominant U.S. view is that money solves many
problems, that material comfort (earned by individual
effort) is a sign of superiority, and that people who work
hard are better than those who don’t. However, many
societies condemn materialism, some prize communal
effort above individual effort, and some value a more
carefree lifestyle.

14;Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal communication is a reliable way to determine
meaning, but that reliability is valid only when the
communicators belong to the same culture. The simplest
hand gestures change meaning across cultures, so
interpreting nonverbal elements according to your own
culture can be dangerous.
The simplest hand gestures change meaning from culture
to culture, so interpreting nonverbal elements according to
your own culture can be dangerous. Differences in
nonverbal communication are apparent in body language
and in the varying attitudes toward personal space. For
example, Canadian and U.S. businesspeople usually
stand about five feet apart during a conversation.
However, this distance is uncomfortably close for people
from Germany or Japan and uncomfortably far for Arabs
and Latin Americans.

15;When communicating across cultures, effectiveness

depends on maintaining an open mind. Unfortunately,
many people lapse into ethnocentrism. They lose sight of
the possibility that their words and actions can be
misunderstood, and they forget that they are likely to
misinterpret the actions of others.
When you first begin to investigate the culture of another
group, you may attempt to understand the common
tendencies of that group’s members by
stereotyping—predicting individuals’ behavior or character
on the basis of their membership in a particular group or
class. The next step is to move beyond stereotypes to
relationships. Unfortunately, ethnocentric people tend to
stereotype based on limited, general, or inaccurate
evidence, and they develop biased attitudes toward a
group.
In order to overcome ethnocentrism, acknowledge and
accept distinctions. Don’t ignore the differences between
another person’s culture and your own. In addition, avoid
assumptions. Don’t assume that others will act the same
way you do, that they will operate from the same
assumptions, or that they will use language and symbols
the same way you do. Finally, avoid judgments. When
people act differently, don’t conclude that they are in error,
that their way is invalid, or that their customs are inferior to
your own.
16;
When sending written communication to businesspeople
from another culture, familiarize yourself with their written
communication preferences and adapt your approach,
style, and tone to meet your audiences’ expectations. To
help you prepare effective written communications, follow
these recommendations:
Use plain English: short, precise words that say exactly
what you mean.
Be clear by using specific terms and concrete examples.
Avoid slang, idioms, jargon, and abbreviations.
Use short paragraphs. Each paragraph should stick to one
topic and be no more than eight to ten lines long.

17;
Avoid slang, idioms, jargon, and buzzwords.
Be brief. Construct sentences that are shorter and simpler
than those you might use when writing to someone
fluent in your own language.
Use transitional elements. Help readers follow your train of
thought by using transitional words and phrases.
Address international correspondence properly.
Cite numbers carefully. Use figures (27) instead of spelling
them out twenty-seven).

18;
When speaking in English to people who speak English as
a second language, you may find these guidelines helpful:
Try to eliminate noise. Pronounce words clearly, stop
at distinct punctuation points, and make one point
at a time.
Look for feedback. Be alert to signs of confusion in
your listener.
Speak slowly and rephrase your sentence when
necessary. If someone doesn’t seem to
understand you, choose simpler words; don’t just repeat
the sentence in a louder voice.
Clarify your true intent with repetition and examples.
Try to be aware of unintentional meanings that may be
read into your message.
Don’t talk down to the other person. Try not to
over-enunciate, and don’t “blame” the listener for not
understanding.
Use objective, accurate language. Avoid adjectives
such as fantastic and fabulous, which people from other
cultures might consider unreal and overly dramatic.

19
Learn foreign phrases. Learn common greetings and a few
simple phrases in the other person’s native language.
Listen carefully and patiently. Let others finish what
they have to say. If you interrupt, you may miss
something important or show disrespect.
Adapt your conversation style to the other person’s.
For instance, if the other person appears to be direct
and straightforward, follow suit.
Check frequently for comprehension. Make one point
at a time and pause to check of comprehension before
moving on.
Clarify what will happen next. At the end of the
conversation, be sure that you and the other person agree
on what has been said and decided.
Observe body language. Be alert to roving eyes,
glazed looks, and other facial expressions that signal
the listener is lost or confused.

20
Once you can recognize cultural elements and overcome
ethnocentrism, you’re ready to focus on your intercultural
communication skills. To communicate more effectively
with people from other cultures, study other cultures,
overcome language barriers, and develop intercultural
communication skills, both written and oral.
Use the following tips to communicate more effectively:
Assume differences until similarity is proved. Don’t
assume that others are more similar to you than they
actually are.
Take responsibility for communication. Don’t assume
it’s the other person’s job to communicate with you.
Withhold judgment. Learn to listen to the whole story
and accept differences in others without judging
them.
Show respect. Learn how respect is communicated in
various cultures (through gestures, eye contact, and
so on).
Empathize. Before sending a message, put yourself in
the receiver’s shoes. Imagine the receiver’s
feelings and point of view.
Tolerate ambiguity. Learn to control your frustration
when placed in an unfamiliar or confusing situation.

21
Look beyond the superficial. Don’t be distracted by
things such as dress, appearance, or environmental
discomforts.
Be patient and persistent. If you want to communicate
with someone from another culture, don’t give up
easily.
Recognize your own cultural biases. Learn to identify
when your assumptions are different from the other
person’s.
Be flexible. Be prepared to change your habits and
attitudes when communicating with someone from
another culture.

22
Emphasize common ground. Look for similarities to work
from.
Send clear messages. Make both your verbal and
nonverbal signals clear and consistent.
Deal with the individual. Communicate with each
person as an individual, not as a stereotypical
representative of another group.
Learn when to be direct. Investigate each culture so
that you'll know when to send your message in a
straightforward manner and when to be indirect.
Treat your interpretation as a working hypothesis.
Once you think you understand a foreign culture,
carefully assess the feedback provided by recipients of
your communication to see if it confirms your hypothesis.