Effective communication is necessary for organizations to build positive relationships with the clients using appropriate communication strategies.
As a professional working in an organization, you will need to speak, write and think for your organisation. You have to follow some principles of effective communication if you are to succeed in this business.
Six Ways To Generate Effective communication In business:
Here, the six ways effective communication in business can be generated;
1: Choose Understandable Words (concreteness/specificity)
Since the overall purpose of business communication is to transact business both within and outside using words, you must select words that your receiver or audience will quickly understand and which will help in eliciting the right feedback.
A business communicator will always find a dictionary and a thesaurus very useful. As a good communicator you need to avoid less understandable words.
2: Compose clear and short sentences (clarity)
Good and clear sentences communicate ideas quickly and they also emphasize the most important points. As a business communicator, you must strive to use short sentences, active voice and correct grammar (especially subject-verb agreement).
It is also important that you achieve unity in sentence construction. A short and clear sentence expresses one main thought. It is better to use two or more sentences to communicate two or more ideas.
3: Use short, organised and coherent paragraphs (completeness)
Business communication does not give room for unnecessary repetition and addition of irrelevant materials. Directors, managers, consultants and other business executive do not have time to read lengthy pages of memos and reports laden with irrelevancies, they always look short paragraphs or executive summary that will help them to organise their thoughts and increase their understanding.
4: Correctness
The principle of correctness goes beyond grammatical and mechanical accuracy. This is because it is possible for you to be correct in your use of grammar, punctuation and spelling, but still confuse and appear not communicating to your audiences/readers. Therefore, correctness in business communication implies the following:
- Using appropriate level of language (formal or informal)
- Including only accurate words, facts and figures (customers or clients believe when you include figures, facts and words that are truthful)
- Maintaining acceptable level of writing mechanics (acceptable spelling, sentence structure, punctuation and capitalisation).
5: Conciseness
We have said earlier that the business world is very busy; you must say whatever you want to say using fewer words as possible with courtesy and completeness.
Avoid unnecessary repetitions and wordy expressions. If you can communicate your message using ten words, do not use eleven or twenty words. Try to omit trite expressions like clichés and overused expressions.
Expressions are meaningless as a result of overuse. For example,
These expressions contain unnecessary repetitions and they are therefore wordy. Correct them.
- enclosed please……
- enclosed herewith/ attached herewith
- your correspondence is receiving attention
- due to the fact that ans so on.
6: Use Unbiased Language (courtesy/consideration)
Societies are becoming more and more multicultural everyday. There are cultures and co-cultures which contexts shape communication.
People from different cultures and other sub-groups must be treated equally. Creating and using stereotypes, sexism and other biased words and constructions must be avoided when packaging memos, reports etc.
Words have weighty meanings and effects on people; it is important that we learn how to communicate respect, empathy and inclusiveness across cultures.
In business communication, we expect people to practise supportive communication behaviours, manage conflicting beliefs and practices and develop sensitivity toward diversity.
Conclusion:
Business communication cannot be effective without a good mastery of the language. Whether it is written or oral, one must be careful in one’s choice of words, sentences and paragraph construction.
