BUAD302 - Complete Notes PDF

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Complete guide to BUAD 302: Communication Strategy in Business. This guide includes descriptions, diagrams, charts, and explanations....

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Chapter 1: Establishing Credibility ● Why does this Matter? ○ Credibility- the degree to which others believe or trust you ○ Business communications occur in the context of working relationships, all depend on trust ● Role of Trust in the Post-Trust Era ○ In the business world, you start from a deficit of trust ■ One of the first goals should be to gain trust or credibility from colleagues, clients, customers, and other contacts ○ Due to past incidents, trust extended by the general public to business executives is far lower than the trust extended to members of other selected professions ○ Deficit of trust exists within companies ■ Employees often do not trust their own business leaders ■ Stems from a global cheating culture in school, particularly among business students ○ Post Trust Era- the public overwhelmingly views businesses as operating against the public’s best interests, and the majority of employees view their leaders and colleagues skeptically ○ Three Components of Credibility ■ Competence ■ Caring ■ Character ● The Role of Competence in Establishing Credibility ○ Competence-the knowledge and skills needed to accomplish business tasks, approach business problems, and get the job done ■ Most people will judge your competence based on your track record of success and achievement ■ How to develop competence ● Studying, observation, practice and real-world business experiences ● Focus On Action- implies that you seize business opportunities ○ You must be proactive in finding situations where you can expand your competence ● The Role of Caring in Establishing Credibility ○ People trust you more if you are caring ○ Caring- implies understand the interests of others, cultivating a sense of community, and giving to others and showing generosity ○ Understanding the Interests of Others ■ You need to show that you care for others ■ Not many business people are seen as caring ■ Effective communicators gain trust by connecting with others, seeking to understand their needs, wants, opinions, feelings, and aspirations

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Cultivating a Sense of Community ■ Most effective leaders create a community ■ Use “we” and “our” ○ Giving to Others and Showing Generosity ■ Most professionals can be categorized as givers and takers ■ Studies show that organizations with more generous and giving employees perform better The Role of Character in Establishing Credibility ○ Character- reputation for staying true to commitments made to stakeholders and adhering to high moral and ethical values ○ Very important for long term business relationships ○ Leaders need to be open, transparent, connected, and interdependent ○ Business Ethics ■ Ethics- rules of conduct or moral principles that guide individual or group behavior ■ Business Ethics- commonly accepted beliefs and principles in the business community for acceptable behavior ● Involve adhering to laws, safeguarding private information, avoiding conflicts of interest, misuse of company assets, refraining from accepting or providing inappropriate gifts ■ Transparency- sharing all relevant information with stakeholders ○ Fairness in Business Communications ■ You need to consider what is fair to others ■ FAIR Test ● F-examine how well you have provided the facts ● A-how well you granted access  to your motives ● I-how well you have examined impacts  on stakeholders ● R- how well you have shown respect High Trust Relationships, Ease of Communication, and Improved Work Outcomes ○ Establishing credibility allows you to communication more easily and more influentially ■ Leaders have less resistance from others, increased willingness to cooperate, and less likelihood of miscommunication ○ In high trust relationships, since individuals willingly and freely give the benefit of the doubt, communication is simpler, easier, quicker, and more effective ○ Engagement- measure of how much employees are connected emotionally to their work, how willing they are to expend extra effort to help their organizations to meet their goals, and how much energy they have to reach those goals

Chapter 2: Interpersonal Communication and Emotional Intelligence

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Understanding the Interpersonal Communication Process ○ Interpersonal Communication Process- process of sending and receiving verbal and nonverbal messages between two or more people ■ Meaning- the thoughts and feelings that people intend   to communicate to one another ■ Encoding- process of converting meaning into messages composed of words and nonverbal signals ■ Decoding is the process of interpreting messages from others into meaning

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Shared Meaning situation in which people involved in interpersonal communication attain the same understanding about ideas, thoughts, and feelings Barriers ■ Noise- distortion to or interruption of messages ● Physical Noise- external noise that makes a message difficult to hear or receive ● Physical Noise- disruption due to physiological factors ● Semantic Noise- occurs when communicators apply different meanings to the same words or phrases ● Psychological Noise- refers to interference due to attitudes, ideas, and emotions experience during an interpersonal interaction Filter of Lifetime Experiences- accumulation of knowledge, values, expectations, and attitudes based on prior personal experiences ■ All outgoing messages are encoded and all incoming messages are decoded through this filter ■ Communication is easier when people have shared experiences and communications

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Emotional Hijacking ○ Emotional Intelligence-involves understanding emotions, managing emotions to serve goals, empathizing with others, and effective handling relationships with others ■ Business leaders with high emotional intelligence are more effective at influencing others, overcoming conflict, showing leadership, and managing change ○ EQ- Emotional quotient, pretty much IQ ○ Emotional Hijacking- situation in which emotions control our behavior, causing us to react without thinking ■ Prevents you from engaging in effective interpersonal communication Self Awareness ○ Emotional Intelligence can be divided into four domains ■ 1. Self Awareness ■ 2. Self Management ■ 3. Empathy ■ 4. Relationship Management ○ Self Awareness- accurately understanding your emotions as they occur and how they affect you ■ Not always easy ■ Triggers- events that cause strong emotional reactions ● As you learn more of your triggers and tendencies, you can adjust your interpersonal communication to avoid dysfunctional behavior caused by emotional hijacking, such as blaming others or not speaking up Self Management ○ Self Management- the ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and to direct your behavior positively” ■ Involves being able to hold off on current urgest to meet long term intentions ■ Strong emotions can impair rational behavior, self management is controlling these emotions ■ Mitigating Information- favorable explanations for why others have behaved in a certain way ○ Strategies ■ Removing yourself from the situation ■ Taking a walk ■ Breathing deeply ■ Enjoying some entertainment ○ Optimism- view failures as events that can be changed ○ Pessimism- view failures as indications of their own incompetence or inability Empathy

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Empathy- ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on with them ○ Includes desire to help others develop in their work responsibilities and career objectives Active Listening ○ Listening requires one’s full attention and all senses ○ Active listening-involves bringing about and finding common ground, connecting to each other, and opening up new possibilities ○ Active Listening Skills ■ 1. Paying Attention ■ 2. Holding Judgment ■ 3. Reflecting ■ 4. Clarifying ■ 5. Summarizing ■ 6. Sharing ○ Paying Attention ■ Try to understand everything from their perspective ■ Requires active nonverbal communication ■ Involves body language, eye contact ■ Try leaning forward, smiling appropriately, sitting up straight ○ Holding Judgment ■ Sharing ideas and feelings only if they feel safe ■ Learner Mindset- show eagerness to hear others’ ideas and perspectives and listen with an open mind ● Keep an open mind until after listening fully ■ Judger Mindset- having your mind made up before listening carefully ● Judgers disagree rigidly, little possibility of common ground ● Often involves punishing those who disagree ■ Creating a good environment ● Learner statements- show your commitment to hearing people out ● Judger statements- closed off opinions ○ Don’t do this ○ Reflecting ■ Reflect on the ideas and emotions and others ■ You should frequently paraphrase what you’re hearing ○ Clarifying ■ Involves making sure you have a clear understanding of what others mean ■ Includes double checking that you understand the perspective of others and asking them to elaborate and qualify their thoughts ○ Summarizing

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Restate major themes so that you can make sense of the big issues from the perspective of the other person ○ Sharing ■ Express your own feelings and perspectives Recognizing Barriers to Effective Listening ○ Lack of Time ■ Creates internal noise ■ The best managers understand that listening pays strong dividends and they need to schedule time to listening to others ○ Lack of Patience and Attention Span ■ Some people are impatient or do not have long attention spans ■ Patience and attention span can be improved by conscious, consistent effort ○ Image of Leadership ■ Some managers think that listening shows too much indecisiveness and threatens their authority ■ Leaders have to get over this thinking ○ Communication Technology ■ Technology creates new and better opportunities for people to communicate with one another ■ Most communication technologies also make listening more difficult due to fewer and less rich visual and nonverbal cues ■ Tech creates more ways to talk, but those ways can be less effective ○ Fear of Bad News or Uncomfortable Information ■ People do not like listening to bad news and therefore avoid listening ■ Non-listening behaviors- actions that prematurely deflect attention from speakers or prevent them from completely expressing their ideas or feelings ○ Defending ■ All of us engage in self-protective behaviors ■ When we feel threatened, we become defensive, we are emotionally hijacked ■ Defensive comments end listening ● Others often perceive them as threats or escalations ○ Lead to self defense ○ Create barrier to honest conversation ● Shift attention away from the speaker to the listener ○ “Me Too” Statements ■ Take the other person’s story and respond with our own story in an effort to empathize with them ■ This diverts attention away from the original story ■ To have effective conversation, do not divert attention away from the original topic or story

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Giving Advice ■ Premature or heavy handed advice can abruptly end dialogue and result in resistance ■ Gives the impression of wanting to end the conversation ■ You should give the person a chance to finish what they are saying before giving advice ○ Judging ■ Ends listening for current conversation but leaves lingering animosity ■ People do not like judging people Asking the Right Questions ○ Asking good questions creates a culture of learning ○ Ask open ended questions ○ Good Types of Questions ■ Rapport Building Questions- intended to create bonds between people ● Can break the ice and gradually ease people into conversations about shared business interests ■ Funnel Questions- intended to deconstruct a business issue so a team can tackle it in pieces ● Move from general to specific ■ Probing Questions- intended to analyze a business problem from every angle to uncover its root causes ● Can ensure that no explanation is overlooked ■ Solution Oriented Questions- focus on how to overcome business problem ● Focus on what should be done ● Stay open and flexible to new solutions Avoiding the Wrong Questions ○ Leading Questions- intended to guide people into your way of thinking ■ Often perceived as dishonest and manipulative ○ Disguised Statements- opinions presented in question form ■ Always end a learning conversation when they are used to point out flaws ○ Cross-Examination Questions- intended to find contradictions in what others have said or done ■ Can abruptly end learning conversations when they repeatedly question the credibility of others Avoiding the Traps of Empathy ○ Givers are generally motivated by empathy ■ They perform best when they address three potential barriers ■ 1. Timidity ■ 2. Availability ■ 3. Emotional Concern for Others ○ Many givers make themselves available to all requests, often at the expense of getting their own work done

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○ Givers need to learn to set boundaries on when they can help others ○ Due to a strong emotional concern for others, givers often say “yes” to takers Sight Reading Nonverbal Communication and Building Rapport ○ Nonverbal communication accounts for 60-80% of meaning in various face to face business situations ○ The meaning of nonverbal communication is less precise ○ Sight Reading- act of anticipating intentions and moods through the perceptive examination of nonverbal cues ○ Learning to Sight Read ■ Most people are not good at masking their feelings ● Most people are also not good at decoding other people’s nonverbal communication ■ How to practice sight reading ● Consciously Practice every day ○ Watch other people’s nonverbal behavior and try to understand their meaning ● Pay attention to Congruence ○ Nonverbal messages are most important when they are non congruent or consistent with verbal messages ○ Listeners instinctively place more value on nonverbal messages when nonverbal messages are incongruent with verbal messages ● Sight-read in Clusters, not in isolation ○ Easy to misinterpret nonverbal signals if looking for single behaviors ○ Investigate nonverbal signals alone and together ● Sight-Read in context ○ Use the situation to help understand ○ Paying close attention to nonverbal Cues ■ Synchronizing- adopting some of your counterpart’s body language to make the conversation more natural for them and to show empathy to them ● Attempt to convey emotions appropriate to the conversation ● Most business situations, try to express positive or neutral emotions ■ Eyes ● Reveal a lot about feelings ● People who achieve eye contact build rapport faster ■ CLEM- conjugate lateral eye movement ● Shows that a person is giving your ideas careful consideration and is generally positive ● Be mindful of blinking rates, more blinking is a sign of stress ■ Visual Cutoff- using eyes to show disinterest and strong displeasure

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Smiles and Nods- positive emotional expressions translate to more positive transactions and conversations ■ Hands and Arms- can show openness, hospitality, and purpose ● Handshakes can build rapport quickly ● Palms down gestures are less inviting ● Hands can signal nervousness ● Hands in pockets or fistlike gestures are defensive ■ Touch-can build rapport quickly ● Touching for more than three seconds is negative and weird Relationship Management ○ Ability to use your awareness of emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully ○ Adapting Communication to the Preferred Style of Others ■ Differences in Communication Preferences based on Motivational Values ● Communication styles can be traced to motives and values ● Motivational Value System- blend of primary motives and frequency with which these values guide their actions ○ Blue MVS- protect others (30% of people) ○ Red MVS- organizing people and resources (46%) ○ Green MVS- concerned with business activities (16%) ● Hubs- professionals who are guided by all these colors ■ Differences in Communication Preferences Based on Extroversion/Introversion ● Introverts- get energy and stimulation from own thoughts, feelings, and moods ○ Feel more uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations ○ Speak when they have clarified their thoughts ○ More likely to want to work alone ● Extroverts- get energy and stimulation from external sources ○ Most leaders are extroverts, but both show leadership capabilities Maintaining Civility ○ Incivility in Society and the Workplace ■ Many Americans perceive society as increasingly rude and disrespectful ■ Common Types of Incivility in the workplace ● Ignoring others ● Treating others without courtesy ● Disrespecting the efforts of others ● Disrespecting the privacy of others ● Disrespecting the dignity and worth of others ○ Maintaining Civil Communications ■ Guiding Principles ● 1. Slow down and be present in life

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2. Listen to the voice of empathy 3. Keep a positive attitude 4. Respect others and grant them plenty of validation 5. Disagree graciously and refrain from arguing 6. Get to know the people around you 7. Pay attention to small things 8. Ask, don’t tell

Chapter 14: Planning Presentations ● Applying the AIM Planning Process for Presentations ● Analyze your audience and Gather the Right Info ○ Questions to ask ■ How will audience members benefit from the product, service, or ideas I’m proposing? ■ What do the Audience members already know about my product, service, or idea? ■ What are my audience members’ chief concerns? ■ Who are the key decision makers? ■ What will appeal to your audience? ■ What is the learning style of your audience? ● Visual Learners ● Auditory Learners ● Kinesthetic Learners (need to participate to learn) ■ What information must I gather? ○ Develop your Message ■ Identify a few takeaway messages ● More successful presentations are the ones that focus on common interests with the audience ■ Structure your Presentation with a Clear Preview, View, and Review ○ Provide a Compelling Preview ■ Beginnings of presentations are critical ■ Audience members make quick impressions ■ Previews often have an attention getter, a positioning statement, and an overview ■ Preview must: ● Create interest ● Show benefits ● Demonstrate value ● Encourage action ■ Choose an Effective Attention Getter ● Factors that attract the most attention ○ Message that was personalized

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○ Evoked an emotional response ○ Came from a trustworthy source ○ Concise ● Primary goal of an attention getter is to get your audience emotionally invested in the presentation ■ Creating a Positioning Statement ● Frames your message in appealing terms to your audience members ● Demonstrates clear and valuable benefits to them ● Ideally one or two sentences ■ Providing an overview statement ● State in one to three sentences ● Help audience members think about the benefits to their units within the company ○ Justify your Views ■ Majority of your presentation will be devoted to expressing and supporting your views ■ Members may be skeptical ■ Back up your statements with evidence, REMEMBER to say what the evidence means and what the conclusion is ■ PREP METHOD ● Position ● Reasons ● Example ● Position ○ Concluding with an Effective Review ■ Recap your messages ■ Create a call to action ○ Design Appealing slides ■ Don’t write too much ■ You are the focus of the presentation, not the slides ■ Aesthetics ● Use larger fonts ● Highlight key info ● Plenty of white space ● High contrast backgrounds ● Use images in moderation ● Develop simple charts and diagrams Applying the Storyline Approach to your Presentations ○ Keep stories short ○ Allows listeners to engage on a deeper emotional level Reviewing Your Presentations for Fairness and Effectiveness ○ Double check all materials

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Is the presentation based on facts or opinions Evaluate the impact on the audience and if it grants them respect

Chapter 16: Employment Communications ●

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Applying t...