Creating Effective E-mail Messages

It is very important to know that business e-mail is very different from personal e-mail.  The expectations of writing quality are higher, and the consequences of bad writing or poor judgement can be more serious.  For example, e-mails can be used as evidence in numerous lawsuits and criminal investigations.  E-mail messages can range from a simple one-paragraph memo to a multi page report.  E-mail is often misused and overused, because it is so easy to send it.  Many busy professionals struggle to keep up with the flow of e-mail messages, which can significantly affect a business.   Here are some tips for effective e-mail messages:

• When you request information or action, make it clear what you are asking for, why it is important and how soon you need it; do not make your reader write back for details.
• Adjust the level of formality to the message and the audience.
• When responding to a request, either paraphrase the request or include enough of the original message to remind the reader what you are replying to.
• If possible, avoid sending long, complex messages via e-mail.
• Do not let unread messages pile up in your in-box.
• Do not over-format your messages with background colors, colored type, or complicated fonts.
• Remember that messages can be forwarded anywhere and saved forever.
• Make sure your computer has up-to-date virus protection
• Pay attention to grammar, spelling and capitalization.

Given the spontaneous nature of e-mail, you may sometimes need to work hard to keep your emotions under control.  A message that contains insensitive, insulting , or critical comments is called a flame. When you are ready to send an -email, pause to verify what you are doing.  Re-read your message to make sure that the content and tone of the e-mail is correct.

The Three-Step Process for Developing Oral and Online Presentations

People often judge the quality of the content of your presentation by the quality of the presentation itself; therefore, your delivery style and the packaging of any visual support materials can be important as your message.  It is very crucial that you plan and practice your presentation way ahead of time.  Planning presentations is much like planning any other business message.  First, you have to analyze the situation; secondly, you must gather information; thirdly, select the right medium; and lastly, you organize the information.  When face with challenges preparing for a presentation, the following three-step process will help.  The three steps are plan, write and complete.  Let's discuss the first step - plan.  You must first analyze the situation.  This is done by defining your purpose and develop a profile of your target audience.  You must know what your audiences language preferences is.  After you define your audience, you must determine your audience needs and obtain the information necessary to satisfy those needs.  All this is done by through the process of gathering information.  Then you must choose the best medium for delivering your presentation, whether through handouts or power point. Next, you must organize the information you gather.  By doing this, you are able to define your main idea, verify how long it will take for your presentation and outline your content.
The second step is to adapt the content of your presentation style and room setup to fit your audience.  Be sensitive to your audience needs and expectations.  You must be polite and use bias-free languages.  Plan to establish your credibility as required.  When composing your presentation, your outline should have an attention-getting introduction, body and close.  Prepare supporting visuals and speaking notes to help in your presentation.
The third step, is to evaluate the content of your presentation and speaking notes, choose your delivery mode and practice your presentation.  When it is time for you to speak, verify that the facilities and equipment are ready.  Practice, practice, practice, so that you may feel and appear confident on stage.

Creating Successful Business Plans

The most important report you may ever write is the business plan for a new venture.  A comprehensive business plan forces you to think about personnel, marketing, facilities, suppliers, distribution and various other issues vital to your success.  Your business plan should describe the basic concept of the business and outline its specific goals, objectives and resource requirements.  A more formal plan should cover the following:

• Summary - this summarizes your business concept, describe your product or services and its potential market.  Highlight some things about your company and its leaders.  Summarize your financial projections and the amount of money investors can expect to make on their investment.
• Mission and objectives - explain the purpose of your business and what you hope to accomplish.
• Company and industry - give full background information on the origins and structure of your venture and the characteristics of the industry in which you plan to compete.
• Products or services - describe your products or services, focusing on their unique attributes and their appeal to customers.
• Market and competition - provide data that will persuade investors that you understand your target market and can achieve your sales goals.
• Marketing strategy - provide projection of sales volume and market share.
• Critical risks and problems - identify all negative factors and discuss them honestly.
• Financial projections and requirement - include a detailed budget of start-up and operating costs.

Creating a complete business plan requires a considerable amount of work, however, by thinking your way through all these issues, you will have a smooth launch and a greater chance of being successful.

Creating Effective Reports and Proposals

The purpose and content of writing business reports varies widely; in some cases you will follow strict guidelines, but in others the organization and format will be up to you.  Reports are written accounts that objectively communicate information about some aspect of a business.  There are informational reports, analytical reports and proposals.  Informational reports offer data, facts, feedback and other types of information without analysis or recommendations.  Analytical reports, on the hand, offer both information and analysis, and they can also include recommendations.  Proposals are a special category of reports that combine information delivery and persuasive communication.  The nature of these reports can vary widely, depending on the circumstances.  Some of the reports you write will be voluntary, written at your own initiative and following whatever structure you find most effective.  Other reports will be in response to a manager's or customer's request, and you may or may not receive guidance regarding the organization and content.

Given the length and complexity of many reports, it is crucial to define your purpose clearly so you don't waste time with unnecessary rework.  These are three-step in writing reports and proposals:

1. Analysing the situation - the complexity of most reports and the magnitude of the work involved heighten the need to analyze the situation carefully.  Pay special attention to your statement of purpose.
2. Defining your purpose - informational reports often address a predetermined need and must meet specific audience expectations.  Analytical reports and proposals are almost always written in response to a perceived problem or a perceived opportunity. A clear statement of this problem or opportunity helps frame the communication challenge by identifying what you are going to write about.  To plan effectively, address the problem or opportunity with a clear statement of purpose that defines why you are preparing the report.
3. Preparing your work plan - carefully thinking out a work plan is the best way to make sure you produce quality reports quickly and efficiently.  By identifying all the tasks that must be performed, you ensure that nothing is overlooked.  A formal work plan might include:  Statement of problem or opportunity, statement of the purpose and scope of your investigation, discussions of tasks to be accomplished, description of any additional products or activities that will result from your investigation and a working outline.

Understanding the Opportunities and Challenges of Communication in a Diverse World

Diversity includes all the characteristics that define people as individuals. Every attempt to send and receive messages is influenced by culture, so to communicate successfully, you need a basic grasp of the cultural differences you may encounter  and how you should handle them.  Intercultural communication is the process of sending and receiving messages between people whose cultural backgrounds could lead to interpret verbal and nonverbal signs differently.

Over the past few decades, many innovative companies have changed the way they approach diversity, from seeing it as a legal requirement to seeing it as a strategic opportunity to connect with customers and take advantages of the broadest possible pool of talent.  Smart business leaders recognize the competitive advantages of a diverse workforce that offers a broader spectrum of viewpoints and ideas, helps companies understand and identify with diverse markets, and enable companies to benefit from a wider range of employee talents.  Today's increasingly diverse workforce encompasses a wide range of skills, traditions, backgrounds, experiences and attitudes toward work, all of which can affect communication in the workplace.

The interaction of culture and communication is so pervasive that separating the two is virtually impossible.  The way you communicate, from the language you speak and the nonverbal signals you send to the way you perceive other people is influenced by the culture in which you were raised.

What is culture?  It is a shared system of symbols, beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations, and behavior norms.  Your cultural background influences the way you prioritize what is important in life, helps define your attitude toward what is appropriate in a situation, and establishes rules of behavior.  Cultures can differ widely and vary in their rate of change, their degree of complexity, and their tolerance toward outsiders.
People learn culture directly and indirectly from other members of their group.  Culture is passed on from person to person and from generation to generation. 

Members of other groups tend to judge each other according to standards, behaviors and customs of one's own group, this tendency is called ethnocentrism.  When people compare their culture to others, they often conclude that their own group is superior.  Distorted views of other cultures or group can also result from stereotyping, which is assigning a wide range of generalized attributes to an individual on the basis of membership in a particular culture or social group.  You can begin to learn how people in other cultures want to be treated by recognizing and accommodating these eight main types of cultural differences: contextual, legal and ethical, social, nonverbal, age, gender, religious and ability.

1. Contextual - every attempt at communication occurs within a cultural context, the pattern of physical cues, environmental stimuli and implicit understanding that convey meaning between two members of the same culture.  There are two types of context.  High-context culture rely heavily on nonverbal actions and environmental setting to convey meaning; then there is low-context culture tend to value written agreements and interpret laws strictly.  They rely more on verbal communication and less on circumstances and cues to convey meaning.  In such cultures, rules and expectations are usually spelled out.  Communication tactics that work well in a high-context culture may backfire in a low-context culture and vice versa.
2. Legal and Ethical Differences - Cultural context influences legal and ethical behavior, which in turn can affect communication.  As you conduct business around the world, you will find that both legal systems and ethical standards differ from culture to culture.
3. Social Differences - the nature of social behavior varies among cultures.  Some behavioral rules are formal and specifically articulated, and others are informal and learned over time.  Respect and rank are reflected differently from culture to culture in the way people are addressed and in their working environment.  Cultures around the wold exhibit varying degrees of openness toward outsiders and people whose personal identities don't align with prevailing social norms.
4. Nonverbal Differences - nonverbal communication can be a reliable guide to determining the meaning of a message, but this holds true only if the sender and receiver assign the same meaning to nonverbal signals.  The best advice when interacting with people in other culture is to study the culture in advance and then observe the way people behave.

When adapting to other business cultures you must become aware of your own biases, exercise tolerance, flexibility and respect and practice patience and maintain a sense of humor.

Improving Your Listening Skills

Listening is a far more complex process than most people think, and most of us are not very good at it.  People typically listen at no better than 25 percent efficiency rate, remember only about half of what's said during a 10-minute conversation and forget half of that within 48 hours.

Effective listening strengthens organizational relationships, enhances product delivery, alerts an organization to opportunities for innovation and allows an organization to manage diversity both in the workforce and with the customers it serves.  Companies whose employees and managers listen effectively stay in touch, up to date and out of trouble.  Poor listening skills can cost companies millions of dollars a year as a result of lost opportunities, legal mistakes and other errors.  Effective listening is vital to the process of building trust not only between organizations but also between individuals.

There are various types of listening.  Effective listeners recognize several types of listening and choose the best approach for each situation.  The following are four types of listening:

1. The primary goal of content listening is to understand and retain the speakers message.  During content listening you need to try and overlook the speaker's style and any limitation they might have  and just focus on the information. 
2. The goal of critical listening is to understand and evaluate the meaning of the speaker's message on several levels: 
• the logic of the argument,
• the strength of the evidence,
•  the validity of the conclusions,
•  the implications of the message,
• the speaker's intentions and motives, and
• the omission of any important or relevant points.
3. The goal of empathic listening is to understand the speaker's feelings, needs and wants so that you can appreciate his or her point of view, regardless of whether you share that perspective.  By listening with empathy, you help the individual vent the emotions that prevent a calm, clear-headed approach to the subject.  Avoid the temptation to jump in with advice unless the person specifically asks for it.  Also, don't judge the speaker's feelings and don't try to tell people they shouldn't feel this or that emotion.  Instead, let the speaker know that you appreciate his or her feelings and understands the situation.
4. Effective listeners try to engage in active listening, making a conscious effort to turn off their own filters and biases to truly hear and understand what the other party is saying.

To listen effectively, you need to successfully complete these five separate steps:

1. Receiving - you start by physically hearing the message  and acknowledging it.
2. Decoding - you then assign meaning to sounds, which you do according to your own values, beliefs, needs and personal history.
3. Remembering - before you can act on the information, you need to store it for future processing.
4. Evaluating - you need to evaluate the message by applying critical thinking skills to separate fact from opinion and evaluate the quality of the evidence.
5. Responding - after you have evaluated the speaker's message, you react.  If you are communicating one-on-one or in a small group, the initial response generally takes the form of verbal feedback.

One of the most common barriers to effective listening is selective listening.  If your mind wanders, you may stay tuned out until you hear a word or phrase that gets your attention again.  One reason listeners' minds tend to wander is that people think faster than they speak.  Overcoming interpretation barriers can be difficult because you may not be aware of them.  The problem of overcoming memory barriers can be solved by working on it.

Mastering Team and Interpersonal Communication

Whatever the purpose and function of a team, you and your fellow team members must be able to communicate effectively with each other and with people outside your team.  What is a team?  A team is a unit of two or more people who share a mission and the responsibility for working to achieve a common goal.  There are different kinds of teams; for e.g. Problem-solving teams and task forces, these types of team are assemble to resolve specific issues and then disband when their goals have been accomplished.  Such teams are often cross-functional, pulling together people from a variety of departments who have different areas of expertise and responsibility.  The diversity of opinions and experiences can lead to better decisions, but competing interests can lead to tensions that highlight the need for effective communication.  Committees are another type of team.  They are more formal, in that, they usually have a long life span and can become a permanent part of the organizational structure of a company.  There are advantages and disadvantages to having or being a part of a team.  When team are successful, they can improve productivity, creativity, employee involvement and even job security.  Teams can play a vital role in helping an organization reach its goals, but they are not appropriate for every situation.  Here are some of the advantages a successful team can provide:

• Increased information and knowledge - by pooling the experience of several individuals, a team has access to more information in the decision-making process.
• Increased acceptance of a solution - those who participate in making a decision are more likely to support it and encourage others to accept it.
• Higher performance levels - working in teams can unleash new levels of creativity and energy in workers who share a sense of purpose and mutual accountability.  Effective teams can be better than top-performing individuals at solving complex problems.
• Increased diversity of views - team members can bring a variety of perspectives to the decision-making process.  Keep in mind, however, that unless these diverse viewpoints are guided by a shared goal, the multiple perspectives can hamper a team's efforts.
• Give your team time to bond before diving in - if people haven't had the opportunity to work together before, make sure they can get to know each other before being asked to collaborate.
• Clarify individual  responsibilities - because members will be depending on each other, make sure individual responsibilities are clear.
• Make sure tools and techniques are read and compatible across the team - even minor details such as different versions of software can delay projects.

Although teamwork has many advantages, it also has a number of potential disadvantages.  A few disadvantages are:

• Groupthink - like other social structures, business teams can generate tremendous pressures to conform with accepted norms of behavior.  Groupthink occurs when peer pressures cause individual team members to withhold contrary or unpopular opinions, which can results in decisions that are worse than the choices the team members might have made individually.
• Hidden agendas - some team members may have a hidden agenda, which can be private, counter-productive motives, to undermine someone else on the team, or to pursue a business goal that runs counter to the team's mission.
• Cost - aligning schedules, arranging meetings and coordinating individual parts of a project can eat up a lot of time and money.

Group dynamics is essential.  The interactions and processes that take place among the members of a team are called group dynamics.  Productive teams tend to develop rules of interaction that are conducive to business.  These rules become group norms, which are informal standards of conduct that members share and that guide member behavior. Group dynamics are influenced by several factor:  the roles that team members assume, the current phase of team development, the team's success in resolving conflict, and the teams success in overcoming resistance.


To be effective collaborators in a team setting, you and your colleagues must recognize that each individual brings valuable assets, knowledge and skills to the team.  Strong collaborators are willing to exchange information, examine issues and work through conflicts that arise.  They trust each other and work toward the greater good of the team and organization rather than focus on personal agendas.  The most effective teams have a clear objective and a shared sense of purpose, communicate openly and honestly, reach decisions by consensus, think creatively, and know how to resolve conflict.  In contrast, unsuccessful teamwork can waste time and money, generate lower-quality work, and frustrate both managers and employees.  A lack of trust is cited as the most common reason for the failure of teams.  A lack of trust can result from team members being suspicious of one another's motives or ability to contribute.  Another common reason for failure is poor communication, particularly when teams operate across cultures, countries and time zones.  Poor communication can also result from basic differences in conversational styles.  Some people expect conversation to follow an orderly pattern in which team members wait their turn to speak.  Others view conversation as more spontaneous and are comfortable with an overlapping, interactive style.

How to achieve success through effective business communication

Communication skills are essential to your success in today's business environment, whether you are starting your own company or working in an existing firm.  Employers often direct or express their frustration at employees with poor communication skills.  In order to communicate effectively, especially in a professional business environment, you have to learn to write well, speak well, listen well and be able to recognize the appropriate way to communicate. 

What is communication? According to Business Communication Today, "communication is the process of transferring information and meaning between senders and receivers, using one or more written, oral, visual, or electronic channels."  "The essence of communication is sharing, providing date, information, and insights in an exchange that benefits both you and the people with whom you are communicating."  These are some of the benefits that can be obtained from effective communication:

• Faster problem solving, in which less time is spent on understanding problems and more is spent on creating solutions.
• Earlier warning of potential problems, from rising business costs to critical safety issues
• Stronger business relationships
• Clearer and more persuasive marketing messages
• Enhanced professional images for both employers and companies

Effective communication strengthens the connection between a company and all who it have some connection with, be it customers, employees, suppliers or shareholders. Every company has a formal communication network, in which ideas and information flow.  There are a variety of ways that messages flow in and out of business organizations.  There is iinternal communication which takes place between people inside a company and then there is external communication which takes place between a company and outside parties.  Within the internal formal network, information flows in three directions.  Downward communication flows from executives to employees, conveying executive decisions and providing information that helps employees do their jobs.  Upward communication flows from employees to executives, providing insight into problems, trends, grievances and performance, thus allowing executives to solve problems and make intelligent decisions.  Then there is horizontal communication which flows between departments to help employees share information, coordinate tasks and solve complex problems.

To make your message effective, you need to make them practical, factual, concise and persuasive.

• Provide practical information - give recipients useful information.
• Give facts - use concrete language, specific detail and information that is clear, convincing. accurate and ethical.
• Clarify expectations and responsibilities - write messages to generate a specific response from a specific audience.  Clearly state what you expect from audience members or what you can do for them.
• Offer compelling, persuasive arguments and recommendations - show your employees precisely how they will benefit from responding to your message the way you want them to.

Human communication is a complex process with many opportunities for messages to get lost, ignored, or misinterpreted, therefore you must understand the communication process.  Within any communication environment, messages can be disrupted by a variety of communication barriers.  These barriers include noise and distractions, competing messages, filters and channel breakdowns.  After a message works its way through the communication channel and reaches the intended audience, it encounters a whole new set of challenges.  You must understand how your audiences receive, decode and respond to messages.