Essay_on_Communication

| Communication Skills | | First Draft | Question 1 Describe how you will develop and enhance your communication abilities and skills in the future. Introduction History has shown that mankind was able to advance and evolve only by being able to communicate with others. Through communication, people were able to work together for common goals that were beneficial to all. This is the basis upon which communities were formed and societies followed. Today it is easy to see that all breakthroughs that have transformed our lives have been achieved through well coordinated team work. Such complex team work would not have been possible if effective communication was not an integral part of the process. In this paper, I shall discuss the role and importance of communication in the business world and from that, describe a plan of how I can develop and enhance such skills. Discussion The Communication skill is characterized by the ability to transfer a message, thoughts, and visions and at the same time understand different points of view. To ensure the effectiveness of a communication process: sender, message, receiver, feedback ("Communication process," 2011), the parties involved must have the ability to address information clearly; to create a strong bond of trust with the those involved by protecting the confidentiality of the information; and to listen to what is being said and understand it. These represent the key elements of communication; and without them, the process of communication is interrupted. According to Forster (2011), “through various media of communication, companies all over the world make decisions that affect millions of people; the activities of thousands of employees are organized; complex management systems are coordinated, and the success or failure of businesses are determined”. Accordingly, to be able to communicate effectively in a certain environment or workplace, one will have to focus heavily on developing good communication skills. There are different ways of communication and choosing one depends entirely on the situation at hand. One might choose to speak face to face with others or over the phone, or one might choose another medium where no human contact is involved, e.g. memo, e-mail, SMS, etc. According to Forster (2011), “Communication between individuals and groups is essential if organizations are to function effectively and cope with the increasingly turbulent international business world of the 2000’s. If an organization has problems with communication, the chances are that it will not be operating effectively. If you remove communication completely, an organization cannot even start to function. We all know from personal experience that communication breakdowns between individuals and groups within organizations occur frequently and, sometimes, can be very costly” Most of the problems in organizations are due to weaknesses and gaps in the communication process. The development of communication skills helps to create interpersonal relations and to improve the mutual transfer of information. It is a two-way process through which the information flows between two parties. McCauley et al (2004) considers that a communication process can be effective if it's able to increase the level of inspiration and motivation within the followers. Communication can take place through meetings and briefings among the members of the organization. In his book on Maximum Performance, Foster (2011) emphasizes on the need of developing communication skills to become an effective leader. In order for a leader to be effective, he/she must be capable of communicating his/her goals to the team of employees and explaining the process and plan to be followed to achieve these goals in a convincing, clear and effective way. The leader should be able to make this plan easily understood and easily implemented through proper channels of communication so that he/she can utilize the capabilities of the employees in the best way possible. Therefore a successful business plan may equally succeed or fail depending on how well it is implemented according to the plan set. Successful implementation of a business plan can only be achieved if the working team clearly understands the process and steps to follow systematically; and this can only be attained by the team if the process to follow and steps to implement are well defined and communicated in an effective way. Such a communication process can be done verbally in the beginning with the team, followed by written guidelines and the setting up of a well coordinated reporting system where the input of the team and performance can be checked and monitored for analysis and assessment. Forster (2011) argues that in order to develop communication skills, one should start by enhancing self-awareness that involves self-assessment which can be maintained through personal trust and honesty with oneself. Self-assessment can be practiced through developing and focusing on emotional intelligence, using self-assessment tools like taking tests and quizzes which are readily available on-line, and accepting feedback from colleagues, higher level managers and close friends. No effective communication skills can be built without self acknowledgement of one’s weak points in that regard, and the positive will to want to improve on those weaknesses. Like they say, when there is a will, there is a way. Due to the importance of communication, as a “must” skill in the business field, academic institutions offer to teach methods and techniques on how to become an effective leader through academic courses. However, we should always keep in mind that this issue is subjective and therefore an individual’s personal input is equally important if such academic training were to have positive results on one’s enhancement of his/her communication skills. On a personal level, I know the importance of successful communication at all levels. I further realize its significance to me because I am currently enrolled in the Business Management program after which I plan to work in our family owned construction company. As a member of the management team in our company, I know I have to be able to have effective communication skills because I will be dealing with a lot of different people who have different educational back grounds. I will need to be able to understand engineers, project managers, architects, electricians, plumbers and the common workers when I talk to them. I must have an effective communication skill to get my message across such a variety of skilled people. Any plan I try to set, must be very well communicated to all that will be implementing this plan. I will also need to further enhance my knowledge about the construction field in a general way so that I understand the terminology. Since enhancing one’s communication skills is a subjective matter, being honest here will play an important role to develop that. I will be honest and brave enough to say, “I understand” when I do, and “please further explain because I don’t understand” when I don’t. Businesses depend on employees at different levels to do different tasks and therefore a successful business that meets it goals is the result of successful teamwork that was able to work in an environment where a successful communication system was well established at all levels. As a future manager I intend to focus on three aspects of the communication process at the personal face to face level: 1. Active listening: being a good listener will give me an insight into the other person/s point of view/s and will enable me understand them so that any decision I take, will take into consideration those points of views. This will create an open communication system and create a better working environment in addition to the better decisions that will be reached by listening to others. According to Mackay (1994) cited in Forster (2011), the individual speaking can deliver 100-125 words per minute, while the listener can process 500 words per minute, which reflects the presence of “idle time” where the listener gets distracted or starts pre-formulating responses, which yields in distracting the active listening process, and rather allocating the intellectual capabilities in thinking of answers and judgments instead of listening actively. Hence, of most importance is to learn how to effectively utilize this “idle time”. Moreover, maintaining active listening is not just allocated to thinking and listening, it is also related to facial movements. As argued by Forster (2011), every individual has 3000 facial movements that can appear in a matter of seconds, thus it is very important to learn how to control the facial movements in order to maintain active listening and overcome distractions. One approach to learning and practicing active listening is to apply the Chinese Whisper exercise, which uncovers the listening gaps and teaches how to deliver the original content of the message through progressive practices. This exercise will help develop active listening skills through accumulating the critical techniques in developing communication dialogues. Considering the human nature as argued by Forster (2011), “we have two eyes, two ears, and one mouth” which reflects the importance of listening and the importance of talking proportionally to those ratios. To enhance my active listening skills, I will have to learn how to listen most of the time, how to maintain self-discipline and strengthen my patience. I will have to learn not to develop instant responses and listen just for the sake of listening, as I have to concentrate and focus on the speaker’s message through either taking mental notes or written ones. Furthermore, I will have to control my non-verbal expressions through controlling my facial expressions and maintaining positive eye contact and learn how to be aware of my gestures and not reveal any discomfort or negative physical gestures. Perhaps, following Forster (2011) in his suggestion in setting up a video camera to record how to behave with others in groups would enhance my awareness of my facial expressions and body language and will allow me to develop my active listening skills more precisely. 2. Feedback: I will create an online page which I will only have access to and invite employees to write feedbacks about general issues and policies of the company. As a manger, this will help me assess the level of satisfaction of the employees so that I can address this issue whenever I feel that the general morale is low. Employees must always be motivated to perform better. The reverse-feedback, which is my feedback regarding the employees’ work in general is another communication path that is equally important. Whenever feedback about an employee is being discussed with that employee, I should to learn how to focus on providing positive news so that a constructive dialog can be established. Furthermore, I will focus on the employee’s behavior rather than his/her personal characteristics, as I have to learn how to judge employees based on their performance, not their character. Moreover, I should learn how to identify gaps and problems, how to utilize positive language, support my arguments, make sure I am understood, agree on future actions, and most important is to be fair. To make the feedback less touchy I should follow and practice the five steps of an effective performance appraisal, (1) Planning: which means setting performance expectations and targets for groups and individuals to channel their efforts toward achieving organizational objectives. (2) Monitoring: employees by measuring performance and providing ongoing feedback on their progress toward reaching their targets. (3) Developing: which focuses on raising the capacity to perform through training by giving assignments that introduce new skills or improve the work process. (4) Rating: this is where the evaluation of an employee’s performance against the standards expected. (5) Rewarding: is recognizing employees individually and as members of groups, for their performance and acknowledging their achievements to the organization’s mission. 3. Macro communication/knowledge management: where the use of verbal and written communication will be used in order to convey logical decisions by the company and make sure that those decisions are perceived as fair by the employees. With respect to Knowledge management, as maintained by Forster (2011), “effective knowledge management provides important bridges between organizational change, innovation and learning. In today’s world of information technology (IT), fast access to information and the related analyses of that information plays a very important role in effective management. We can store vast amounts of data and then retrieve selective information from that data to perform tables and graphs that will give us objective studies about different topics as related to the variables that we select. Real time studies on various aspects of the business can be shown and this provides strong analytic tools for the management to use in decision making. A lot a different software systems are available for different application purposes, but it is important for me to be able to understand the basics of this aspect so that I can request for customized applications that will fit the business that I am in. I should always update my knowledge as related to IT developments so that I can effectively use any new tools to enhance the performance of management. A well managed company is a successful company. My aim is to eventually be a leading manager in our construction company and I now realize how important for me it is to enhance my communication skills. In his study, McClauley et al (2004) found out that the most important skill considered by managers and leaders in any industry in any country globally is the effective communication skill. Also according to Avolio (2005), he recognizes the personal communication development as an individual and distinctive “life stream.” The researcher reveals that the skills will have to be developed through adapting them to our life stream; he further explains that every stage in our lives involves new potentials and threats, which require skills’ adaptation to meet every challenge and opportunity. There are many stages through which the individual might pass in order to become a strong and effective leader. Those stages, in addition to the specific qualities needed or related to the position and its tasks and responsibilities, play an important role in creating the successful leader. II know that for an effective leader, I must be able to use so many different communication techniques such as: * Top Down: As a leading manager, I might have certain ideas that could push our business forward. It is important therefore, for me to make sure that I communicate that information or idea to the employees so that they know my plan and my goal since they are going to work to implement it. This could be done in many different ways; emails, company wikis, company blogs or internal forums. Email is the most effective as this is an “information push” rather than an “information pull” culture. By information push, I am actually pushing the information to the employees’ desktop instead of expecting them to “pull” out the information through the other forms listed. * Bottom up: Junior members in companies believe that they are important and that they can make their contribution to enhance the well-being of the company through providing new ideas. They may not be able to enforce their ideas and this makes them disengage themselves emotionally from their leaders. As a result, the team spirit takes a beating and the company loses. All this can be changed if the leaders stop being dismissive about the capabilities of their juniors and encourage them, instead, to voice their opinions for running the company in a better way. A system should then be put in place to receive those suggestions, vet them, and finally to implement the ones that are worthwhile. The communication channel to the top, could be a dedicated email or voicemail box, should be provided for the people to be able to raise, anonymously, reasoned criticism of the leaders’ decisions, actions or work styles. All this will help create a better working atmosphere. * Cross functional: As the name suggests, this is communication between different departments in the company. I will encourage that as a leading manager because of the positive impacts it has. Business communication between the different department creates a friendlier environment and provides better customer service when more departments have an idea of what the others are doing. Strengths and weaknesses can be observed and worked upon for better results. Conclusion It is obvious that no business will succeed where teamwork is involved and where the communication network is broken. Developing communication skills requires a lot individual effort; and can further be enhanced and maintained through attending leadership development seminars, university courses and training workshops. It is no surprise today to see many businesses encouraging their managers attend such courses and seminars. In a business world that is changing so fast, a successful leader must stay up to date on new managerial techniques that will keep improving his communication skills on all levels. Question Two If you work for a small company, what steps do you think need to be taken to enhance communication processes internally and externally, in order to improve your ability to maintain repeat business with existing customers and clients, and to generate new business in the future' Introduction A successful business is one that has a well defined business plan with clear goals and objectives that are clearly communicated to and understood by the employees. Regardless of the type of business, the concept of successful communication is a key factor that must always be assessed and never overlooked. I shall use this as my guideline in assessing the communication process in a company in order to highlight the strengths and weaknesses and provide guidelines for improvement. Discussion The company I shall study in this paper is my family owned business, Al-Obekan Construction Corporation, operating its business in the Saudi Construction industry, since 2004. The company employs 40 people. My approach to the topic of communication in the company will be done by laying the plan that I want to implement, and then check this against what is actually being done. Like other markets and businesses, the Saudi construction business is quite competitive and in order for a construction company to survive, the management should be fully alert and ready to implement fast changes that would make the business more efficient and cut costs where necessary without compromising quality. Since the construction business deals with a lot of suppliers that supply various materials, it is quite important to maintain a good and friendly relationship with those suppliers. This brings me to look at the external communication part where the company is communicating with people or companies who are not working for the Al-Obekan company directly. * External communication: Through this medium of communication, the company interacts with its suppliers and it is therefore very important that the mode of communication be a professional one so that a positive image of the company can be created and maintained. Such an image is essential within a competitive business environment. Also, the communication process must be a transparent one and documented to avoid any gaps and mistakes. A well defined purchasing plan prepared by the company according to its capabilities and contractual obligations, must be put in place and communicated verbally and in writing to the suppliers. Terms and conditions will be clearly defined to avoid any future disagreements. This means of communication provides a well established external structure for the company. Dealing with suppliers will therefore be a process well defined to the company and the suppliers. It is vital at this point for our company to make sure that all its employees who are linked to purchasing are quite familiar with the purchasing terms and conditions policy so that it can be implemented properly. By doing this, we will be following a top-bottom communication order which is a very effective way. Furthermore, I will make sure that any publicized economic information, press releases, advertising campaigns that contain commercials relating to our business or to suppliers and customers will be circulated to the employees in “push” form environment through emails. Although this is internal communication, yet it is highlighted here as it is related to the external communication part as well. * Internal communication: I will implement the following feedback plans for performance appraisal: i) Planning: which means setting performance expectations and targets for groups and individuals to channel their efforts toward achieving organizational objectives. ii) Monitoring: employees by measuring performance and providing ongoing feedback on their progress toward reaching their targets. iii) Developing: which focuses on raising the capacity to perform through training by giving assignments that introduce new skills or improve the work process. iv) Rating: this is where the evaluation of an employee’s performance against the standards expected. v) Rewarding: is recognizing employees individually and as members of groups, for their performance and acknowledging their achievements to the organization’s mission. In providing better communication across the board and creating a positive atmosphere between employees and management, I shall use the bottom up communication as part of the Internal communication as follows: * Bottom up: Junior members in companies believe that they are important and that they can make their contribution to enhance the well-being of the company through providing new ideas. They may not be able to enforce their ideas and this makes them disengage themselves emotionally from their leaders. As a result, the team spirit takes a beating and the company loses. All this can be changed if the leaders stop being dismissive about the capabilities of their juniors and encourage them, instead, to voice their opinions for running the company in a better way. A system should then be put in place to receive those suggestions, vet them, and finally to implement the ones that are worthwhile. The communication channel to the top, could be a dedicated email or voicemail box, should be provided for the people to be able to raise, anonymously, reasoned criticism of the leaders’ decisions, actions or work styles. All this will help create a better working atmosphere. Finally, I will make sure to use the tools offered by IT to create applications where I will be able to load a lot of data from daily reports and then retrieve the data required to display analyses that will be of interest to me. Such data will will highlight certain trends that would not have been easily detected. With the above major aspects of my communication plan, I compared this plan to what is actually being implemented in the company, and I was surprised to find that only certain aspects were in place while there was no focus on the majority. The external communication part was mostly in place, but a lot needs to be done on the internal communication part.This concludes my review of communication skills in Al-Obekan Construction Corporation. Conclusion In today’s world, we can no longer rely on simple day to day business models as businesses have evolved and have become more competitive. We should be able to enhance our understanding with modern business approaches that consider so many aspects of a business. One of these aspects is the effective communication skill, and I hope to have been able to show “effectively” in this paper how important this topic is for any business. References * Forster (2011), “Maximum Performance: A Practical Guide to Leading and Managing People at Work”, pp. 592, 4th edition. * Chapman, A. (2001). Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs motivational model. Retrieved from http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm * Communication process. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.cls.utk.edu/pdf/ls/Week1_Lesson7.pdf * Markus, H., and E. Wurf (1987) “The Dynamic Self-Concept: A Social Psychological Perspective,” Annual Review of Psychology, 38 pp. 299- 337 * McCauley, C.D., and E. Van Velsor (eds.) (2004) Handbook of Leadership Development, Josey Bass pp.131-139 * Performance appraisal handbook www.doi.gov/hrm/guidance/370dm430hndbk.pdf