Introduction to Business Communication
Mastering communication skills is a reliable way to stand out from the crowd of job applicants. Today, more than ever before, employers are interested in their employees’ ability to communicate adequately. Effective communication presupposes the capacity to transfer the message in a way that will allow other people to understand it and respond to it in the desired manner (— Introduction to Business 3).
Unlike ordinary, everyday communication, business communication has to be practical, factual, concise, clear, and persuasive. To effectively transfer a message, a sender should carefully evaluate their ideas and organize them in a systematic and logical manner that would suit best for the purpose of communication (— Introduction to Business 6).
The ability to communicate in a business environment might be hindered by the following factors that are not typical for less formal communication: workforce diversity, the pervasiveness of technology, the complexity of the organizational structures, and a teamwork orientation, among others (— Introduction to Business 21).
To achieve better results in business communication, it is necessary to tailor the message to the intended audience. To this end, acquiring a basic understanding of the level of your listeners’ expertise, as well as fine-tuning of the communication strategies are required. The proper business etiquette and the ability to provide and receive feedback in a constructive manner are among the most important factors in business communication (— Introduction to Business 24).
Intercultural Communication
It is important to be able to communicate effectively with people from different and cultural backgrounds to have a successful career. The modern business provides a wide range of multicultural settings where one is expected to interact with colleagues from different countries (Pearson Intercultural Communication 2).
Culture shapes most of the aspects of communication. It defines the meaning of words and gestures, time and space relationships, and rules of human interaction. Cultural diversity includes the differences between ethnic, religious, and national heritage and brings to the workplace a broad range of viewpoints and ideas. It helps companies to reach into diverse markets, as well as different pools of talent. However, it might affect the way business messages are sent and received (Pearson Intercultural Communication 9).
There are negative tendencies and ways of perception of different cultures that must be avoided at all costs. Ethnocentrism is the evaluation of other groups by the standards of one’s own society with the inherent belief that those standards are superior. Stereotyping is the adoption of a belief that certain individuals or types of people share common, generalized characteristics because of their membership in a particular group. Xenophobia is an irrational fear of other cultures and foreigners. The attitude of cultural pluralism must be adopted; that is, all cultures have to be accepted on their own terms for a workforce to be truly productive (Pearson Intercultural Communication 16).
When communicating across different cultures, people tend to create their messages based on the framework of their cultures. To overcome cultural differences, those engaging in communication must be aware of the contextual and social differences between them and the recipients of their messages. Two types of cultures can be recognized in the framework of communication: high context and low context. The culture that conveys and receives meaning based on a nonverbal action is called a high-context culture.
Low-context culture, on the other hand, does not rely heavily on the pattern of physical signs and cues and focuses mainly on the meaning of words. Understanding those differences in perception significantly reduces the difficulties in cross-cultural communicating (Pearson Intercultural Communication 32).
Works Cited
Pearson. Intercultural Communication. n.d. Web.
—. Introduction to Business Communication. n.d. Web.