Introduction: Purpose statement and main points
Communication skills are extremely important in the modern world. The problem is really urgent in cases when written documentation becomes evidence in the courts. Thus, business people should care greatly about the communication skills they acquire, otherwise, they will not be able to communicate with partners in a written form. One of the main reasons to get communication skills and use those in practice is the ability to write messages so that they are not turned against the sender.
Communication Problems and Communication Objectives
There are a lot of different communication skills. Considering the problem deeper it was concluded that it is possible to rank those communication skills from most to least important. Here is the list: (1) clarity: the information should not be understood in two ways; (2) tone: the tone should be appropriate to the occasion. It is inadmissible to be impolite, rude, or abrupt; (3) grammar: any mistakes should be avoided; (4) length: the paper should not contain extra words (Ratner, 2001).
Considering the solutions to the problems (with the purpose to avoid those), it should be mentioned that before sending a message one should re-read it one more time. It is better if another person will do it. It is necessary to make sure that there are no slang words or other ideas with negative connotation. It is important to be sure that a writer understands what he/she is writing about. Some words may be checked to assure that they are unambiguous.
Key communication skills
After a thorough analysis of the case, a list of four key communication skills may be provided with a brief critical analysis of each one. The key communication skills are as follows, tone, clarity, plain talk, and misplaced modifiers. Referencing those communication skills to the case study, it may be concluded that the participants of written communication failed to understand those as their messages were inflammatory, in some cases with negative connotation, and offensive. One of the most crucial evidences in the case was the internal memo which calculated the cases occurred with fuel fed fires written by an engineer of General Motors. The engineer failed to layout the information plain and clear that led to the problems in General Motors. It is the problem to represent the information clearly as it seems that everything is understood, but when one message it took out of the whole communication, wrong conclusions may be made.
Brief critical analysis
Here is the list of concepts which should be referred to the case study discussed in Eyres (2003). Core values in the case study are not the moral principles but the possibility to organize the evidence in such a way that it could be turned against the competing organizations. Communication is invention and different emails in business documentation, support this idea. It should be stated that the main idea of leader’s job is to identify the core values in the situation and to distribute the roles between workers to avoid tension. It is the leader’s responsibility to care for documentation and rules for its creation. Psychological and physical barriers to communication are presented in the idea that some managers are afraid of writing as such messages may be used against them. Feedback is important as it shows the level of relations between the companies.
Conclusion: Summary and recommendations
Communication is important in the business sphere. The development of different innovative technologies made it possible to write messages and receive immediate response. Still, people should be careful if they write even informal messages as all that information may be considered as documentation evidence at the court.
References
Eyres, P. S. (2003). Every word counts: Business communications can come back to haunt you. Supply House Times, 80–82.
Ratner, B. D. (2001). Written Communication Skills. Engineer’s Toolbox. Web.