Effective listening
Listening is a crucial part of communication as it ensures that information dispersed reaches the final or targeted destination in the right form and style. With an effective listening, message is encoded and decoded in the right manner (Harvard Business School, 2002). The following are important techniques that can enhance effective listening:
- Minimize internal distractions
When getting information, the listener should give the giver of the information chance to express his or her opinion. Any internal differences or feelings about the topic under discussion should be halted as it’s likely to affect the communication among the team. Communication experts suggest that the listener should hold other things constant and focus on the sender of information (Whitaker, 2004).
- Even if the speaker is launching a complaint against you, wait until they finish to defend yourself
When sender is communication information, the listener should always hold his or her opinions; he should not seem to attack the sender of information as doing so might discourage more information from the sender. On the other hand, it has been noted that when the listener works to defend his or her stand, then communication is never effective (Shannon & Weaver, 1999).
Effective meetings
Meetings are used by the community or the business fraternity to solve issues and challenges affecting them; however there are times that meetings might bring more issues in an organization or community than the anticipated benefits, the following are ways of having an effective meeting:
- Don’t Meet
The paradigm of don’t meet emphasizes that meetings should only take place when they are needed; this illustrates that in the event something can be solved in one way communication, or through a memo, then there should be no meeting. In the event a meeting is conveyed and the agenda can only be decided in one way, then empty augments will follow and this fails to be effective meetings as issues are hardly discussed.
- Examine Your Meeting Process
Meetings are likely to happen more than one time, it is important for the management or the meeting control groups to always sit back and reflect on the meetings they have had. They should ensure they understand the strengths of the meeting, what made the meetings results as it did and probably how they can improve future meetings in light of how previous ones have been. The above assists in improving future meetings.
Effective reporting
After a day of handwork and meetings, reports needs to be written to communicate the proceedings of the case as well as keen a record of the decisions made in a meeting. An effective reporting system is thus important (Guffey, 2009). The following are two elements that can facilitate writing effective reports:
- Use of standard language
Depending with the consumers of information, the language adopted in reports should reflect an understanding of the topic discussed and high levels of professionalism. It is important to have business reports written in business language and other caster of reports written in such language. The above will increase reliability of the report.
- Don’t give opinions or personal views
The writer of a report should distance his opinions from the constituents of the report; the distance should be maintained irrespective of whether the opinions were the one taken as the final decisions in the meetings. The language should address what the panel in the meeting suggested not personal opinions suggested (Guffer & Almonte, 2009).
References
Guffer, M. E. & Almonte, R. (2009). Essentials of Business Communication. New York: Cengage Learning.
Guffey, Y. (2009). Business Communication: Process and Product. New York: Cengage Learning.
Harvard Business School. (2002). Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (A) (Abridged). New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1999). The mathematical theory of communication. Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
Whitaker, R. (2004). Media writing: print, broadcast, and public relations. New York: Routledge.