Purpose and Strategy in Communication

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Overview

Overview

The key ingredients to career success are communication, integrity/ethics, interpersonal and team skills, and intercultural awareness. In this skill, you will learn to identify the purpose of the message, analyze the audience, strategize, organize, and disseminate information for employees and others to grasp the clear intent of the message with understanding and motivating self and peers to move forward.

In Foundations and Principles of Communication, you will learn the communication skills that are critical for everyone to succeed. No matter what industry you choose to enter, you must communicate effectively, strategically, and diplomatically, using the “you” attitude (the sender treats the receiver the way he or she would want to be treated, anticipating the receiver’s reaction). You must have excellent verbal communication, the ability to command a room, assertiveness, emotional intelligence, sense of humor, good posture/body language, and outstanding listening skills. Effective organizational communication leads to productivity, quality, and increased employee morale. A communication strategy should be used in preparation of all communication: identifying and assessing the purpose, analyzing your audience, choosing the best medium and format, and using the “you” perspective. Strategic approaches to communication are the direct (deductive) approach and indirect (inductive) approach. If the message is positive or neutral, use the direct approach and get right to the point at the very beginning in the first sentence, first paragraph. If the message is negative, bury the main topic in the middle of the middle paragraph. Persuasive communication is used to sell something, including yourself in a job cover letter, or to convince someone else to do something for you. To persuade the receiver, try using the AIDA Concept:

Attention

Interested

Desire

Action

Create Attention for the request. Then, elaborate to make the reader Interested in the product or service. Then, Desire. Explain the reasons that the reader would want to agree to the request. Finally, Action. Tell the reader what to do specifically, including how and by when. Always be concrete so that the reader knows exactly what is necessary, rather than to infer incorrectly.

Efficient and effective meeting facilitation is also critical. Once you enter the workplace, you will most likely have several meetings per day, and you do not want to waste your own time or that of others. Be sure the meeting is necessary, distribute the agenda in advance, and keep members on task. Conflict can be good for an organization as it brings new ideas, but it also must be managed effectively to be advantageous and not cause issues. Interpersonal skills must be perfected to handle conflict well. Always maintain professionalism. Never yell, or shout, or say anything that you might regret. Feedback is important to employees to stop negative behavior immediately and reinforce positive behavior.

Business etiquette and workplace etiquette are also part of communication, from how one dresses, speaks, acts, and conducts oneself. One should always dress appropriately for the occasion. It is better to overdress, be more formal, than to underdress; if you don’t wear the proper attire, you cannot adjust. If you overdress, you can always take off the tie and/or blazer. Finally, acceptable netiquette (NETwork ETIQUETTE) is important. Just because someone is online does not mean that etiquette protocol should not be followed. Sentences in email messages should follow accurate grammar, syntax, punctuation, capitalization, and sentence and paragraph structure. Language is also important, as is not overusing emojis or acronyms. Not everyone knows what the emoji or acronym you might be tempted to use stands for or means. If you do not know your audience, they might perceive smiley faces as overzealous or flighty. Or depending on the generation, the reader might not know the emoji or acronym meaning. If the reader is not with your organization or in your profession, they might not know or understand the acronym or jargon that you are using.

Suggested Further Reading

Ashcraft, K. L., Kuhn, T. R., & Cooren, F. (2009). Constitutional amendments: “Materializing” organizational communication. Academy of Management Annals, 3(1), 164. https://doi.org/10.5465/19416520903047186
Eliadus, A. (2020). Leadership: The five elements of effective organizational communication. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/unicefusa/2022/04/06/a-childs-life-underground-in-kharkiv-ukraine/?sh=30fbc9776e60
Feltz, A. A. (2019). Organizational communication: A critical perspective. Administration & Society, 54(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/009539979202300405
Heide, M., von Platen, S., Simonsson, C., & Falkheimer, J. (2018). Expanding the scope of strategic communication: Towards a holistic understanding of organizational complexity. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 12(4), 452468. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2018.1456434
May, S., & Mumby, D. K. (2005). Thinking about engagement. In S.May & D. . K.Mumby (Eds.), Engaging organizational communication theory and research: Multiple perspectives. Sage Publishing.
Rice, R., & Paul, L. (2011). Information & technologies in organizations. In L. L.Putnam & D. K.Mumby (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational communication advances in theory, research, and methods (
3 ed
.). Sage Publishing.
Robles, M. M. (2012). Executive perceptions of the top ten soft skills needed in today’s workplace. Business Communication Quarterly, 75(4), 453465. https://doi.org/10.1177/1080569912460400
Robles, M. M. (2020). “Ups and downs” and “ins and outs” of organizational communication. Business Communication Research and Practice, 3(1), 13. https://doi.org/10.22682/bcrp.2020.3.1.1