The lifeblood of any organization is information and the flow of that information between the various parts of the enterprise.
Business communication is an extremely broad subject. It includes interdepartmental memos, staff meetings, conferences, customer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, employee engagement, community involvement, corporate training and a great deal more.
If you have multiple issues concerning business communication, it may help to keep the following points in mind while tackling those problems.
Business Communication is Goal Oriented
Each aspect of business communications has a goal or set of goals. Keep in mind those goals before deciding to make any changes. Also, keep in mind the relative importance of various goals.
For example, keeping all promises to customers is a vital goal, but a more vital one is that of keeping the company alive. In such an example, if you need to retool your operation in order to stay in business, but that means delaying delivery to key customers, you have a business communications nightmare on your hands.
One goal might be that of communicating the company’s strength so that customers feel confident in their purchases. Perhaps a more important goal might be that of being worthy of trust. Admitting a problem to your customers might engender greater understanding and a willingness to work with you through your difficulties.
Business Communication is All about Information
When you break down the mechanics of communication to its simplest components, you have the sender, a distance or medium, the receiver and the package of information being delivered across that distance from sender to receiver. Problems can arise with any one or all of these components.
The sender desires to deliver some information to the receiver or the receiver desires some information from the sender.
Any one of these components can be defective in some manner with regards to optimum communication.
- Sender—might not be entirely skilled at the delivery.
- Distance or Medium—might be filled with interference or noise.
- Receiver—might not understand the vocabulary or concepts of the information.
- Information—might be poorly constructed, contain erroneous data or contain gaps of missing information that may lead to distortions and misunderstandings.
In today’s business world, each of these components of business communications must be addressed fully so that information flows smoothly and without distortions. Perhaps the best way to address this is through corporate training, especially online training courses that give all senders and receivers knowledge of the mechanics of communication and how to spot errors and to correct them. Such e-learning allows employees greater flexibility to obtain this valuable information without adversely interrupting their productivity.