• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • What’s to come

1 CommuniCating in a Changing Business World

8 4 Communication ability = Promotability

8 4 “i’ll never have to Write Because …”

8 5 Principles that Can help improve Your Communications

8 8 the managerial Functions of Communication

8 10 trends in Business Communication

8 18 the Cost of Writing

8 19 the Cost of Poor Writing

8 20 Benefits of improving Writing

8 20 Criteria for effective messages

8 20 understanding and analyzing Business Communication situations

8 22 summary of Key Points

An Inside Perspective

aintaining effective communications is at the heart of negotiating change in the internal and external business environment today. Taking over in December 2007 as CEO of Vancouver-based Moun-

tain Equipment Co-op (MEC), David Labistour drew on a long experience of change. The first CEO to be promoted from within MEC, Labistour began his professional career as a windsurfer in his native South Africa. From product management to brand management and from retail to consultancy, he built a career taking him to Canada in 1999 and finding in MEC an opportunity to join his passion for sports and business.

As a co-operative committed to products “built with purpose, people, and the planet in mind,” MEC exists to serve its 2.6 million members. The people in the organization have a “passion to do things better,” which “is just good business,” according to Labistour.

MEC has been successful in working its social and environmental goals into its business goals “because we don’t have a social and environmental team that sits as an adjunct to the mainstream business. Our social and environmental goals are embedded into all the mainstream functional jobs.” As a result of team efforts “pushing for a more sustainable organization, financially, socially and environmentally, there are advantages and efficiencies to be gained.”

Communicating effectively and working closely with suppliers is an impor-tant part of sustaining ethical sourcing and safe and healthy workplaces: “If our factories don’t meet our requirements out of the gate, we don’t cut and run, we work with them to develop these things.”

“It’s not that you are necessarily a wonderful organization that does magic things.” What matters is communicat-ing transparently about progress toward goals. Winner of two 2008 Conference Board of Canada awards for governance excellence, MEC continues the co-op way: leading by example.*

*Based on “Q&a with david labistour,” Canadian Business, march 18, 2008, 10; Fiona anderson, “meC gets award for sustainable business,” Vancouver Sun, February 14, 2008; monte stewart, “mountain equipment Co-op perfect fit for south african surfer,” Business Edge, march 21, 2008, re-trieved march 26, 2008 from http://www.businessedge.ca/article.cfm/newsid/17455.cfm.

David Labistour, CEO of Mountain Equipment Co-op, balances a love of sports and business goals, social and corporate responsibility.

M

4  • ChaPter 1

Within the family, in the classroom, at work, or at play, you have been communicating for results throughout your life. Consciously or unconsciously, you have been thinking about your purposes (what action, reaction, result, or reward you want) and your audiences (parents, siblings, teachers, team-mates, or colleagues) in choosing what, when, and how to communicate. You have been learning from what works (or not) and adapting to change.

Business likewise depends on communication. People must communicate to plan products; hire, train, and moti-vate workers; coordinate manufacturing and delivery; per-suade customers to buy; bill them for the sale; and prepare for and manage change. Indeed, for many businesses and non-profit and government organizations, the “product” is information or services created and delivered by commu-nication. In every organization, communication is the way people build working relationships, get their points across, and get work done.

Communication takes many forms: face-to-face, phone, or cell conversations, informal or even virtual meetings, e-mail, blogs, wikis, text, instant messages, letters, memos, and reports. All of these methods are forms of verbal com-munication, or communication that uses words. Nonver-bal communication does not use words. Pictures, computer graphics, and company logos are nonverbal. Interpersonal nonverbal signals include smiles, who sits where at a meet-ing, the size of an office, and how long someone keeps a visitor waiting.

This chapter and those that follow guide you through the principles and practice of effective business communica-tion, offering incentives and examples while sharing tools

that will help you negotiate change and improve commu-nication skills.

CommuniCation ability = Promotability

Even “entry-level” jobs require high-level skills in reason-ing, mathematics, and communicating. You’ll read informa-tion; you’ll listen to instructions; you’ll ask questions; you may solve problems with other workers in teams. As a result, communication ability ranks first among the qualities that employers look for in job and promotion candidates.

For the full text of the Conference Board of Canada’s Em-ployability Skills 2000+, see Figure 1.8 later in this chapter. The employability skills are as relevant to entering, staying, or gaining promotion in the workplace as in our daily lives. And these valuable skills have become even more important with the expansion of the Internet—where, author Charles Rubin argues, “you are what you write.”1

According to Darlene Bailey, vice-president human re-sources and field operations, WCG International Consultants in Victoria: “If you have those [soft] skills, you have a bet-ter chance of getting a job and keeping the job… Perhaps everyone knows a teacher has to be a good communicator, but it’s a skill that many others have to call on, whether it’s to deal with co-workers, customers, suppliers, or others they encounter even in the most solitary of positions.”2

In a work world where the ability to “analyze, write, persuade, and manage” can “facilitate career change,”3 good writers—not surprisingly—earn more. Linguist Stephen Reder has found that among people with two- or four-year degrees, workers in the top 20% of writing ability earn, on average, more than three times as much as workers whose writing falls into the worst 20%.4

“i’ll never Have to Write beCause…”

Some students think that a secretary will do their writing, that they can use form letters if they do have to write, that only technical skills matter, or that they’ll call rather than write. Each of these claims is fundamentally flawed.

Claim 1: Secretaries will do all my writing.

Reality: Downsizing and technology have cut support staffs nationwide. Of the secretaries who remain, 71% are administrative assistants whose duties are man-agerial.5

Claim 2: I’ll use form letters or templates when I need to write.

Reality: A form letter is a prewritten, fill-in-the-blank let-ter designed to fit standard situations. The higher you rise, the more frequently you’ll face situations that aren’t routine, that demand creative solutions.

When Watson Wyatt & Co. examined communications of 267 companies and their return to shareholders in a 2003–04 study, co-author Kathryn Yates found, “The bottom line is that employee communications is no longer a ‘soft’ function, but rather a business function that drives performance and contributes to a company’s financial success.”

The 2005–06 Watson Wyatt study confirms that effective communication is “the lifeblood of a successful organiza-tion” and “a leading indicator of an organization’s financial performance.” Companies that communicate effectively have these results over companies that do not:

•19.4%highermarketpremium

•57%highershareholderreturnsinyears2000–04

•4.5timesmorelikelytoreporthighemployeeengagement

•20%morelikelytoreportlowturnoverrates

*Based on “Better communication pays off for companies,” The Globe and Mail, november 7, 2003, C1; Watson Wyatt, Effective Communication: A Leading Indicator of Financial Performance—2005/2006 Communication ROI Study. retrieved march 21, 2008, from http://www.watsonwyatt.com/research/printable.asp?id=w-868

lessons from the best*

CommuniCating in a Changing Business World  • 5

Claim 3: I’m being hired as an accountant, not a writer.

Reality: In September 2001, the Canadian Institute of Char-tered Accountants published its Canadian CA Com-petency Map (a living document revised in 2005) as part of education reform for CA qualification. While technical skills remain important, they are valued at a lower level than performance in interpersonal communications, persuasive writing and presenta-tions, listening and comprehending, ethics and the professional code of conduct, and skill development for lifelong learning. To be competitive in a global economy, accountants, like engineers, need these skills: “communications, team building, report writing and preparing presentations.”6

Claim 4: I’ll just pick up the phone or use my cell.

Reality: Important calls require follow-up letters, memos, or e-mail messages. Peo-ple in organizations put things in writing to make themselves and their ac-complishments visible, create a record, convey complex data, make things convenient for the reader, save money, and convey their own messages more effec-tively. “If it isn’t in writ-ing,” says one manager, “it didn’t happen.”

PrinCiPles tHat Can HelP imProve your CommuniCationsMany miscommunications arise not because people genu-inely disagree but because they make different assumptions and use symbols to mean different things. Communication theory and semantics can help us understand how, why, and where communication can break down, and what we can do to communicate more effectively. Communication theory attempts to explain what happens when we communicate. Semantics is the study of the way our behaviour is influenced by the words and other symbols we use to communicate.

The model of the communication process (Figure 1.1) simplifies what is perhaps the most complex human activity. Never merely a matter of transmitting information, the pro-cess is social, situational, and sophisticated. However, even a simplified model can give us some sense of the complexity of the communication process and of the communication con-text (from the immediate situation to the broader culture).

The model helps us see that speakers negotiate meanings in particular contexts that are themselves always changing (see “Trends in Business Communication” in this chapter). The eight principles of semantics help us understand and take account of the ways that those contexts shape and are shaped by communications.

The model is likewise useful in helping us see where and why miscommunication occurs at each stage from stimulus and perception to encoding the message to transmission to decoding and feedback.

Feedback may be direct and immediate or indirect and delayed; it may be verbal or nonverbal. Each person in the process is responsible for feedback that clarifies and con-firms understanding.

Noise can interfere with every aspect of the communica-tion process. Noise may be physical or psychological. Physi-

Computer software can make writing easier, but there’s still no substitute for careful writing. Before you let your spell checker and grammar checker do your editing, consider these results from a University of Pittsburgh study. Researchers had graduate students proofread a business letter with or without their spell checker. When the students with the highest verbal SAT scores proofread on their own, they made, on average, 5 errors. Students with lower verbal SATs made an average of 12.3 errors.

Using the spell checker helped, right? On the contrary, when students turned on this tool, they made more mis-takes. The students with the highest verbal SAT scores averaged 16 errors, and those with lower scores averaged 17 errors.

Considering that typos are a major turnoff to prospective employers and customers, it makes sense to practise your proofreading skills.

*Based on Jay greene, “ spell-cheque nation,” BusinessWeek, may 5, 2003.

no substitute for Proofreading*

*Noise (and miscommunication) can occur here.

Context

*Perception

*Interpretation

*Choice/Selection

*Encoding

*Perception

*Interpretation

*Choice/Selection

*Encoding

*DecodingPerson

B

*Feedback

PersonA

Stimulus

*Message transmission

through achannel

Person A’scultural context

Person B’scultural context

Figure 1.1 A Model of Two-Person Communication with Feedback

6  • ChaPter 1

cal noise could be a phone line with static, or handwriting that is hard to read. Psychological noise could include not liking a speaker, being preoccupied, or having one’s mind already made up on an issue.

Channels—formal and informal—vary in speed, accuracy of transmission, cost, number of messages carried, number of people reached, efficiency, and ability to promote good-will. Depending on your purpose, audience, and situation, one channel may be better than another (8Chapter 2).

Oral channels are better for group decision making, allow misunderstandings to be cleared up more quickly, and seem more personal. Shorter communication channels are more accurate than longer chains of communications that increase the potential for error. For important messages when the cost of miscommunication is high, managers usually use two dif-ferent channels—for example, talking to someone about a written memo.

Channel choice may also be influenced by organizational culture. Waterloo-based Research In Motion (RIM) gives its employees a BlackBerry, inviting them to join a business without borders or boundaries and with endless inventive-ness and opportunity.

Channel overload occurs when the channel cannot han-dle all the messages that are being sent. A small business may have only two phone lines; no one else can get through if both lines are in use. Information overload occurs when more messages are transmitted than the human receiver can handle. Some receivers process information “first come, first served.” Some may try to select the most important messages and ignore others. A third way is to depend on abstracts or summaries prepared by other people. None of these ways is completely satisfactory.

At every stage, people may misperceive, misinterpret, choose badly, encode poorly, and choose inappropriate chan-nels. Miscommunication can also occur because different

people have different frames of reference. We always in-terpret messages in light of our personal experiences, our cultures (8Chapter 5) and subcultures, and even the point in history at which we live.

Semantic principles offer eight practical guidelines for negotiating barriers and improving communication. They help us recognize bias, monitor assumptions, and moderate claims so that messages can be more effectively relayed, re-ceived, and understood. They help us analyze and recognize logical flaws in our own and others’ arguments.

1. Perception involves the Perceiver as Well as the Perceived

What we see is conditioned by what we are able to see, what we have seen in the past, what we are prepared to see, and what we want to see—all of which are affected by our cul-tural and other experience. For example, some Canadians see an exploitable commodity when they look at the land, while many Aboriginal people see Mother Earth to whom they are responsible for stewardship of the land. Such differences can cause serious miscommunications in discussions about resource exploitation.

Most people have a tendency to attribute their own feel-ings or perceptions to other people as well. We may tune out messages we think will challenge our own positions; we seek messages that support our positions.

Use these correctives to check the accuracy of your per-ceptions:

1. Recognize that everyone’s perception will in some mea-sure be biased.

2. Recognize that different positions cause us to view reality differently and to draw different conclusions from what we observe.

3. If a new idea comes along that does not fit neatly into your worldview, recognize that your worldview, not the challenging idea, may need rethinking.

2. observations, inferences, and Judgments are not the same

Ten minutes before lunchtime, Jan is talking on the phone. Her manager thinks, “She’s talking again. Doesn’t she ever work?” Jan is talking to a potential customer; she sees the call as essential, since it may eventually lead to a sale. She can’t understand why her manager doesn’t think she’s serious about her career.

Jan’s manager sees a woman talking on the phone; he as-sumes that she’s wasting time. He has jumped to the wrong conclusion about the meaning of her behaviour.

Semanticists would say that Jan’s boss is confusing ob-servations and inferences. To a semanticist, an observation is a statement that you yourself have verified. An inference is a statement that you have not personally verified, but

In creating the right first or last impression, channel choice plays an important role. E-mail may not be the most tactful choice, especially when ending a professional or personal relationship. An e-mail sent in haste can return to haunt the sender.

When artist Sophie Calle received a breakup e-mail from her partner concluding with the wish that she take care of herself, she did just that by asking 107 female experts for their opinion of the e-mail. Their responses became the basis of her exhibition Take Care of Yourself shown at the Venice Biennale in summer 2007 and on a world tour in 2008.

Before going public, Calle showed the sender the work. Although she has never revealed his identity, he “wasn’t very happy.” Still, in the end “he had respect for the proj-ect” and did not resist.

*sarah milroy, “romantic revenge, served in multimedia,” The Globe and Mail, august 2, 2008, r4.

Choosing the right Channel*

CommuniCating in a Changing Business World  • 7

whose truth or falsity could be established, either now or in the future. A judgment or an opinion is a statement that can never be verified, since it includes terms that cannot be measured objectively.

Usually, we call statements facts if nearly everyone in our culture accepts them as true. But something is not necessar-ily true just because large numbers of people believe it. Be-fore Columbus’s arrival in North America, nearly everyone believed that the world was flat. Almost everything we know we take on someone else’s authority.

In everyday life and in business, you have to make deci-sions based on inferences (“The sales figures I’ve been given are accurate”) and even on judgments (“We have too much money tied up in long-term investments”). What should you as a reader or writer do?

1. Check to see whether a statement is an observation, an inference, or a judgment.

2. Estimate the accuracy of the inference by comparing it to your experiences with the source and with this kind of situation. If the cost of making a mistake is high, try to get more information.

3. Label your inferences so that your audience can distin-guish between what you know to be the case and what you think, assume, or judge to be true. In the following example, the italicized words remind readers that the statements are inferences.

He predicts that the stock market could move up an addi-tional 10% to 20% during the next 12 to 18 months.

3. no two things are exactly alike

We make sense of the world by grouping things into catego-ries. Once we have categories, we often simply assign each

new experience to a category and then make the response we think appropriate to that category.

Unfortunately, this convenient lumping can lead to stereotyping (8Chapter 5): putting similar people or events into a single category, even though significant differences exist.

To guard against stereotyping, do the following:

1. Recognize differences as well as similarities. The mem-bers of any one group are not identical.

2. Be sure that any analogy you use to make your point clear is accurate at the point of comparison.

4. things Change significantly with time

If you keep up with the stock market, with commodity prices, or with interest rates, you know that things (especially prices) change significantly with time.

People change, too. The sales representative who was once judged too abrasive to make a good supervisor may have mellowed by now.

Someone who does not recognize that prices, situations, and people change is guilty of making a frozen evaluation. The following corrections help us remember not to freeze evaluations:

1. Date statements. The price of Research In Motion (RIM) stock on October 20, 2001 is not the price of RIM stock onJanuary3,2009.

2. Provide a frame of reference so that your reader has some basis for comparing grades, profits, injuries, or percent-ages.

3. Periodically retest your assumptions about people, busi-nesses, products, and services to make sure that your evaluations apply to the present situation.

5. most Either–Or Classifications are not legitimate

A common logical fallacy (or error in reasoning) is polariza-tion: trying to force the reader into a position by arguing that there are only two possible positions, one of which is clearly unacceptable:

Either the supervisor runs this department with a firm hand, or anarchy will take over and the work will never get done.

Running a department “with a firm hand” is only one of several possible leadership styles; sharing authority with or even transferring it entirely to subordinates need not result in anarchy.

Even people who admit that there are more than two pos-sible positions may still limit the options unnecessarily. Such blindering, after the blinders that horses wear, can lead to polarization.

•InGermany,OktoberfestisheldinSeptember.

•TheBig10has11teams.

•Theprincipalingredientinsweetbreadisneithersugarnor bread but the cooked pancreas or thymus of a young animal, usually a calf.

•Wildriceisn’tnecessarilywild.Nearlyallthewildriceon grocery-store shelves is commercially cultivated in rice paddies and turned and watered by machines. For centuries before Europeans came to North America, the Algonquin and Siouan peoples harvested wild rice, a seed from an aquatic grass rather than a member of the rice family. Canadian “Lake Wild Rice” is harvested from natural bodies of water rather than cultivated or paddy-grown as in the United States.*

*adapted from agriculture and agri-Food Canada, “Canada’s wild rice industry,” retrieved march 3, 2005, from http://www.agr.gc.ca.

the Word is not Connected to the object

8  • ChaPter 1

Sometimes blindering is responsible for bad questions in surveys:

Do you own ___ , rent ___ , or live with your parents ___ ?

What about someone who lives with a friend or with rela-tives other than parents?

Polarization unnecessarily sharpens divisions between people and obscures the common ground; blindering pre-vents our seeing creative solutions to the problems we face. Here are some correctives:

1. Recognize the complexities of a situation. Resist the temptation to oversimplify.

2. Whenever you see only two alternatives, consciously search for a third, and maybe even a fourth or fifth, before you make your decision.

3. Redefine the question or problem to get at the real issue.

8 Don’t ask: How can I as a manager show that I’m in control?

4 Ask: How can we improve productivity in this unit?

6. a statement is never the Whole story

It is impossible to know everything; it is impossible to tell someone everything. When we assume that a statement con-tains all the important information, or when the context is omitted (deliberately or inadvertently), meanings are inevi-tably twisted.

For example, media widely reported that Canada “fiz-zled” in the swimming pool at the 2008 Olympics. When a CBC reporter asked Canadian 4x200 relay swimmers how they might get to the “world stage,” swimmers responded that they were on the world stage, having just finished fifth and broken the Canadian record in an Olympic final! “Ab-solutely false,” Brian Johns told CBC Sports. “In Athens we were bystanders watching a great swim meet. This time it’s an even better swim meet and we have people in the finals … and we’re showing that we belong on this stage.”7

What can we do to avoid misstatements by implication?

1. Recognize that the reports you get are filtered; you are not getting all the facts, and you are almost certainly getting inferences as well as observations.

2. Check the messages you send out to make sure you have provided the background information the reader needs to interpret your message accurately.

7. Words are not identical to the objects they represent

People perceive objects and think of ideas; they attach labels to those objects and ideas. Other labels could be substituted without changing reality. People, who name things and use words, provide the only connection between the thing and the word.

We often respond to the label rather than to reality. Our degree of distress during a bleak economic period is likely to be as much a product of the label given the period as it is of the rate of unemployment: a slowdown doesn’t sound as bad as a recession, and even that is better than a depression. Advertisers understand that labelling a book a best-seller is sure to increase sales.

Since we must use symbols to communicate, it’s hard to avoid treating symbols as if they were reality. Try these correctives:

1. Support claims with specific evidence or data.

2. Check your own responses to make sure your decisions are based not on labels but on valid, logical arguments.

3. If your claims cause others to produce a counterclaim, limit your claim or provide a rebuttal to be convincing.

8. Communication symbols must stand for essentially the same thing in the minds of the sender and the receiver

Communication depends on symbols; if those symbols mean different things to the people who use them, communication will fail. Bypassing occurs when two people use the same symbol to mean different things.

Bypassing creates misunderstandings. When employees hear communication skills described as “soft skills,” they may assume that they are as easy, simple, and natural as the traditional label implies. They may understand communica-tion as an elementary process of transmitting information and be impatient of and therefore not attentive to complex issues of audience, purpose, and context. They may fail to invest the sort of time, planning, and effort that effective communication takes. They may also blame themselves or become frustrated when they discover that communicating is among the most challenging and complex things we do in business.

Here are some measures that will help us avoid bypassing:

1. Be sensitive to contexts.

2. Consider the other person’s background and situation. What is he or she likely to mean?

3. Mirror what the other person has said by putting it into your own words, and let him or her check it for accuracy. Be sure to use different words for the key ideas.

4. Ask questions.

tHe managerial FunCtions oF CommuniCation

According to McGill professor Henry Mintzberg, managers have three basic jobs: to collect and convey information, to make decisions, and to promote interpersonal unity.8 All of those jobs are carried out through communication. Managers collect relevant information from conversations, the grape-

CommuniCating in a Changing Business World  • 9

vine, phone calls, memos, reports, databases, and the Internet. They convey information and decisions to other people inside or outside the organization through meetings, speeches, press releases, videos, pod-casts, blogs, wikis, memos, letters, e-mail and text messages, and re-ports. Managers motivate organiza-tional members in speeches, memos, conversations at lunch and over coffee, bulletin boards, and through “management by walking around.”

Effective managers are able to use a wide variety of media and strategies to communicate. They know how to interpret comments from informal channels such as the company grape-vine; they can speak effectively in small groups and in formal presenta-tions; they write well.

Communication—oral, nonver-bal, and written (print or digital)—goes to both internal and external audiences. Internal audiences (Figure 1.2) are other people in the same organization: subordinates, su-periors, peers. External audiences (Figure 1.3) are people outside the organization: customers, suppliers, unions, shareholders, potential em-ployees, government agencies, the press, and the general public.

listening, speaking, and interpersonal Communication

Informal listening, speaking, and working in groups are just as impor-tant as writing formal documents and giving formal oral presentations. As a newcomer in an organization, you’ll need to listen to others both to find out what you’re supposed to do and to learn about the organization’s values and culture. Informal chat, both about yesterday’s game and about what’s happening at work, connects you to the grapevine, an informal source of company information. Savvy em-ployers and employees know when and “what kind of chatter is harmful or helpful”; “who to talk to and what to talk about”; “what to pay attention to”; and when they have crossed the ethical line to spread hurt-ful gossip or rumours.9 Networking with others in your office

and your surroundings and working with others in workgroups will be crucial to your success.

Salesmanager

International

President

VPproduction

VPmarketing

VPsales

VPfinance

VPhuman

resources

Salesmanager

West

Salesmanager

East

District1

manager

District2

manager

District3

manager

Salesrep

Salesrep

Salesrep

Salesrep

Salesrep

To subordinates

To peers

To superiors

Figure 1.2 The Internal Audiences of the Sales Manager—West

Unions Professional services (auditors, legal, etc.)

SuppliersVendors

DistributorsWholesalersFranchiseesRetailersAgents

LegislatorsGovernment

The courts

Foreign governments

The mediaTrade associationsCompetitors

Other businessesand industries

Special interest groups

The generalpublic

Employmentagencies

StockholdersInvestorsLenders

Subsidiaries

Thecorporation

CustomersClients

Figure 1.3 The Corporation’s External Audiences

source: daphne a. Jameson

10  • ChaPter 1

These skills remain important as you climb the corporate ladder. In fact, a study of 15 executives judged good perform-ers by their companies showed that these executives spent most of their time in informal contact with other people. These informal discussions, taking 76% of these executives’ work time, enabled them to promote their agendas.10

Knowing your Purpose

People in organizations produce a large variety of docu-ments. All of the documents in Figures 1.4 and 1.5 have one or more of the three basic purposes of business writing: to inform, to request or persuade, and to build goodwill. When you inform, you explain something or tell readers something. When you request or persuade, you want the

reader to act. The word request suggests that the action will be easy or routine; persuade suggests that you will have to motivate and convince the reader to act. When you build goodwill, you create a good image of yourself and of your organization—the kind of image that makes people want to do business with you.

Most messages have multiple purposes. When you answer a question, you’re informing, but you can also build goodwill by showing that you are competent and perceptive and that your answer is correct and complete. In a claims adjustment, whether you answer yes or no, you want to suggest that the reader’s claim received careful consideration and that the decision is fair, businesslike, and justified.

Two of the documents listed in Figure 1.5 package the same information in different ways for different audiences. The 10-K report is informative, designed merely to show that a Canadian company trading in the United States is comply-ing with SEC regulations. The annual report, in contrast, has multiple purposes and audiences. Its primary purpose is to convince shareholders that the company is a good invest-ment and a good corporate citizen. Annual reports will also be read by employees, stockbrokers, potential shareholders, and job applicants, so the firm creates a report that is persua-sive and builds goodwill as well as presenting information.

trends in business CommuniCation

In an ever-changing business environment, business com-munication is changing. Understanding trends can help you in preparing job applications and enable businesses to position themselves for new opportunities. Twelve trends affect busi-ness communication: a focus on quality and customers’ needs, entrepreneurship and outsourcing, teams, diversity, globaliza-tion, legal and ethical concerns, balancing work and family, corporate social responsibility, reputation management, the end of the job, the rapid rate of change, and technology.

Focus on Quality and Customers’ needs

In general, satisfaction with quality and customer service is falling.11 That’s a problem for companies, notes direct mar-keting expert James Rosenfield:

Unhappy customers in industrialized countries histori-cally tell 15 people about their experiences. [On the In-ternet] with one keystroke, you can now tell 150 or 1,500 or 15,000!12

Superior customer service pays. Bank customers who described themselves as most satisfied were much more profitable for the company than were customers who were merely “satisfied.”13 Offering superior customer service doesn’t always mean spending extra money. Learning from the example of Southwest Airlines in the United States, Clive Beddoe, first president and CEO of WestJet, was de-termined to get people where they wanted to go on time and

In business settings, listening skills are more than courteous; they also provide value to the organization. Managers who listen carefully are enabling others to share ideas and knowledge. Smart managers invite feedback and then listen actively.

Inattentive listening can be costly in time, effort, mis-takes, misaligned priorities, and uncoordinated activities. Like Ernest Hemingway, we can learn “a great deal from listening carefully”—and from knowing the difference between weak and effective listeners.

Weak listeners

•Tuneoutspokenmessages

•Focusonownresponseratherthanonspeaker

•Becomedistractedeasily

•Failtoseerelevance

•Donotseekclarification

•Judgedeliveryratherthancontent

•Avoideyecontact

•Takeextensivenoteswithoutevaluatingorprioritizing

Effective listeners

•Stoptalking

•Maintainopenmindandconcentrateonspeaker

•Resistandmanagedistractions

•Recognizewhat’sinitforthem

•Think,evaluate,andsummarize

•Attendtotoneofvoice,nonverbals,andsubtexts

•Maintaineyecontactandrespondtospeaker

•Tailornotetakingtooccasion

*Based on “listen up, leaders: let workers do the talking,” HRMagazine, october 2003, downloaded from http://findarticles.com/ p/articles/mi_m3495; sherman K. okum, “how to be a better listener,” Nation’s Business, august 1975; Philip morgan and Kent Barker, “Building a professional image: improving listening behavior,” Supervisory Management, november 1995; Carter mcnamara, “habits to differentiate good from poor listening,” retrieved march 29, 2008, from http://www.managementhelp.org/commskls/listen/gd_vs_pr.htm; Par group, “the secrets to listening well,” retrieved march 29, 2008, from http://www.thepargroup.com/article_secretslistenWell.html.

the Payoff from listening*

CommuniCating in a Changing Business World  • 11

Figure 1.5 External Documents Produced in One Organization

Document Description of document Purpose(s) of document

Quotation Letter giving price for a specific product, fabrication, or service

Inform; build goodwill (price is reasonable)

Claims adjustment Letter granting or denying customer request to be given credit for defective goods

Inform; build goodwill

Job description Description of qualifications and duties of each job. Used for performance appraisals, setting salaries, and hiring

Inform; persuade good candidates to apply; build goodwill (job duties match level, pay)

10-K report Report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission detailing financial Information

Inform

Annual report Report to shareholders summarizing financial information for year

Inform; persuade shareholders to retain stock and others to buy; build goodwill (company is a good corporate citizen)

Thank-you letter Letter to suppliers, customers, or other people who have helped individuals or the company

Build goodwill

Figure 1.4 Internal Documents Produced in One Organization

Document Description of document Purpose(s) of document

Transmittal Memo accompanying document, telling why it’s being forwarded to the receiver

Inform; persuade reader to read document; build image and goodwill

Monthly or quarterly report

Report summarizing profitability, productivity, and problems during period. Used to plan activity for next month or quarter

Inform; build image and goodwill (report is accurate, complete; writer understands company)

Policy and procedure bulletin

Statement of company policies and instructions (e.g., how to enter orders, how to run fire drills)

Inform; build image and goodwill (procedures are reasonable)

Request to deviate from policy and procedure bulletin

Persuasive memo arguing that another approach is better for a specific situation than the standard approach

Persuade; build image and goodwill (request is reasonable; writer seeks good of company)

Performance appraisal Evaluation of an employee’s performance, with recommended areas for improvement or recommendation for promotion

Inform; persuade employee to improve

Memo of congratulations

Congratulations to employees who have won awards, been promoted, or earned community recognition

Build goodwill

at the right price. And the passengers—or “guests”—bought his plan. WestJet was showing a profit within its first six monthsin1996.Thecorporatecultureisinformal,friendly,good humoured: the executive area at the Calgary headquar-ters is for the “Big Shots,” and human resources is handled in the “People Department.” Like Beddoe, new president and CEO Sean Durfy is serious about his business—and about the public trust on which it depends. That’s something he doesn’t take lightly.14

Communication is at the centre of the focus on quality and customers’ needs, as the MEC team understands. Brain-storming and group problem solving are essential to develop more efficient ways to do things. Then the good ideas have to be communicated throughout the company. Innovators need to be recognized. And only by listening to what customers say—and listening to the silences that may accompany their actions—can an organization know what its customers really want.

12  • ChaPter 1

entrepreneurship and outsourcing

Entrepreneurship is a fast-growing sector of the Canadian economy, with women, youth, ethnic groups, and social entrepreneurs adding to the traditional players. Representing one-third of all self-employed Canadians in 1999, womenentrepreneurs could number one million by 2010, according to a CIBC study. If more women are combining motherhood and entrepreneurship—in what has been termed “mompreneurship”—Canadian women entrepreneurs defy stereotypes about women and economic power, ranking first among the Organisation for Economic Co-op-eration and Development (OECD) countries.15

The Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF), a non-profit, volunteer-based organi-zationfoundedin1996,providesmentoringandfinancing to support young Canadian entrepre-neurs (18–34 years). Its mission is to help fulfill the United Nations Millennium Development Goal to solve global youth unemployment and to contribute to sustainable economic develop-ment. Reaching more than 1,600 local commu-

nities to 2007, it has created more than 12,000 new jobs and generated $233 million in gross sales.16

Although the participation of immigrant communities in entrepreneurship is well known, Aboriginal participation is perhaps less familiar. The 2001 Census identified more than 27,000 Aboriginal people who now have their own busi-nesses in primary and traditional industries as well as the knowledge economy. Between 1996 and 2001, this sectorgrew 30%, with marked growth among Aboriginal youth and women.17

In the public, private, and non-profit sectors, social entre-preneurship responds to demands for corporate social respon-sibility and for answers to some complex social problems. Stressing hybrid models of activity, social entrepreneurship draws on the innovation, resourcefulness, and vision of tra-ditional entrepreneurship “to combine the heart of business

If economist Milton Friedman famously advised companies to care about nothing but the economic bottom line, many companies are listening to what consumers and investors have to say about what companies should care about.

Environics International’s Corporate Social responsibil-ity Millennium Poll of 25,000 in 23 countries shows that “Canadians have the second highest expectations for corpo-rate behavior” in the world. Only Australians have higher expectations.

The poll reports that “people around the world focus on corporate citizenship ahead of either brand reputation or financial factors.”

*Based on environics international ltd., The Millennium Poll on Corporate Social Responsibility, retrieved august 14, 2008, from http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/mPexecBrief.pdf.

should Companies Care?*

Crystal Dallner finds balance in caring for her son Jacob and running Outright Communications out of her Edmonton home.

WestJet President and CEO Sean Durfy, born and raised in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, maintains a corporate culture that nourishes customer satisfaction and employee loyalty.

CommuniCating in a Changing Business World  • 13

with the heart of the community through the creativity of the individual,” in the words of Executive Director Gary McPherson, Canadian Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Alberta.18 Entrepreneurship is so popular that many business schools now offer courses, internships, or whole programs in starting and running a business.

Some established companies are trying to match the suc-cess and growth rate of start-ups by nurturing an entre-preneurial spirit within their organizations. Innovators who work within organizations are called intrapreneurs. Google Inc.’s “20% work” is a celebrated example of such workplace initiatives to motivate innovation, while Xerox Research Centre in Mississauga credits brainstorming among diverse team members for its record of producing 220 patentable ideas each year. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts in Toronto simi-larly credits the “green team” of “ground-level” employees in each hotel with cost-saving measures to reduce the carbon footprint.19

Some businesses have had to become entrepreneurial be-cause of outsourcing. Outsourcing means going outside the company for products and services that once were provided by the company’s employees. Companies can outsource manufacturing, customer service, and accounting. Canada’s technology expertise makes it a leading player in outsourced service provision.20

Outsourcing makes communication more difficult—and more important—than it was when jobs were done in-house. It’s harder to ask questions, since people are no longer down the hall. And it’s easier for problems—from intellectual property and currency issues to delivery delays and quality problems—to turn into major ones. Some companies now are creating a “chief resource officer” to monitor contracts with vendors so that lines of communication will be clear. Like MEC, many are working with suppliers to ensure qual-ity and other standards.

teams

More and more companies are getting work done through teams. Teamwork brings together people’s varying strengths and talents to solve problems and make decisions. Often, teams are cross-functional (drawing from different jobs or functions) and/or cross-cultural (including people from different nations or ethnic or cul-tural groups served by the company). Teams helped BC Biomedical Laboratories Ltd. meet client needs, enhance employee satisfaction—and become one of Canada’s 50 Best Employ-ers seven years running to 2008. There’s a “family feel” among the more than 650 em-ployees of this Vancouver diagnostic testing service. The management structure is unusu-ally flat (less hierarchical) in an organization where management and employees share goals and leadership. With about half the staff in 43 patient service centres and half at head office,

Biomedical Laboratories relies on its strengths: its flexibil-ity, culture of trust, strong communications, and network of team leaders.21

Teams—often supported by technology—put a premium on learning to identify and solve problems, to share leader-ship, to work with other people rather than merely delegating work to other people, to resolve conflicts constructively, and to motivate people to do their best (8Chapter 6).

diversity

Teams put a premium on being able to work with other people—even if they come from different backgrounds.

Although women, Aboriginal people, persons with dis-abilities, and members of visible minorities have always been part of the workforce, they have not enjoyed equitable participation in the Canadian mainstream. Even when educa-tion became more accessible after World War II and women and other marginalized groups began to enter the professions inthe1960sand1970s,fewmadeitintomanagement.

Professor Edward Harvey of the University of Toronto and researcher John Blakely have estimated the cost to the Canadian economy of the underemployment of these groups: a staggering $50 billion annually, or 5% of gross domestic product.22 Now Canadian business is realizing that barriers to promotion are hurting the bottom line as well as individuals.

In the last decade, we have also become aware of other sources of diversity beyond those of gender and race: age, religion, class, regional differences, sexual orientation, dis-abilities. Helping each worker reach his or her potential

Diversity allows businesses to draw ideas from many traditions. At Xerox, co-workers “pass the rock” in a Native American talking circle. Only the person holding the stone can speak, forcing everyone to learn to listen.

14  • ChaPter 1

requires more flexibility from managers as well as more knowledge about intercultural communication. And it’s cru-cial to help workers from different backgrounds understand each other—especially when layoffs make many workers fear that increased opportunities for someone else will come only at a cost to themselves.

Treating readers with respect has always been a principle of good business communication. The emphasis on diversity simply makes it an economic mandate as well. To learn more about diversity and the workforce, read 8Chapter 5.

globalization

In the global economy, importing and exporting are just the start. More and more companies have offices and factories around the world. To sell $200 million worth of appliances in India, Whirlpool adapts appliances to local markets and uses local contractors who speak India’s 18 languages to deliver appliances by truck, bicycle, and even oxcart.23

Born and raised in Sudan, North Africa, and educated in Canada, Nezar Freeny has made a virtue of his cross-cultural experience in shaping his success as an IT entrepre-neur and owner of Amanah Tech Inc., providing customer service and technical support in both Arabic and English 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As CEO of Sharesoft Solutions—with offices in Toronto, Dubai, and Riyah—in November 2006 Freeny joined with SunGard to launch ShareTrade, a trade-processing platform to support real-time market information.24

All the challenges of communicating in one culture and country increase exponentially when people communi-cate across cultures and countries. Succeeding in a global market requires intercultural competence, the ability to communicate sensitively with people from other cultures and countries based on an understanding of cultural differ-ences. To learn more about international communication, see 8Chapter 5.

legal and ethical Concerns

Legal fees cost businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars. The price of many simple items, such as ladders, is inflated greatly by the built-in reserve to protect the manufacturer against lawsuits. Companies are finding that clear, open communication can reduce lawsuits by giving all the parties a chance to shape policies and by clarifying exactly what is and isn’t being proposed.

Ethical concerns don’t carry the same clear dollar cost as legal fees. But when the Internet stock bubble burst, plung-ing stock prices and an overall economic slowdown were accompanied by a wave of news stories about unethical and illegal corporate practices. As investors and consumers heard the accusations of accounting fraud at WorldCom, Enron, and Adelphia Communications, many felt distrustful of businesses in general. The public outcry motivated the U.S. Congress to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, re-

quiring corporations to engage in much more careful control and reporting of their financial activities.25

Such public distrust and government regulation have also renewed attention to corporate ethics in Canada, where both Nortel Networks and Hollinger International Inc. have become associated with unethical corporate practices—Canadian Business’s Matthew McClearn asks whether “anybody even read” the code of ethics at Hollinger. As a result, Canadian companies now face new regulations and reporting standards.

Efforts to right wrongs have not always gone as planned. When Nortel CEO Bill Owens announced efforts to regain trust, he named his “first” chief ethics officer as “testimony to our commitment to the highest standards of ethics and integrity in all of our company’s operations.” Unfortunately, Susan Shepard was not the first ethics officer at Nortel! Megan Barry had held that position from 1994 to 1999,

Nezar Freeny, founder and president of Amanah Tech and CEO, Sharesoft Solutions, has the intercultural competence and commands the trust—Amanah is Arabic for “trust”—to operate successfully in the global economy.

CommuniCating in a Changing Business World  • 15

though the department “grew increasingly invisible within the organization” under John Roth’s leadership, according to Maclean’s reporter Steve Maich.26

Business schools are increasingly responding to the inter-est in corporate governance and business ethics. Pointing to gaps in educational offerings, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International) wants to see more done to teach about stewardship obligations, the concerns of stakeholders, and “the responsible use of power.” To that end, Professor Tima Bansal at the Ivey School is teach-ing University of British Columbia professor Joel Bakan’s The Corporation, showing the corporation as psychopath.27

As Figure 1.6 suggests, language, graphics, and docu-ment design—basic parts of any business document—can be ethical or manipulative. Persuasion and gaining com-pliance—activities at the heart of business and organizational life—can be done with respect or contempt for customers, co-workers, and subordinates.

Ethical concerns start with telling the truth and offering

good value for money. Organizations must be concerned about broader ethical issues as well: being good environmen-tal citizens, offering a good workplace for their employees, and contributing to the needs of the communities in which they operate.

balancing Work and Family

OneoutofeverythreeCanadiansaged19–64self-identifiesas a workaholic, according to a May 2007 study. These indi-viduals—much more likely to be dissatisfied with their work and with the balance between work and family time than other workers—report fair or poor health.28 Many companies now recognize that workplace quality and employee engage-ment can have “an almost magical effect on the bottom line”—especially when generations succeeding the boomers place a high premium on work–life balance. Christine Kirk-land of IKEA Canada, for instance, finds that flextime “takes a lot of the stress off.” Xerox is among companies finding that flexible, family-friendly policies produce clear gains in productivity and customer service.29 To make itself more family friendly, Ernst & Young tells people not to check their e-mail on weekends or vacations, limits consultants’ travel, and tries to redesign workloads so people won’t burn out.30

Figure 1.6 Ethical Issues in Business Communication

Manner of conveying the message

Qualities of the message

Larger organizational context of the message

Language, Graphics, and Document Design

•Isthemessageaudiencefriendly?Doesitrespecttheaudience?

•Dothewordsbalancetheorganization’s right to present its best case with its responsibility to presentitsmessagehonestly?

•Dographicshelptheaudienceunderstand?Ordographicsdistractorconfuse?

•Doesdocumentdesignmakereadingeasy?Doesdocumentdesign attempt to make readers skipkeypoints?

Tactics Used to Shape Response

•Aretheargumentslogical?

•Aretheemotionalappealsusedfairly?Dotheysupplementlogicratherthansubstitutingforit?

•Doestheorganizationalpatternlead the audience without undue manipulation?

•Arethetacticshonest?Dotheyavoiddeceivingtheaudience?

•Isthemessageanethicalonethat treats all parties fairly and is sensitivetoallstakeholders?

•Haveinterestedpartiesbeenableto provide input into the decision ormessage?

•Doestheaudiencegetalltheinformation it needs to make a gooddecision?

•Isinformationcommunicatedina timely way, or is information withheld to reduce the audience’s power?

•Isinformationcommunicatedinaschema the audience can grasp, or are data “dumped” without any context?

•Howdoestheorganizationtreatitsemployees?Howdoemployeestreateachother?

•Howsensitiveistheorganizationto stakeholders such as the people who live near its factories, stores, or offices, and to the general public?

•Doestheorganizationsupportemployees’ efforts to be honest, fair,andethical?

•Dotheorganization’sactionsinmaking products, buying supplies, and marketing goods and services standuptoethicalscrutiny?

•Istheorganizationagoodcorporate citizen, helpful rather than harmful to the community in whichitexists?

•Aretheorganization’sproductsor services a good use of scarce resources?

InSiteThe Ethics in Action Awards recognize businesses and individuals in British Columbia who are “doing the right thing.”

www.ethicsinaction.com

16  • ChaPter 1

Balancing work and family requires using ways other than physical presence to demonstrate one’s commitment to and enthusiasm for organizational goals. It may require negotiat-ing conflicts with other workers who have different family situations. The downside of this trend is that sometimes work and family life are not so much balanced as blurred. Many employees study training videos and CDs, write e-mail, check their BlackBerry, and participate in conference calls on what used to be “personal time.” Flexibility is necessary in an age of downsizing and doing business in many time zones, but it means that many managers are essentially on call all the time. Instead of resorting to “guerrilla tele-work” (working from home rather than booking time off to deal with family emergen-cies) or “buying balance” (paying for services that free up more time for work), pro-fessors Chris Higgins and Linda Duxbury recommend just saying no.31

Corporate social responsibility

In the light of legal and ethical concerns, business schools, like businesses, are more and more preoccupied with issues of corporate social responsibility—the relationship between a corporation and all its stakeholders both inside and out-side the corporation. As recently as a generation ago, “few people would have had a very clear idea of what you were talking about had you mentioned corporate social respon-sibility (CSR),” says The Globe and Mail’s J. McFarland. They might even have thought of it as oxymoronic “socialist efficiency. … The responsibilities of a corporation … were seen by shareholders and management as absolutely focused on one thing: profit.”32

According to one small business representative, “CSR is recognizing when you are in a position to do good.” And, many report, “business benefits as a result of their CSR initiatives”—the most reported benefit taking the form of a “competitive advantage.”33

One commentator has warned about communications pitfalls for reporting CSR activities to financial communi-ties: “Don’t tell them about saving the Earth; they want to know about the value creation realized through sustainable development.”34

Despite the challenges of measuring and reporting per-formance, more and more organizations like MEC (winner of the Conference Board of Canada’s 2008 award for gover-nance innovation) are making the effort and discovering it is good business. Some also recognize that clean water and air are “not strictly ‘environmental’ issues. They are business is-

sues.” In this context, taking care of the triple bottom line—economic, environmental, and social performance—“is key to success, even survival, in today’s competitive business climate.”35 Indeed, a PricewaterhouseCoopers global CEO survey found that 70% of CEOs believe CSR programs en-hance profitability.36

reputation management

Despite the diversity of size, shape, and structure of organiza-tions, many have an interest in social accounting, reporting, and auditing to assess performance because they confront the same challenges of “reputation and legitimacy,” especially in the face of media “judgement by anecdote.”37 If businesses used to think in terms of ethics or profits, and some currently offer little more than window dressing—“a public relations device designed to throw sand in our eyes”38—many are increasingly recognizing that their own interests cannot be separated from those of all other stakeholders. In short, they recognize that ethics are profits.

Peri Lynn Turnbull, co-author of the Conference Board of Canada report How Corporate Social Responsibility Can Affect Your Reputation, reports that consumers are demand-ing more responsible behaviour from companies and value such behaviour over brand reputation and price. Still, linking reputation and CSR can be risky, especially for companies that do not live up to their claims. Bob Stamnes advises linking mission-based marketing to branding, and a strate-gic stakeholder approach fully integrating social issues into corporate identity.39

In the context of shareholder activism and class-action lawsuits, in the view of reporters Janet McFarland and Eliza-beth Church reputation and crisis management are now high on “the boardroom agenda”: “The costs of mishandling bad news have never been so high.” David Beatty, managing director of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance, agrees: planning is now more proactive because the conse-quences are “more serious in terms of the financial conse-quences to the corporation, and potentially to the directors in terms of loss of reputation.”40

the end of the Job

In traditional jobs, people did what they were told to do. Now, they do whatever needs to be done, based on the needs of customers, colleagues, and anyone else who depends on their work. At Sarasota Memorial Hospital, food service workers do more than bring food to patients; they open con-tainers, resolve problems with meals, help patients read their menus, and adjust orders to meet patients’ preferences. This attentiveness not only serves the patients, but also is part of a team-spirited approach to patient care that in this case frees nurses to do other work.41 And research suggests that the most effective workers don’t see work as assigned tasks. Instead, they define their own goals based on the needs of customers and clients.42

InSiteHuman Resources and Social Development Canada helps orga-nizations design and implement programs and policies for work–life balance on its Work–Life Balance in Canadian Workplaces Web page.

www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/lp/spila/wlb/01home.shtml

CommuniCating in a Changing Business World  • 17

With flatter organizations, workers are doing a much wider variety of tasks. Even as more bank customers use ATMs for deposits and withdrawals, banks keep tellers on hand to help with more complicated problems and to cross-sell financial products.

Your parents may have worked for the same company all their lives. You may do that, too, but you have to be prepared to job-hunt—not only when you finish your degree but also throughout your career. That means continuing to learn—keeping up with new technologies, new economic and politi-cal realities, and new ways of interacting with people.

rapid rate of Change

The flexibility required for the modern job market is just one area in which change is defining the workplace. Jobs that are routine can readily be done in other countries at lower cost.

As any employee who has watched his or her job go overseas can testify, change—even change for the better—is stressful. Many people battered by changes in the workplace fear that more change will further erode their positions. Even when change promises improvements, people have to work to learn new skills, new habits, and new attitudes. To reduce the stress of change, scholars suggest reducing the number of major, radical changes and relying more on frequent, small, incremental changes.43

Rapid change means that no college or university course or executive MBA program can teach you everything you need to know for the rest of your working life. You’ll need to remain open to new ideas. You’ll need to view situations and options critically, so that you can evaluate new conditions to see whether they demand a new response. The skills you do learn can stand you in good stead for the rest of your life: criti-cal thinking, computer savvy, problem solving, and the abil-ity to write, to speak, and to work well with other people.

technology

Technology is so pervasive that almost all office employ-ees need to be able to navigate the Web and to use word processing, e-mail, spreadsheet, database, and presentation software. Most colleges and universities have short courses to help students master the technicalities of these programs, and longer courses on technology’s changing impacts on how—and how often—we communicate. If new communi-cations technologies allow for speedy, efficient management and transmission of information, they have simultaneously raised expectations of the accuracy, quality, and speed of written communications.

Technology provides new opportunities and can save companies money. While online ticket sales have brought in new patrons for many a cultural organization, online dona-tions through CanadaHelps.org have contributed $55 million to Canada’s 83,000 charities.

Intranets—Web pages just for employees—give every-one in an organization access to information. Ace Hardware started its message board to cut the cost of mailing out weekly newsletters to franchise owners and answering their phone questions. But an added benefit is that dealers share ideas with each other. Royal Dutch/Shell Group earned $5 million in new revenue when an engineering team in Africa was able to get the solution to a problem from teams in Europe and Asia that had already faced similar situations.44

Extranets—Web pages for customers or suppliers—save time and money and improve quality. Two hours after drop-ping off a load of cranberries, growers can log on to Ocean Spray’s extranet to find out how much they earned and how their berries compare to those of other growers. The informa-tion helps growers make decisions about harvesting the rest of the crop. Growers benefit by earning more money; Ocean Spray gets higher quality and cuts waste by 25%.45

Internet connections, BlackBerrys, cell phones, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), and other devices allow employees to work at home rather than commute to a cen-tral office, enhance access to people with disabilities, and make it easy to communicate across oceans and time zones. Teleconferencing makes it possible for people on different continents to have a meeting—complete with visual aids—without leaving their hometowns.

Technological change also carries costs. Technology makes it easier for companies to monitor employees. Acquir-ing technology and retraining workers requires an enormous investment. The very ease of storing information and send-

A survey of 526 U.S. employers found:

•76%monitoremployeeInternetconnections

•55%monitore-mail

•50%storeandreviewcomputerfiles

•36%trackcontent,keystrokes,andtimeoncomputer

•8%useglobalpositioningsystems(GPS)totrackcompany vehicles

University of Toronto professor David Zweig warns employees to assume that their e-mail, instant messaging, blog, and Internet activity is being monitored.

Montreal journalist Craig Silverman warns that employ-ees are increasingly under watch via:

•Camerasinthehallway

•Snoopwareonthecomputer

•Workerdrugtesting

•Accesskeycardsthatrecordeverymove

Although workers are more accepting of monitoring when they are consulted, a British survey found that “a watched worker is also an unproductive worker.”

*Based on Virginia galt, “Keyword for workplace messaging? Caution,” Report On Business, october 7, 2006, B14; Craig silverman, “smile, Big Brother’s watching,” The Globe and Mail, march 24, 2008, l3.

big brother Watching?*

18  • ChaPter 1

ing messages means more information and more messages to process—and more public and permanent records (e-mail, blog, video, etc.) of business activities that may come back to damage reputations and haunt in legal or ethical terms.

In the information age, effective time and knowledge management depends in part on being able to identify which messages are important so as not to be buried in trivia. It

also requires individuals and organizations to know that new technologies have not simply replaced but supplemented old technologies and to choose well the channels that are best for particular audiences, purposes, and situations. The “personal touch” remains an asset in business communication.46

Communications technology affects the way people in-terpret messages. Readers expect all documents to be well designed and error-free—even though not everyone has ac-cess to a laser printer or even to a computer. E-mail, text, and instant messaging lead people to expect instant responses, even though thinking and writing still take time.

tHe Cost oF WritingDespite proliferating technologies, writing costs time and money. One study surveying employees in seven industries found that most of them spent 54 minutes planning, compos-ing, and revising a one-page document.47

In many organizations, all external documents must be approved before they go out. A document may cycle from writer to superior to writer to another superior to writer again 3 or 4 or even 11 times before it is finally approved. The cycling process increases the cost of writing while adding to its accuracy and credibility.

A Business Wire client estimated that writing a press release (including staff and legal costs) could cost his com-

pany $5,000, with distribution costing anything from $180 to $18,000. Still, the

Technology plays a large role in the changing face of business communications. High-end videoconferencing makes virtual meetings much more appealing at a time when air travel is becoming less convenient.

Young Canadians value opportunities to volunteer during working hours—and more employers are designing volunteer programs to attract and retain employees.

AccordingtoStatisticsCanada,92%ofCanadiansvol-unteer to make a difference in their community; only 22% volunteer to advance their careers. Still, employers see ben-efits in broader employee skill sets.

Electrical engineers Alim Somani and Sheldon Fernan-dez of Toronto find rewards in mentoring University of Waterloo students in their entrepreneurship.

*Based on Virginia galt, “a new generation discovers the benefits of ‘giving back’,” Report On Business, June 17, 2006, B10.

Can business Change the World?*

CommuniCating in a Changing Business World  • 19

press release remains a cost-effective communications tool.48 Long documents can involve large teams of people and take months to write. Whether in the public or private sector, strong writing skills are therefore at a premium.

Good communication is worth every minute it takes and every penny it costs. In fact, in a survey conducted by the International Association of Business Communicators, CEOs said that communication yielded a 235% return on investment.49

tHe Cost oF Poor WritingWhen writing isn’t as good as it could be, you and your organization pay a price in wasted time, wasted efforts, and lost goodwill.

Bad writing has these costs:

• Takes longer to read (up to 97% of reading time in-volves trying to understand what we’re reading)

• Needs revision (involving disproportionate managerial time on explaining how to revise)

• Obscures ideas and needlessly protracts discussions and decisions

• Requires requests for further information (and further delays)

• Does not get results—or gets the wrong results

• Undermines the image of the organization

• Loses goodwill

Messages can also create a poor image because of poor audience analysis and inappropriate style. The form let-ter printed in Figure 1.7 failed because it was stuffy and selfish—and generated ill will. The comments in blue show several things are wrong with the letter.

1. The language is stiff and legalistic. Note the obsolete (and sexist) “Gentlemen:” “Please be advised,” “herein,” and “expedite.”

2. The tone is selfish. The letter is written from the writer’s point of view; there are no benefits for the reader. (The writer says there are, but without evidence the claim isn’t convincing.)

3. The main point is buried in the middle of the long first paragraph. The middle is the least emphatic part of a para-graph.

4. The request is vague. How many references does the supplier want? Would credit references, like banks, rather

“The irony of e-mail is that it is a productivity tool that, through misuse, has become unproductive in our workplace,” says Richard Ivey School of Business professor Christina Cavanagh. She calculates that only 65% of e-mail merits responses. The other 35% comprises spam and other unnecessary messages sent largely on business intranets because they can be.

One British company with 2,500 employees (Phones4U) has banned internal e-mail. The saving? Three hours per day per employee and US$1.6 million a month. Yet many com-panies neither monitor e-mail use (despite daily tabulation by their systems) nor recognize high volumes, poor e-mail messages, and management as “a corporate expense.”

*adapted from Christina Cavanagh, “time is money—and so is e-mail,” The Globe and Mail, october 24, 2003, C1, C4.

the Cost of e-mail*

600 Main StreetWinnipeg, MB R3T 5V5

N e l s o n M a n u f a c t u r i n g204-281-3000

fax 204-281-3001

Gentlemen:

Please be advised that upon reviewing your credit file with us, we find the information herein outdated. In an effort to expedite the handling of your future orders with us, and to allow us to open an appropriate line of credit for your company, we ask that you send an updated list of vendor references. Any other additional financial information that you can supply would be to both of our benefits.

May we hear from you soon?

Sincerely,

Main point is buried

Prove it!

Emphasizes the writer, not the reader

Where are date, Inside address?

No excuse for not adding these!

Wrong word (also stuffy)

Emphasizes the writer, not the

reader

Stuffy

Sexist!

What information?

Figure 1.7 A Form Letter That Annoyed Customers

20  • ChaPter 1

than vendor references work too? Is the name of the ref-erence enough, or is it necessary also to specify the line of credit and/or the years credit has been established? What “additional financial information” does the supplier want? Bank balance? The request sounds like an invasion of privacy, not a reasonable business practice.

5. Words are misused (herein for therein), suggesting ei-ther an ignorant writer or one who doesn’t care enough about the subject and the reader to use the right word.

beneFits oF imProving WritingBetter writing helps you to

• Save time. Reduce reading and revision time and the time taken asking writers “What did you mean?”

• Make your efforts more effective. Increase the number of requests that are answered positively and promptly—on the first request. Present your points more forcefully.

• Communicate your points more clearly. Reduce the misunderstandings that occur when the reader has to sup-ply missing or unclear information.

• Build goodwill. Build a positive image of your organi-zation. Build an image of yourself as a knowledgeable, intelligent, capable person.

Criteria For eFFeCtive messages

Good business writing meets five basic criteria:

1. It’s clear. The meaning the reader gets is the meaning the writer intended. The reader doesn’t have to guess.

2. It’s complete. All of the reader’s questions are answered. The reader has enough information to evaluate the mes-sage and act on it.

3. It’s correct. All of the information in the message is ac-curate. The message is free from errors in punctuation, spelling, grammar, word order, and sentence structure.

4. It saves the reader’s time. The style, organization, and visual impact of the message help the reader to read, un-derstand, and act on the information promptly.

5. It builds goodwill. The message presents a positive im-age of the writer and his or her organization. It treats the reader as a person, not a number. It cements a good rela-tionship between the writer and the reader.

Whether a message meets these five criteria depends on the interactions among the writer, the audience, the purposes of the message, and the situation. No single set of words will work in all possible situations.

understanding and analyzing business CommuniCation

situationsIn the face of such massive change impacting communi-cations, the best communicators remain conscious of the context in which they make their choices; they’re aware of options.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• What’s at stake—to whom? Think not only about your own needs but also about the concerns your boss and your readers will have. Your message will be most effective if you think of the entire organizational context—and the larger context of shareholders, customers, and regulators. When the stakes are high, you’ll need to take into account people’s emotional feelings as well as objective facts.

• Should you send a message? Sometimes, especially when you’re new on the job, silence is the most tactful response. But be alert for opportunities to learn, to influ-ence, to make your case. You can use communication to build your career.

• What channel should you use? Paper documents and presentations are formal and give you considerable con-trol over the message. E-mail, blogs, phone calls, and stopping by someone’s office are less formal. Oral chan-nels promote group decision making, allow misunder-standings to be cleared up more quickly, and seem more personal. Sometimes you may need more than one mes-sage, in more than one channel.

• What should you say? Content for a message may not be obvious. How detailed should you be? Should you repeat information that the audience already knows? The answers will depend on the kind of document, your pur-poses, audiences, and the corporate culture. And you’ll have to figure these things out for yourself, without de-tailed instructions.

• How should you say it? How you arrange your ideas—what comes first, second, and last—and the words you use shape the audience’s response to what you say. A well-designed, visually attractive document enhances readability whether you are speaking for your organiza-tion or selling your skills to a potential employer.

CommuniCating in a Changing Business World  • 21

Figure 1.8 Employability Skills 2000+

The skills you need to enter, stay in, and progress in the world of work—whether you work on your own or as a part of a team.

These skills can also be applied and used beyond the workplace in a range of daily activities.

Fundamental Skills

The skills needed as a base for further development.

You will be better prepared to progress in the world of work when you can:

Communicate• read and understand information

presented in a variety of forms (e.g., words,graphs,charts, diagrams)

• write and speak so others pay attention and understand

• listen and ask questions to understand and appreciate the points of view of others

• share information using a range of information and communications technologies (e.g., voice, e-mail, computers)

• use relevant scientific, technological and mathematical knowledge and skills to explain or clarify ideas

Manage Information• locate, gather and organize

information using appropriate technology and information systems

• access, analyze and apply knowledge and skills from various disciplines (e.g., the arts, languages, science, technology, mathematics, social sciences, and the humanities)

Use Numbers• decide what needs to be measured or

calculated• observe and record data using

appropriate methods, tools and technology

• make estimates and verify calculations

Think & Solve Problems• assess situations and identify problems• seek different points of view and

evaluate them based on facts• recognize the human, interpersonal,

technical, scientific and mathematical dimensions of a problem

• identify the root cause of a problem• be creative and innovative in exploring

possible solutions• readily use science, technology and

mathematics as ways to think, gain and share knowledge, solve problems and make decisions

• evaluate solutions to make recommendations or decisions

• implement solutions• check to see if a solution works, and

act on opportunities for improvement

Personal Management Skills

The personal skill, attitudes, and behaviours that drive one’s potential for growth

You will be able to offer yourself greater possibilities for achievement when you can:

Demonstrate Positive Attitudes & Behaviours• feel good about yourself and be

confident• deal with people, problems and

situations with honesty, integrity and personal ethics

• recognize your own and other people’s efforts

• take care of your personal health• show interest, initiative and effort

Be Responsible• set goals and priorities balancing work

and personal life• plan and manage time, money and

other resources to achieve goals• assess, weigh and manage risk• be accountable for your actions and

the actions of your group• be socially responsible and contribute

to your community

Be Adaptable• work independently or as a part of a

team• carry out multiple tasks or projects• be innovative and resourceful; identify

and suggest alternative ways to achieve goals and get the job done

• be open and respond constructively to change

• learn from your mistakes and accept feedback

• cope with uncertainty

Learn Continuously• be willing to continuously learn and

grow• assess personal strengths and areas

for development• set your own learning goals• identify and access learning sources

and opportunities• plan for and achieve your learning

goals

Work Safely• be aware of personal and group health

and safety practices and procedures and act in accordance with these

Teamwork Skills

The skills and attributes needed to contribute productively

You will be better prepared to add value to the outcomes of a task, project or team when you can:

Work with Others• understand and work within the

dynamics of a group• ensure that a team’s purpose and

objectives are clear• be flexible: respect, be open to and

supportive of the thoughts, opinions and contributions of others in a group

• recognize and respect people’s diversity, individual differences and perspectives

• accept and provide feedback in a constructive and considerate manner

• contribute to a team by sharing information and expertise

• lead or support when appropriate, motivating a group for high performance

• understand the role of conflict in a group to reach solutions

• manage and resolve conflict when appropriate

Participate in Projects & Tasks• plan, design or carry out a project

or task from start to finish with well-defined objectives and outcomes

• develop a plan, seek feedback, test, revise and implement

• work to agreed quality standards and specifications

• select and use appropriate tools and technology for a task or project

• adapt to changing requirements and information

• continuously monitor the success of a project or task and identify ways to improve

255 Smyth Road, OttawaON K1H 8M7 CanadaTel. (613) 526-3280Fax (613) 526-4857

Internet: http://www.conferenceboard.ca/education

source: Employability Skills 2000+ Brochure, 2000, eF (ottawa: the Conference Board of Canada, 2000).

22  • ChaPter 1

Summary of Key Points

• Communicationhelpsorganizationsandthepeopleinthemachievetheirgoals.Theability to write and speak well becomes increasingly important as you rise in an organization.

• Peopleputthingsinwritingtomakethemselvesandaccomplishmentsvisible,createarecord, convey complex data, make things convenient for the reader, save money, and convey their own messages more effectively.

• Communicationtheoryattemptstoexplainwhathappenswhenwecommunicate.Semantics is the study of the way our behaviour is influenced by the words and other symbols we use to communicate. Communication theory and semantics both show why and where communication can break down and what we can do to communicate more effectively.

• Eightprinciplesofsemanticswillhelpusavoiderrorsinperception,interpretation,choice, encoding and decoding, and argument.

• Miscommunicationcanoccurateverypointinthecommunicationprocess.

• Thebestchannelforamessagewilldependontheaudience,thesender’spurposes,andthe situation. Channel choice may be shaped by the organizational culture.

• Channeloverloadoccurswhenachannelcannothandleallthemessagesbeingsent.Information overload occurs when the receiver cannot process all the messages that arrive. Both kinds of overload require selection to determine which messages will be sent and which will be attended to.

• Internaldocumentsgotopeopleinsidetheorganization.Externaldocumentsgotoaudiences outside: clients, customers, suppliers, shareholders, government, media, and the public.

• Thethreebasicpurposesofbusinessandadministrativecommunicationaretoinform,torequest or persuade, and to build goodwill. Most messages have more than one purpose.

• Twelvetrendsaffectingbusinesscommunicationareafocusonqualityandcustomers’needs, entrepreneurship and outsourcing, teams, diversity, global competition and opportunities, legal and ethical concerns, balancing work and family, corporate social responsibility, reputation management, the end of the job, the rapid rate of change, and technology.

• Poorwritingwastestimeandeffort,andjeopardizesgoodwill.

• Goodbusinessandadministrativewritingmeetsfivebasiccriteria:it’sclear,complete,and correct; it saves the reader’s time; and it builds goodwill.

• Toevaluateaspecificdocument,wemustknowtheinteractionsamongthewriter,thereader(s), the purposes of the message, and the situation. No single set of words will work for all readers in all situations.

CommuniCating in a Changing Business World  • 23

Exercises and Problems

Getting Started

1.3 Identifying Logos

Find four corporate logos. Do all your classmates recognize all the logos? Which logos seem to be especially effective sym-bols for their organizations? What makes them so effective?

1.4 Analyzing Arguments

In pairs or in groups, analyze the arguments in one or more of the following kinds of documents. For each, identify the claim and (if present) the evidence or data, and attempts to anticipate and counter opposing arguments. What ad-ditional parts (if any) are needed to make the argument convincing?

1. An article in a business periodical or Web site recommending that it is or is not a good idea to buy a particular company’s stock.

2. A recruiting brochure or Web page explaining why a company is a good place to work.

3. The CEO’s letter in an annual report arguing that the company is well positioned for the coming year.

4. A fundraising letter arguing that the organization is doing good work and is a deserving candidate for financial gifts.

5. An article on extranets and the dangers of content that can damage the organization’s reputation.

6. Material from your city’s chamber of commerce presenting your city as a good place to live and work.

1.1 Choosing a Channel to Convey a Specific Message

Your group is designing the campaign for a campus, mu-nicipal, or provincial election. What would be the advan-tages and disadvantages of each of the following channels as media to carry ads for your side?

a. Ad in the campus newspaper.

b. Posters around campus.

c. Ad in the local newspaper.

d. Ad on a local radio station after midnight.

e. Ad on the local TV station during the local news show.

f. Ads on billboards.

g. Ad posted on Web site.

h. Flyers distributed door to door.

i. Blog posting on campus Web site

1.2 Explaining Bypassing

1. Show how the following statements could produce bypassing.

a. The house needs painting badly.

b. I made reservations for seven.

c. If you think our servers are rude, you should see the manager.

2. Bypassing is the basis of many jokes. Find a joke that depends on bypassing and share it with the class.

Communicating at Work

1.5 Understanding the Role of Communication in Your Organization

Interview your supervisor to learn about the kinds and purposes of communication in your organization. Your questions could include the following:• Whatchannelsofcommunication(e.g.,memos,e-mail,

presentations) are most important in this organization?

• Whatdocumentsorpresentationsdoyoucreate?Are they designed to inform, to persuade, to build goodwill—or to do all three?

• Whatdocumentsorpresentationsdoyoureceive?Are they designed to inform, to persuade, to build goodwill—or to do all three?

• Whoareyourmostimportantaudienceswithintheorganization?

• Whoareyourmostimportantexternalaudiences?

• Whatarethechallengesofcommunicatinginthisorganization?

• Whatkindsofdocumentsandpresentationsdoestheorganization prefer?

As Your Professor Directs,

a. Share your results with a small group of students.

b. Present your results in a memo to your professor.

c. Join with a group of students to make a group presentation to the class.

d. Post your results online to the class.

24  • ChaPter 1

Memo Assignments

1.6 Introducing Yourself to Your Professor

Write a memo (at least one page) introducing yourself to your professor. Include the following topics:

Background: Where did you grow up? What have you done in terms of school, extracurricular activities, jobs, and family life?

Interests: What are you interested in? What do you like to do? What do you like to think about and talk about? What kind of writing have you done? Have you found different classes/instructors have different standards? What are your writing strengths and weaknesses? What percentage of your day do you devote to using technology?

Achievements: What achievements have given you the greatest personal satisfaction? List at least five. Include things that gave you a real sense of accomplishment and pride, whether or not they’re the sort of thing you’d list on a résumé.

Goals: What do you hope to accomplish this term? Where would you like to be professionally and personally five years from now?

Use complete memo format with appropriate headings. (See 8Chapter 7 for examples of memo format.) Use a conversational writing style; check your draft to polish the style and edit for mechanical and grammatical correctness. A good memo will enable your instructor to see you as an individual. Use specific details to make your memo vivid and interesting. Remember that one of your purposes is to interest your reader!

1.7 Introducing Yourself to Your Collaborative Writing Group

Write a memo (at least one page) introducing yourself to the other students in your collaborative writing group. Include the following topics:

Background: What is your major? What special areas of knowledge do you have? What have you done in terms of school, extracurricular activities, jobs, and family life?

Previous experience in groups: What groups have you worked in before? Are

you usually a leader, a follower, or a bit of both? Are you interested in a quality product? In maintaining harmony in the group? In working efficiently? What do you like most about working in groups? What do you like least?

Work and composing style: Do you like to talk out ideas while they’re in a rough stage or work them out on paper before you discuss them? Or do you prefer interacting and sharing ideas electronically? Would you rather have a complete outline before you start writing or just a general idea? Do you want to have a detailed schedule of everything that has to be done and who will do it, or would you rather “go with the flow”? Do you work best under pressure, or do you want to have assignments ready well before the due date?

Areas of expertise: What can you contribute to the group in terms of knowledge and skills? Are you good at brainstorming ideas? Researching? Designing charts? Writing? Editing? Word processing? Managing the flow of work? Maintaining group cohesion?

Goals for collaborative assignments: What do you hope to accomplish this term? Where does this course fit into your priorities?

Use complete memo format with appropriate headings. (See 8Chapter 7 for examples of memo format.) Use a conversational writing style; edit your final draft for me-chanical and grammatical correctness. A good memo will enable others in your group to see you as an individual. Use details to make your memo vivid and interesting. Remem-ber that one of your purposes is to make your readers look forward to working with you!