BsCom 100.3: Introduction to Business Communication

1. BsCom 100.3: Introduction to Business Communication Course Overview; Listening Skills Isobel M. Findlay BsCom 100 Lecture Week 1

2. Course Objectives • understand centrality of communications to commerce, community, and culture • understand communication theories and practice in diverse organizations & cultures • enhance research, critical and creative thinking, and active listening skills • apply reasoned, practical, and ethical principles to analyzing, evaluating, designing, and delivering business messages • work effectively in independent and team settings • strengthen presentation and job-search skills

3. Today’s Objectives • review course outline and web site • appreciate course objectives, methodology, expectations, assignments and evaluation • understand importance of course in Commerce and careers • understand role and nature of listening • identify elements of active listening • reflect on experience in and expectations of business communications

4. Reviewing BsCom 100.3 See web site at http://www.commerce.usask.ca/classes/bscom100/

5. Contemporary Context In companies with over 50,000 employees, communication skills were cited as the single most important criterion in choosing managers. --Survey cit. CBC 4

6. Contemporary Context In a 1988 review of US business education, academics, students, alumni, managers, and executives identified leadership/interpersonal and communication (oral and written) skills as the most important skills. --Porter and McKibbin (1988)

7. Contemporary Context • Business IS communicating • 90% of all business transactions involves written communication (Guffey et al, 2001)

8. Knowledge Workers • Canada is a world leader with 32.8 % knowledge workers in labour force; US, 31.9%; Japan, 16.1%. —Nuala Beck, The Next Century: Why Canada Wins (HarperCollins, 1998)

9. Business Communication: What it is and isn’t • focuses on internal and external communications in an organization • Is an important functional area in contemporary business • Represents knowledge and skills that cross all functionaL areas • Is not synonymous with marketing

10. Business Communication: A History • roots in speech communication and rhetoric and composition • bscom transformed by global, technological, cultural, social, and other changes • bscom transformed by diverse workplace, new management styles, tools, office environments, and team work

11. Business Communication and Employment • practitioners are consultants, managers, market research and human resources analysts • publicists, counsellors, researchers, communications officers

12. Research opportunities • communicating in a global economy • intra- and inter-cultural communication • diversity in the workplace • legal/ethical dimensions • technological opportunities and challenges • issues of gender, age, disability, and diversity

13. Commerce Professors’ Expectations • Students should be able to develop a well-grounded argument, not a string of disconnected statements culled from sources. • Students need to analyze issues and judge their relative importance. • We need to stress revision and editing because often I can’t figure out what they are trying to say.

14. Show teacher what you’ve been told teacher checks accuracy teacher tries to figure out and fill in blanks don’t repeat to teach the teacher effort for writing 10pp rewarded Deliver a message that will be useful busy professional may not read all at once or in order needs frequent guideposts, headings needs restatements no extra detail; clear focus Academic and Business Communication Adapted from P. Goubil-Gambrell

15. Technology as the Answer

16. Spell Checkers Are Wonderful, But . . . Guffey et al 135 I have a spell checker That came with my PC. It plainly marks four my review Mistakes I cannot sea. I’ve run this poem threw it, I’m sure your pleased too no Its letter perfect in it’s weigh-- My checker tolled me sew.

17. Other Consoling Myths • Communication is common sense. • Common sense is critical thinking. • My parent, partner, roommate will proofread for me. • My secretary will tidy up my writing. • Accountants deal with numbers and not words and people.

18. The Role of Listening • Effective communicators are good listeners. • People spend on average 45-53% of time listening. (Barker et al, 1981; Weaver, 1972). • 80% of N. American executives rated listening the most important work skill (Locker et al, 2002). • “Students listen to the equivalent of a book a day;. . . read . . . a book a month; and write the equivalent of a book a year” (Buckley, 1992)

19. The Role of Listening • Executives spend 60 to 70 percent of their time listening (K. Steil, L. I. Barker, and K. W. Watson, Effective Listening: Key to Your Success (Addison-Wesley, 1983). • People can process information at least three times faster than the 125 word/minute they can speak (Guffey & Nagle, 2003). • We remember only 25 percent of what we hear (CBC 15).

20. Listening Process:Four Stages CBC 14-19 • Sensation • Interpretation • Evaluation • Reaction

21. Listening Process • Sensation listening begins when you observe sounds and choose to hear because • you think the message is important • you are interested • you are in the mood

22. Listening Process • Sensation • Interpretation • meanings filtered through expectations and experiences • your cultural, educational, and social frame of reference • questions to clarify

23. Listening Process • Sensation • Interpretation • Evaluation • separating fact from opinion, • trying to avoid prejudgments, • avoiding hasty conclusions • diminishing cognitive dissonance

24. Listening Process • Sensation • Interpretation • Evaluation • Reaction • remembering for future use • supplying feedback for effective communication

25. Truth or Fiction?Adapted from Guffey et al • Listening is a matter of intelligence. • Hearing ability determines listening. • Listening is easy and requires little energy. • Listening is an automatic reflex.

26. Truth or Fiction?Adapted from Guffey et al • Speakers are totally responsible for communication success. • Listening is only a matter of understanding a speaker’s words. • Daily practice eliminates the need for listening training.

27. Active (not Polite) Listening • positive attitude • openness • involvement • retention

28. Improving Listening Skills • value silence • be patient and be receptive • manage distractions • monitor emotional filters and biases • consider what is in it for you • put self in speaker’s shoes • attend to subtexts and ask questions • restate your understanding of key points • be alert to reinforcing cues • anticipate, evaluate, review points • take notes and remain engaged

29. Experience and Expectations • Write a paragraph on the relevant experience you bring to BsCom 100 and your expectations of the class. • Retain and bring to the next lecture for further reflection/comment.