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Part II Chapter Resources
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCING BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION
Objectives
Develop a rationale for why Business and Professional Communication is important
Recognize the central role of communication in the workplace
Understand the fundamental components of a communication model.
Identify overall assumptions which serve as guiding principles to assess communication
in the workplace
Assess some of your communication strengths and weaknesses
Key Words
Workplace communication, communication model, organizational communication, organization
culture, channel occasion, context, noise, communication competence, communication deficits,
communication participants, interaction, communication axioms.
On the Internet
Chapter Teaching Notes
I. Communication Gaps in the Workplace
II. Communication Competencies Needed in Organizations
A. A need for improved personal skills: Self-confidence, overcoming communication
apprehension, motivation and persuasion, sensitivity to cultural diversity, team
building, conflict managements, and leadership skills
B. A need for more effective face-to-face communication
C. A need for improved specialized communication procedures: Sales calls, meetings,
oral briefings, conflict, supervisory communication, dealing with bad news,
making
a
public presentation.
III. Business and Professional Communication Competencies
A. Regardless of job description, most future managers must have certain
competencies. Four groupings of competencies follow:
1. Managing Leadership in Organizational Cultures: Understanding structure,
leadership, decision-making, and procedures in an organization. These lead
to four groupings of Business and Professional Communication
competencies:
2. Interpersonal Communication in Business and Professional
Communication
a. Communicate interpersonally
b. Understand and manage conflict
c. Deal with customer relationships
d. Be able to interview others
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3. Small Groups and Teams in Business and Professional Communication
a. Manage cultural diversity
b. Manage information and interviews in relationship to organizational
4. Public Presentations in Business and Professional Communication
a. Make clear, informative presentations in large and small audiences
b. Present persuasive speeches to large or small groups
B. Communication competencies refer to what you must know and practice and skills
you must engage to be effective.
IV. Business and the Professional Communication Definition and Model
A. Definition: interpreting information by interacting through sending and
receiving messages across a channel in an organizational
B. The Model a transactional model
1. Participants – Those who interact and interpret information
2. Message
a. Both verbal and nonverbal messages are sent
b. Message filtering
3. Environment and Societal Factors – The role of external factors on organizations
and their employees
4. Speech Context and Occasion – The physical location and the reason for the
event
5. Organizational Culture – norms, attitudes, beliefs, values, and mission
V. Communication Qualities how communication works
A. Communication is unavoidable
B. Communication is irreversible
C. Communication involves content and relationship
D. Communication is rule-governed
VI. Business and Professional Communication in Four
Contexts
A. Organizational Culture
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Class Exercises
1. Objective: To facilitate understanding of communication and business and professional
communication.
Time: 15 minutes
Directions: Have students write down their definitions of communication and business and
professional communication. Have them share their definitions and discuss. What elements
are important to include in each definition? How do their definitions differ from text
definitions or other accepted scholarly explanations?
2. Objective: Create greater understanding of the communication model and the components
of message sending.
Time: 20 minutes
3. Objective: To increase understanding of the importance of business and professional
communication skills.
Time: Out of class preparation (1-1.5 hours) plus 20 minutes in class discussion
4. Objective: Create a general knowledge of how business and professional communication
is important in the workplace today and how communication is changing.
Time: Out of class preparation plus 50-80 minutes in class. (Could separate discussion and
presentations into two days if necessary)
5. Objective: To draw connections between communication theory and everyday usage of
communication principles.
Time: 25 minutes
Directions: Ask students to think of a complicated communication situation that they have
6. Objective: To recognize personal communication strengths and weaknesses and how
communication skills can be improved.
Time: 35 minutes
Directions: Each student should complete the ommunication Strengths and Weaknesses
Then have students rewrite the situation that they wrote about, changing the
Discussion Questions
1. Why is business and professional communication important to you now, at this stage of
your life?
2. Why are communication skills necessary in the workplace? How can developing your
skills increase your effectiveness on the job?
3. What kinds of jobs require communication skills? Which careers hinge on excellent
communicators for success?
4. How much time do you spend communicating in the job that you have now, or have had
in the future?
5. Do you think communication is as important in a computer technology career as it is in a
media relations job?
7. In what areas do see a need for communication improvements among your peers? At your
college or university? At your workplace?
8. Which components of the communication model do you think are ignored the most? If
more people understood the communication model, how do you think communication
would change?
9. What is the most recent experience that you have had when either the environment or
noise interrupted a message being sent to you by someone else? What about when you
were sending a message? Did this make a difference in the effectiveness of the message?