Designing and achieving a good communication strategy is essential in any work environment, regardless of the hierarchy of those involved. Fluid and result-oriented communication will always be beneficial for your projects.
That’s why we have prepared guidelines for effective communications for you and your team. It will help you to achieve the level of communication required for any company wishing to reach its objectives smoothly and efficiently.
Summary
- An important concept is that of “business communication”, which refers to any type of communication that takes place in your organization, whether it is purely internal or with associates or clients.
- A common mistake is to put all your effort and dedication into what you are trying to communicate, without taking into account the context of the other person. Perhaps it is not “what we say” but “how we say it”.
- What was said in the previous point, leads to creating bad communication habits, which keep us away from achieving effectiveness in what we want to communicate.
What you should know about effective communication
In the search for good business communication, a great variety of doubts and questions will arise. These have been increasing due to the migration of companies to remote work mode, which represents new challenges to solve. Here are the most important questions to solve, so you can get the best results and all the benefits that effective communication can offer.
What are the main types of business communication?
There is no single form of business communication, in fact, we could divide this type of communication into 4 different models. Knowing how to identify them is fundamental for achieving effective communication, specifically oriented to your work environment.
Bottom-up
This is the form of work communication that starts from the lower hierarchy employees, to conclude by communicating certain information to the higher hierarchy employees. This enables a more inclusive approach, which ends up nurturing the work culture of that area, covering different points of view and opinions that can be extremely useful.
From the top down
This form is the opposite of the one explained above. It serves more than anything else to ensure good work discipline and facilitates the issue of delegating tasks to different areas. This type of communication requires a commitment from the higher hierarchical parties, who must be as accessible as possible to the lower hierarchical parties.
Lateral communication
This type of communication takes place among team members who share the same hierarchy. It is usually more informal and day-to-day. It is the type of communication that stands out most in multi-departmental projects, which require a constant flow of information between the people who are part of these projects. The tools used to share information among the members will be fundamental in this type of communication.
External communication
This is where the communication between the company and its customers, suppliers, representatives, etc. comes into play. The key to this type of communication lies in the power to give prestige and reputation in the market.
Why is communication important in the business area?
For this question, we will start with a very influential piece of information. An analysis based on 14,000 job advertisements revealed that, of all the interpersonal skills required, the most sought-after was good verbal and written communication (3).
Let’s review point by point the aspects that benefit from effective business communication.
- Customer service and the services provided are improved.
- New perspectives on problem-solving are generated since all voices in the organization are heard.
- It is easier to create and maintain order.
- It is more efficient and effective to move from one project to another.
- The goals and objectives of the company are easily identifiable, which, added to the good organization, ends up generating an increase in productivity.
What are the characteristics that effective business communication should have?
There are certain characteristics common to all types of communication in all types of companies. These characteristics are fundamental, and it is necessary to talk a little about each one.
Read more about Business Communication Skills
Keys to communicate better in business
Do not assume or expect
An extremely common mistake is to assume that your understanding of something is correct, without corroborating the assumption. This ends up creating a greater or lesser loss of information and results in incomplete work, or poor content.
In order to solve this problem, it is best to try to be as clear and concise as possible in our messages. This helps the receiver to focus on what is most important in our message.
Invest in infrastructure
With the abrupt onset of the 2020 pandemic, business migration to virtual environments experienced a massive increase. This resulted in the development of a multitude of new software, whose main mission is to facilitate business communication.
You should take these tools into account, and look for the one that best suits your needs. It is best to opt for a solution that includes all the functions we are looking for in a single tool. Here is a brief review of the 4 most used software:
Ask questions
When communicating effectively, a very important factor is to ask good questions. This means that we must listen actively in order to be able to visualize where is the element that we need to understand or complete with more information.
By taking into account what was said in the previous paragraph, we will be able to obtain good returns. We will also be able to show interest in what our colleagues tell us and maintain a proactive attitude (an attitude that we have already analyzed and is very important to have).
Encourage feedback
Encouraging feedback on what we communicate is essential for us to better understand the picture. It gives us a more complete view of things.
For this to be fruitful, it is essential to be open to receiving feedback, even if it is anonymous. Another key point is to make these practices something constant, since there is no point in receiving some returns and then dismissing the rest.
Conclusion
Communication is the key to any type of partnership, and this obviously includes business partnerships. For this reason, it is essential to take into account what has been reviewed in this article.
The more effectively information is communicated, the more effectively it will be absorbed by others. This can end up influencing and inspiring our colleagues, which will guarantee great benefits for the environment where it is applied.
References
1. Juan Luis Urcola Tellería, Nerea Urcola Martiarena. Practical manual of business communication [Internet]. -. ESIC Business & Marketing school 2015 [cited 2022Nov18].
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2. Michael Fielding. Effective communication in organisations [Internet]. -. FTP Productions 2006 [cited 2022Nov20].
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3. Mary Ellen Guffey, Dana Loewy. Essentials of business communication [Internet]. .- Cengage Learning 2022 [cited 2022Nov20].
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4. Mary Ellen Guffey, Dana Loewy. Business communication: Process & Product [Internet]. .- Cengage Learning 2014 [cited 2022Nov20].
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