Effective Business Communication and Reading Strategies for Business and Management

Importance of Effective Communication in Business

You may have brilliant business ideas together with the skills, creativity and motivation to be a great success, but if you are not able to communicate effectively, you may not get the opportunity to ever put your ideas into practice. Communicating effectively in business means:

. being aware of the purpose of the communication, e.g. know why the communication is taking place and what the goals are
. being clear, organised and in control of the information relevant to the topic
. being well prepared by having read and extracted the key points of any briefs, reports or other documents
. expressing yourself succinctly and well in formal writing
. knowing what the conventions are for the kind of communication you are making
. controlling the technology you are using for communicating
. considering who your audience are, what they know already and what they need to know
. being inclusive
. working on your language skills so that they are ready for the world of business

Good reading skills are central to effective business communication, both for study and in the workplace. For example, in study situations you need to be able to read and summarise the main points from complex texts in order
to complete your assignments. In the workplace, you often need to read and understand a range of documents and information in order to carry out your role.

Language awareness is at the heart of the strategies you need for reading complex texts because language:
. underpins how a text is organised
. represents precise ideas which are specific to your subject
. follows conventions of formality in order to communicate to its intended audience.

You can use these reading strategies to make your reading of texts effective. You may also have your own reading strategies.
. Be clear what you want from reading the text.
. Consider what you already know about the topic of the text.
. Be critical: make sure you check where the text comes from and that you understand the aims of the author.
. Think of a question that the text will answer before you read.
. Before you read carefully, look quickly through the text to see what it is generally about (good places to look are the title, introduction, first sentences of each paragraph and the final paragraph).
. Keep asking more questions while reading.
. Check the meaning of difficult words and expressions.
. Read the text carefully and try to notice how it is organised.
. Recognise ‘signposting’ words and groups of words.
. Write on the text.

Reading Strategies

Reading strategies for business and management
. Write notes somewhere else, not on the text, and if possible, draw mind maps.
. Produce a summary.
. Note down thoughts about what you have read.
. Note down the source of the text.
You can use these reading strategies to make your reading of texts effective.
You may also have your own reading strategies.

At work
. To prepare for a meeting.
. To summarise a document for colleagues.
. To record the main ideas from a document for yourself.
. To gather information in preparation for writing a report or delivering a presentation.

On a business studies course
. To keep a note of things you are learning.
. To clarify your thoughts on what you are learning.
. To prepare for writing a report, essay or presentation.
. To remember things for an exam.

Grammar and notemaking

The relevance of grammar to note making is that a sentence in a written
text will always have at least one noun and one verb. However, when you
make notes you can often reduce the sentences to nouns. There are two
reasons for this:

1 Nouns, particularly abstract nouns, can contain a large amount of information. You can summarise a whole sentence or paragraph with the noun ‘crisis’ for example. Abstract nouns are ideal for reducing the main ideas in a text to a few words.
2 Nouns can be combined with other words to make noun phrases, for example:
(a) ‘need for urgent action’
(b) ‘environmental crisis threatening coffee production’.

There is always a main noun inanoun phrase. The main nouns have been italicised in the two examples just given. The other words are combined with this main noun to make the noun phrase. These combinations are very useful in note making and in writing generally

Here is a summary of what makes good notes. Notes that...
. are relevant for your purpose
. are succinct
. show the main points
. use noun phrases together with key verbs and adjectives
. show how ideas are linked
. are accurate
. are understandable when you come back to them
. can include sketches or diagrams
. can use abbreviations and symbols
. are referenced if used in an academic context
. show if any sections have been copied word for word by using quotation marks.

How to find main points in a reading text.
. Be clear what you need the information for, i.e. your purpose.
. Use the title, introduction, conclusion and first sentence of each paragraph to find out what the text is about.
. Consider what type of text you are reading and how the text is organised. For example, business reports, academic papers, press releases and newspaper articles all organise information in different ways.
. Remember that most paragraphs make one main point, which tends to be found at the beginning of the paragraph. The rest of the paragraph expands on this point and provides more details.
. Look for key words relating to the main topic.
. Ignore examples and details which are NOT main points.

What makes a well-structured paragraph?
There are a few general rules about what makes a well-structured paragraph. Usually a paragraph in a piece of formal writing:
. is linked to the previous paragraph through signposting and/or explanation

Analysing business case studies
. makes the main point (often called a high-level generalisation) in the first sentence or the first couple of sentences
. develops the main point through giving examples or further details (often called low-level generalisations)
. uses signposting to guide the reader
. uses pronouns to refer back to information already given, e.g. ‘this’, ‘it’ or ‘they’.

What is STEEPLE analysis?
STEEPLE analysis consists of:
. identifying the external factors affecting a business
. looking closely at the given or potential impact of those factors on the business
. making recommendations based on carefully considered evidence. The ‘analysis’ that takes place consists of establishing the factors that affect a business and analysing the relationship of those factors to the business from a ‘cause-and-effect’ perspective: how factors or events may cause other factors or events to occur