Introduction
Information,
feelings and ideas sharing is the communication. In the business communication these
sharing would related to the business. The business communication share information
between people within and outside an organization or the business communication
relay information within a business by its people. The importance of
communications for the business organization is not only to reach their customers
but also customers reach to them. From very recent decades people used
newspapers, radio, TV for their communication and now technologies are widely
spread all over the world and people using developed technologies like internet,
computer, mobile phone for their communication. That result the communication
extended to more people with fast speed and low cost.
A blogger, one of
the leading thinker on communication strategies in an online environment, since
1994 from Australia (Hopkins, n.d.) , in his blog he has
written that there are seven essential elements to
successful business communication. He stated these seven elements are Structure, Clarity, Consistency, Medium, Relevancy, Primacy/Recency and Psychological Rule of 7±2. He
described these seven elements separately.
 |
| Mr. Lee Hopkins |
Before writing much
more, I would like to explain why I selected Lee Hopkins blog for getting
information to this article. I tried my best to follow the guideline given in
the assignment and find an article that has the information of basic elements
of business communication with
tables and charts, but I couldn’t. Through internet searching I got some of the
information and few article that has written related to basic elements of
business communication. Among these article I preferred Lee Hopkins blog that has
more details of business communication elements even though without any tables and
charts.
Discussion
In the business
communication includes basic elements. These fundamental elements are playing
different roles in the business communication. Under a topic of the seven
essentials of business communication Lee Hopkins has given the details of these
seven elements.
1- Structure: How you structure your
communication is fundamental to how easily it is absorbed and understood by
your audience. Every good communication should have these three structural
elements: an opening, a body and a close. This structural rule holds true no
matter what your communication is -- a memo, a phone call, a voice mail
message, a personal presentation, a speech, an email, a webpage, or a
multi-media presentation. Remember - your communication's audience can be just one
person, a small team, an auditorium full of people or a national, even global,
group of millions. In this instance size doesn't matter, the rules remain the
same.
2- Clarity: Be
clear about the message you want to deliver, as giving a confused message to
your audience only ends up with them being confused and your message being
ignored.
3- Consistency: Nothing more upsets a regular
reader of, say, your newsletter than inconsistency of your message. Taking a
position on an issue one week, only to overturn it the next, then overturn that
position the following week, only breeds distrust in your message. People who
distrust you are exceedingly unlikely to take the action you wish them to take.
They are also highly unlikely to pay any attention to your future messages. As
well as consistency amongst multiple messages, be aware that
inconsistency within your message can be just as deadly to audience
comprehension.
4- Medium: There are numerous ways you can deliver a message. The trick
is to use the right one. The right one to communicate your message is that with
the greatest accuracy, with the largest likelihood of audience comprehension, at
the lowest fiscal cost and at the lowest time cost. It must
meet all of these criteria. There's absolutely no
value in spending the least amount of money if the medium you choose
doesn't deliver on any of the other criteria. So you have a choice from any one
or combination of the following: paper-based memo, one-to-one face-to-face
presentation, one-to-one phone presentation, one-to-many personal presentation,
one-to-many phone presentation, voice email, webcast/webvideo, television
broadcast, tv/film commercial, letter, seminar, meeting, plain text email, text
+ graphics email, webpage, radio broadcast, press release and cd-rom/dvd
etc. Choosing the right medium or media
is obviously critical, as the fiscal costs of some in the above list are higher
than others.
5- Relevancy: The psychological reality is
that unless a person is interested in the subject of the message they are highly
unlikely to pay any attention, which means that if you force
them to attend to your message you will actually turn them against you and be
even less likely to receive their attention in the future. If your business
communication needs to touch on several areas that might not be of interest to
your entire audience, let them know of alternative resources that more fully
address each of these additional areas.
6- Primacy/Recency: It is essential to know that,
one week later, a business communication is remembered by one or both of two
things: the power and memorability of its opening and the power and
memorability of its close. Psychologists call the effect of remembering the
first few items presented as a 'Primacy Effect'. Similarly, they call the
effect of remembering the last few items presented to you as a 'Recency
Effect'.
7- The Psychological Rule of 7+2 (seven plus or minus
two): Psychologists have long known that the human brain has a
finite capacity to hold information in short-term or 'working' memory.
Equally, the brain is also structured to retain information
in 'clusters' or groups of items.
These clusters or groups average, across the whole of
mankind, at seven items, plus or minus two, which means that your audience is
only able to hold on to between five and nine pieces of information at any one
time similarly, your audience will group your business communication's message
with between four and eight other messages in their long-term memory.
Conclusion
The
basic elements of business communication include different types of elements
that have to use in the communication. According to Lee Hopkins the seven
elements of successful business communications are Structure, Clarity, Consistency, Medium, Relevancy,
Primacy/Recency, and Rule of 7±2. If you
are going to communicate effectively and successfully in business it is
essential that you have to use these elements.
Hopkins, L. (n.d.). leehopkins.
Retrieved from Leehopkins Web site:
http://www.leehopkins.com/essential-of-business-communication.html
