The quote from Mireille Guiliano above shows that business communication skills are indeed one of the success factors that individuals need to have when entering into the world of business and work. Some experts have even identified the meaning of business communication. According to Rosenbalt, business communication is an activity or action taken to exchange ideas, information, aspirations, opinions, etc., all of which can be conveyed personally or non-personally through symbols and signals to achieve all targets and objectives of the company. . In addition, an expert named Katz also gave an explanation of the definition of business communication. For Katz, business communication is an activity undertaken to exchange ideas, messages and concepts related to achieving a number of commercial targets.
Some of the goals of business communication are to convey information, persuade and form collaborations. From these few goals, we can see how important business communication is in the world of work, because without the exchange of information, ideas and without collaboration, business will be difficult to develop. Business communication also has several functions.
Business communication functions include informative functions, regulatory functions, persuasive functions and integrative functions. Then, what about the forms of business communication? There are two forms of business communication namely, verbal communication and nonverbal communication. In addition, business communication can be seen from several concrete examples that we often encounter in the world of work. Some examples of business communications include company reports, e-mail product offers, or cooperation offer letters.
For individuals who are interested in honing their skills in business communication, they can learn this ability through business communication materials or business communication papers to find out the scope of business communication and business communication processes more deeply.
Not only that, some articles can also be read to increase our knowledge of business communication skills . However, this time we will provide a quite different article for Career Advice colleagues. There are many articles that discuss business communication, especially articles that suggest how important assertiveness is as a form of business communication in the workplace.
Unfortunately, improving business communication skills is not just focused on improving assertiveness in the workplace, colleagues. There are other things that are rarely known to many people and in fact some of these things can help us in improving business communication skills in the world of business and work.
What Are the Steps to Improve Business Communication Skills?
As quoted from the career advancement blog dot com website, there are 6 steps that we can implement in improving business communication skills, which are as follows:
1. Understand that Everyone Has Different Work Styles and Personalities .
The first step we need to do is understand the uniqueness of each individual in the office. This is indeed a natural thing to happen. The proof, the work style and personality that we have may not be the same as the work style of the coworkers beside us. Therefore, in improving business communication skills, we need to understand and tolerate each person’s uniqueness, especially in their work style and personality.
For example, there are some employees who choose to be sent an email related to the agenda and topic of the work meeting, the day before the work meeting begins. They do not like being suddenly asked to give opinions, ideas or opinions at a meeting while they are not informed of any material before the meeting. By trying to trace this difference, we will be able to improve our business communication with superiors, coworkers, clients, business partners and customers.
2. Diligently Communicate and Have a Good Relationship with Other Work Divisions.
The second step is to maintain good communication and relationships with cross-functions . Strong intertwined communication with all fields or divisions within the company is something that can facilitate us in undergoing business communication. Logically, no work team can stand up and fight alone without the help of other work divisions. So, actually we all depend on each other and this is what makes everyone need to improve their business communication in the world of work.
3. Be Assertive, But Still Humble.
Being assertive or assertive is one attitude that is very necessary in business skills. Assertiveness must not only be shared by leaders, but also by everyone involved with work and business. Assertiveness will provide clarity in every business communication we do.
However, just having an assertive attitude is still not enough to improve business communication skills. We also need to be humble, for example asking for constructive feedback from our colleagues , superiors (leaders), or subordinates (employees), being transparent about an issue that involves many people or everyone, being kind, not arrogant or not looking down on people etc., etc. Both of these attitudes will really help us in becoming a very pleasant person, because most people do like to deal business with someone who is assertive but not arrogant.
4. Become a Professional Problem Solver.
Who would like a problem or conflict? We believe that almost everyone is very avoiding this because both will only make our lives feel uneasy. Yep! Conflict resolution is not fun, but we really need skills in solving problems or problem solving so that we can have better business communication skills over time. Well, for that from now on we have to hone our problem solving skills professionally, colleagues.
Some ways that we can do such as, learn to understand a conflict by finding out the root causes of the problem, being a good listener, being empathetic , guiding both parties to compromise or discuss each other in order to get a fair middle ground, and so forth. We all know that in business relationships, it’s impossible if we don’t have conflicts with other parties. Therefore, do not underestimate this skill if we really want to improve our business communication skills, colleagues.
5. Use Virtual Communication Effectively.
The development of technology has helped us to communicate and connect quickly. One of the developments that we can enjoy together is communicating virtually , which communication in this form never existed in the past twenty years. Now, anyone can communicate virtually anytime, anywhere.
Now, if your Career Advice colleagues really want to improve your business communication skills, then fellow readers need to use virtual communication media effectively.
Virtual communication can facilitate us in reviewing employees who work remotely (remote), interviewing prospective candidates through virtual communication, conducting online courses, job training or job coaching using virtual communication, even holding online work meetings with business partners and clients. So, don’t waste the opportunities and virtual communication facilities available, colleagues.
6. Finally, Don’t Forget to Practice Good Office Politics.
What? Office politics ?! Some of us will definitely think negatively when we hear the term “office politics”. In fact, office politics is not always about bad and negative things, colleagues. Our office politics means to show loyalty or loyalty to leaders and companies, strengthen relationships with colleagues, build good relationships with colleagues in other departments, clients, business partners and customers. In addition, we also need to give the best performance we have, respect for others and so on. Well, those are the forms of office politics that we need to implement in improving our business communication skills.
