LISTEN UP

Why Good Communication Is Good Business

By Marty Blalock Why is communication important to business? Couldnt we just produce graduates skilled at crunching numbers? Good communication matters because business organizations are made up of people. As Robert Kent, former dean of Harvard Business School has said, In business, communication is everything. Research spanning several decades has consistently ranked communication skills as crucial for managers. Typically, managers spend 75 to 80 percent of their time engaged in some form of written or oral communication. Although often termed a soft skill, communication in a business organization provides the critical link between core functions. Lets examine three reasons why good communication is important to individuals and their organizations.

Reason 1. Ineffective communication is very expensive.

Communication in a business organization provides the critical link between core functions.
The National Commission on Writing estimates that American businesses spend $3.1 billion annually just training people to write. The Commission surveyed 120 human resource directors in companies affiliated with the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers from U.S. corporations. According to the report of the National Commission on Writing: People who cannot write and communicate clearly will not be hired, and if already working, are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion.

Eighty percent or more of the companies in the services and the finance, insurance and real estate sectorsthe corporations with greatest employment growth potentialassess writing during hiring. Two-thirds of salaried employees in large American companies have some writing responsibility.

More than 40 percent of responding firms offer or require training for salaried employees with writing deficiencies.

Tips for Communication

Whether writing or speaking, consider your objectives. What do you want your listeners or readers to remember or do? To achieve an objective, you need to be able to articulate it. Consider your audience. How receptive will it be? If you anticipate positive reception of your message, you can be more direct. Consider your credibility in relation to your audience. Also, consider the organizational environment. Is it thick or flat, centralized or decentralized? Each will have communication implications. How can you motivate others? Benefits are always your best bet. And if you can establish common ground, especially at the opening of a message, you can often make your audience more receptive. Think carefully about channel choice, about the advantages and disadvantages of your choice, and the preferred channels of your audience. If you want to have a permanent record or need to convey complex information, use a channel that involves writing. If your message is sensitive, email may not be the best choice; the immediacy of face-to-face communication can be preferable, especially when you would prefer not to have a written record. Adapted from research on communication strategy by Mary Munter of the Tuck School at Dartmouth and Jane Thomas of the University of Michigan.