Conclusion

Positive ‘social experience’ among friends does not guarantee that you will be equally successful and effective when communicating in the workplace. Before you start mastering your own communicative skills in the business setting it is important to have a basic idea about the nature and specific character of business communication. You should know its principles, forms and elements in order to be able to apply them for the benefit of your business. As the participant of the communication process you may find yourself both on the sending or receiving end of the communication model. You should thus be able to reflect on the specific features of each role and analyse your own strong and weak points when communicating as a sender or as a receiver of the information.

This brief overview of the communication process, its elements and the factors which affect it, does not claim to be comprehensive but mainly aims at drawing your attention to the first golden rule of communication - ‘think ahead’. If we can analyze and predict some of the likely problems before we communicate, we may be able to avoid them ¹.

To communicate effectively you should invest some efforts in understanding yourself and your partners. With the basic theoretical knowledge you will be able to simulate the communicative process, identifying the stages of formulating, coding, decoding and receiving the message. When preparing and transmitting a message you will find practical evidence that using multiple media and channels may reinforce the message, but any lack of coordination will cause confusion.

Taking into account the specific features of business communication mentioned above we may conclude that the sender of the information is responsible for misunderstanding in communication. The motivating part of this conclusion is that business communicator has a huge potential of forms, methods, strategies and media at his disposal and with certain degree of training, practice and persistence he can control the communication process in his workplace. The challenging part of this conclusion is the necessity to master so many parameters of the communication process and the awareness of how much the error may cost to an employee or a company.

Recommended Reading:

1. Blundel R., Effective Business Communication. Principles and Practice for the Information Age. Prentice Hall. То же на русском языке: Бландел Р. Эффективные Бизнес-Коммуникации. Теория и практика в эпоху информации. – Санкт-Петербург, 2000 – C. 9-29.

2. Lahiff J.M., Penrose J.M., Business Communication: Strategies and Skills. Prentice Hall. То же на русском языке. Лэйхиф Дж.М., Пенроуз Дж.М. Бизнес-комуникации. Стратегии и навыки. - Санкт-Петербург, 2001. – C. 16-21, 49-56.

3. Lannon M.J. Technical Communication. Longman, 2000. – p. 7-18, 34-38.

4. Панфилова А.П. Деловая коммуникация в профессиональной деятельности. Санкт-Петербург, 2001. - С. 9-91.

5. Спивак В.А. Современные бизнес коммуникации. – СПб: Питер, 2002. C. 6-8.

6. Sheldon R. Business Communications.- Peter Andrew Publishing Co, 1989. – p. 1-11.

Glossary of the Terms:

Channel	the path a message follows from the sender to the receiver, a physical medium or recognised route for transmitting messages.
Communication	the process of passing information and understanding from one person to another
Communication Model	the graphic representation of the communication process
Communications	a system of channels permitting messages to be passed within the area or institution they cover.
Decode	make out the meaning of the message.
Encode	put a message into words or images.
Feedback	the giving of a response by receivers in such a way that sender knows the message has been received and understood.
Grapevine	Informal communication channel that consists of rumours, gossip, and truthful information
Human skills	the ability to interact effectively with people
Medium of expression	a particular kind of symbol, which must be understood by all parties to the communication
Message	the information that the sender wants to transmit.
Noise	anything that interferes with the communication (e.g. language barrier, stress, time, culture, stereotypes, sounds, etc.)
Receiver	the person or group for whom the communication effort is intended.
Sender	a person who initiates the communication process to transmit the message to a receiver.

1 Stanton, N., p. 5.

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Donetsk National Technical University

Department of Foreign Languages for Professional Communication