Module 1_lecture 3

Business Communication Course Module 1

Module 1. The Nature of Business Communication

Lecture 3. The Receiver’s Role in Communication

Every society honours its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.’

Michael McLaughlin

We feel in one world. We think in another. Between the two, we can set up a series of references, but we cannot fill the gap.’

Marcel Proust.

• Receiver’s Challenges in Communication

• Interpreting Four Aspects of the Message

• Giving Feedback

• Conclusion

• Recommended Reading

• Glossary of the Basic Terms

At the beginning of our course we admitted that the Client is the main actor in the play called «Business Communication». He or she is a person on whom we depend when doing business; we need the receiver (the client) understand the message and act accordingly as this determines success or failure of our business deals. That is why the sender has to treat the client with ‘kid gloves’.

As the main purpose of business communications is to increase the efficiency of the client as a user of the information, the sender should provide the business partner with all relevant data so that he is able to take competent decisions for the benefit of your common business. As you remember from lecture No 1, if one wants to become an effective communicator, the business communication formula for him is to give the client the opportunity «to hear», «to understand» and «to do». In lecture No 2 we also saw that in the real life the sender, even the one, who is well aware of his/her responsibility in business communication, has to face a lot of challenges when transmitting a message to the receiver, which often result in communication breakdown.

Let us leave aside psychological and contextual sources of communication breakdown for a while and try to analyse here what potential errors the message (words and the meaning behind words) transmitted may contain on the receiving end of the communication model and how the sender can overcome these setbacks.

Getting the message the receiver tries to understand the content of the information (referential aspect of this message), to analyze what kind of a person the sender is (expressive aspect), is personally affected by relational aspect (what is the sender’s attitude to him?) and notices what is that the sender wants him to do or not do (appealing aspect).

The ideal recipient pays attention to all four aspects of the message. Let us consider the following example:

A husband and wife are having breakfast. The man says, ‘The kettle is boiling.’

The referential aspect of the message describes the fact that the water in the kettle is boiling. By means of this message the sender transmits the information about himself (expressive aspect) – he speaks English, he may be in a hurry or longing for a cup of tea. If his words are interpreted as a request to his wife to make tea, he may even be considered lazy. This message also expresses the husband’s attitude towards the wife and allows different interpretations depending on non-verbal signals that accompany the words. For instance, if his tone of voice is irritated, we may even think that the husband likes to order the wife about her house duties as he believes she should carry out all household chores. The appeal of this example may be ‘Go and make some tea.’

So far we have analysed the four aspects from the point of view of the sender. Let us now see how the receiver responds to the message that he receives.

As well as the husband in the example transmitted four different types of information, the wife may interpret the message in four different ways, which, as we saw in lecture 2, may give rise to breakdowns in communication. She may respond to an aspect that was not the principal aspect in the sender’s opinion; she may ignore the most important aspect on purpose. The wife may, thus, respond to any of the four aspects the husband’s message contains:

“Already?”	(responding to referential aspect)
“What is the hurry?”	(responding to expressive aspect)
“You know how to make tea as well, don’t you?”	(responding to relational aspect)
She gets up and makes tea.	(responding to appealing aspect)

There is always the risk that someone interprets a message in a different way than the sender intended. Meanwhile the main characteristic of successful communication is that the receiver interprets the message in the same way as the sender. But it is not effective unless the receiver acts the way the senders wants him to.

As the sender of the information is responsible for misunderstanding in communication, let us now consider what potential challenges for effective communication each of four aspects of the message contains and how they can be dealt with.

Referential Aspect. This aspect deals with the actual information one wants to convey and potential problems may be caused by the quality of this information, by the sender’s ability to transmit the information effectively, and by the receiver’s readiness to perceive it.

Very often, when we formulate the message for transmission the only thing we bother about is our own needs and purposes. Our inherent egoism is what prevents us from taking the client into account. When organising the information for transmission we should realise the recipient needs, otherwise our message risks to pass unnoticed by the receiver whose needs may be different from ours.

As a rule, the sender purposes are to inform, to comment, to instruct, to evoke emotions, to maintain a relation. For the communication to be effective it is important that the receiver needs to be informed, to receive opinion/information, to receive instructions, to have emotions or to have a good relation with the sender at the same moment when the sender initiates communication. Remember how you feel when you are full of excitement before going out to the disco and some elder member of your family starts giving you instructions as to how you should behave at the university. When you buy a house appliance you look for an instruction manual to find out how to make the apparatus work. You will be less interested in a technical description of the different components and materials used to build this appliance.

Thus, to create a favourable ground for your information to be accepted make your purposes tally with the receiver’s needs and tell NOT what YOU want to tell BUT what THE RECEIVER wants to hear.

Considering the quality of the information you are going to transmit, make sure that the information is understandable. It is important you check the receiver’s background knowledge on the subject of communication. Without this you may either tell the client the things he already knows and, thus, make him feel annoyed about wasting time for unnecessary talks, or the client will feel that he is missing certain data you are aware of, and thus will be embarrassed, suspicious or nervous about that.

It is also crucial that the sender chooses the suitable level of information. Too specialised information may be uninteresting for the lay person, and you may sound too sophisticated for the client who may not wish to bother oneself with making head or tail of the message you sent. At the same time, business information communicated on the primitive level may make the client question your professional competence or seriousness of your business intentions or the project you offer.

Similar reactions are typical of students who feel bored and annoyed when the teacher lectures them about the things they know and consider simple, and, at the same time, they may feel themselves at a loss when the teacher starts talking about certain phenomena supposing that the students have learnt their basics earlier, while they did not, in fact.

Another factor that helps the client ‘hear’ your message is visual presentation of the information. The message which is transmitted only verbally may be difficult to grasp. A message which is messy or too wordy can make the receiver stop reading or listening. Visualisation of the message helps organise perception and, hence, helps the receiver understand the message properly.

Thus, in order to help the client understand the actual content of the message you send, you should make your purposes tally with the receiver’s needs, take into account the client’s background knowledge and choose the suitable level of the information you communicate.

Expressive Aspect. In many messages this aspect is of secondary importance compared with other aspects. In a business letter or a contract the sender tries to stay in the background as much as possible. Yet he presents himself, whether he wants it or not. It is better when you are aware of the image of yourself which you communicate together with your words. For example, when a teacher examines a student he asks questions not because he really wants to get the information (referential aspect), but because he tries to evaluate a student’s knowledge and insight (expressive aspect). In this context expressive aspect becomes very significant – a student normally tries to make impression of a knowledgeable, well-prepared and hard-working person.

The message sent out is filtered through the perceptions of the listener of who you are.  We hear a lot in the speaking profession of how much influence your looks, body language, and voice tone affect the message you send.  We don’t hear as much about the credibility of the speaker in the mind of the audience, but it plays a huge factor. This "receptor bias" is generally reserved to certain areas where we think we know more than our mates.

We’ll take advice from those we think have credibility that matches or exceeds our own, and generally ignore it from people who aren’t in our perceived intellectual class.  When I consult with companies, guess where I get most of my ideas to improve the business?  That’s right—the front line employees!  Management has heard a lot of these ideas before, but didn’t listen because they came from lower tier employees.  Now that they come from a paid "expert", the concepts are suddenly good.

[Channels of Persuasion 09.07.2003 http://www.speakingconnection.com/Communication_Articles/articles_01p2.html]

Sometimes a sender gives a distorted picture of himself on purpose. Everyone tends to stress one’s strong points and hide one’s weaknesses. These strategies are called impression and façade behaviour respectively [Reader Business Communication/ I.v.d. Linden (ed.). – Utrecht, 1994, p. 48].

• Impression techniques are the ways to stress one’s strong points (usually implicitly). This can be done by so-called upper-class language or a professional group jargon, by quoting positive remarks about oneself as an aside or mentioning famous names as close friends.

• Facade techniques are the ways to hide one’s weaknesses. Incompetence, for example, is concealed by complex, sophisticated phrases that blur the meaning.

Everyone uses these techniques and in some situations, such as interviews, they are very helpful.

Thus, in order to help the client understand your message and your intentions and personality behind it, make it first clear for yourself: What impression do you want to make and how can you achieve that?

Relational Aspect. This aspect may be interpreted as another side of expressive aspect. Yet it directly involves the client, who is very sensitive to how the sender treats him personally. Find below an example which illustrates bad handling of relational aspect by the author of the text

In a “Practical Guide for Enterprising Women” the reader is addressed in the following way: ‘I will tell you a secret. What, you will ask. If you think that you will get a promotion because you are such a nice girl, or because they like the way you look, then you are a goose.’ [Reader Business Communication/ I.v.d. Linden (ed.). – Utrecht, 1994, p. 49]

It will be very difficult to find a business woman who does not feel belittled and offended by these words and by the patronising attitude of the author and continues to read further.

If your boss starts telling you things you have learnt in secondary school or when doing your university course, you may feel underestimated as a professional and may either stop listening or get furious. This reaction is quite common even if the boss’s message is informative and clear, he appears to be concerned about the business and his tone is friendly.

There are three dimensions of the relational aspect:

• Pressure is the extent to which the sender guides the recipient, tries to make him/her do what he wants. The sender may exert pressure saying, for instance, “I think it is time I get a promotion”; or he may ‘leave it free’ as in the utterance: “If it suits you, he would like to discuss the possibility of promotion within your company, in the event of a position being available.”

• Distance is the degree of intimacy between the sender and receiver. We differentiate between formal and informal distance. Formal distance, for instance, is reflected by the choice of formal lexis and formula of politeness (‘your obedient servant’, ‘remains yours faithfully…’, etc.) Informal distance, vice versa, is expressed by skipping the polite phrases, using conversational language (phrasal verbs and idiomatic expressions).

• Appreciation is the extent to which the sender considers the recipient equal, worthy of respect and pleasant. When you look up to the client, you show your respect using lexis to underline it. And vice versa, when the recipient is looked down by the sender, it is felt in the style of the message, its wording and structure.

Every communication situation requires different levels of pressure, distance and appreciation. As both sender and receiver are personally involved in this aspect and as it is usually implicitly phrased, this aspect is often a cause of communication breakdown. Though it is considered secondary in business communication the relational aspect may get in the way of many business deals. As personality conflicts and communication breakdowns usually are not expressed explicitly, the real cause of the conflict remains hidden, and the message seems not to be understood not because its referential aspect is badly handled but because of the bad relationship between the parties. An old Chinese proverb says, "You get sick by what you put in your mouth, but you can be hurt by what comes out of your mouth." Thus, we cannot underestimate the relational aspect as all of us set great store by the way we are treated by other people.

Appealing Aspect. This aspect is stressed in advertising, propaganda, explicit orders and requests. In the messages that seem to be expressive the purpose may be an appeal: when somebody swears because something does not work, he may be sending an implicit appeal: pay attention to me, help me. In business setting the sender usually has certain interests when he communicates, and in many cases these interests are reflected in implicit appeals. For example, when a contractor is doing a small job for a client who tells him in passing that he has big plans for reconstruction, the contractor will meet the clients every wish to have the chance of getting another job from the client. The client, hence, may reach his implicit goal to motivate the contractor work better and faster. One of the main challenges the receiver faces in understanding the appealing aspect of the message is awareness of implicit appeals and of their content.

There are cases when, even though he understands the message, the receiver does not want to carry out an appeal. On the one hand, he thinks he may not benefit from it. On the other hand, the reason for this may be rooted in the bad handling of the relational aspect by the sender. If the client interprets an appeal as the sender’s power over him, he may feel irritated or humiliated and is likely to ignore the appeal.

We have already mentioned that the effectiveness of the message depends on its clarity and the communication is effective when the client is able to act in the way the sender wants. That is why it is crucial for the sender to know clearly what he wants, because unless he expresses his appeal, the message may have an entirely different effect.

However, it does not mean that all the appeals should be explicit. In the business setting it is often more effective to stress referential aspect and communicate the appealing aspect implicitly, so that the client is less aware that he is being influenced.

The appeal can be made more effective if you follow the recommendations below:

Be as clear as possible. No matter how you express the appeal of your message, explicitly or implicitly, your purpose must be made clear to the client.

Pay a lot of attention to the relational aspect. Nobody is likely to act in response to the request if his feelings are hurt by the sender.

Stress the positive effects. If the client carries out the appeal he should know his benefits from this. Stress them, not your own advantages.

Appeal to generally accepted values and standards. Many people are sensitive to them and may be persuaded by the fact that their behaviour is socially correct and desirable.

• Give impression that the receiver will belong to an appreciated group. It flatters his self-esteem.

• Mention the negative consequences for the recipient if he does not carry out the appeal. However, this is not the best strategy to start your communication. Use positive approach first. The positive approach is the best unless you expect the client’s rejection.

Thus, the effectiveness of the message depends on the way all four aspects are handled by the sender and interpreted by the receiver. The appealing aspect can never be successfully handled if one of the other three shows flaws. In order to be able to communicate effectively, the sender should understand the client’s needs, expectations, strong points and weaknesses. To foresee the client’s reactions on the receiving end of the communication model we have to learn and take into account the client’s style of work, i.e. the client’s way of perceiving, mastering and applying the information.

Giving Feedback

Having analyzed the receiver’s role in decoding the message sent and the factors which impede or distort the communication, we must not forget that until the receiver shows that s/he has understood the message, or seeks clarification to be able to understand it, the message is only transmitted, not communicated. To have the communication process/cycle/loop completed the sender needs the response from the receiver that the message has been received and understood, in other words, an adequate feedback is necessary. If feedback does not indicate understanding, it means it is inadequate and is a symptom of defective communication possibly caused by any of the factors mentioned above.

On the basis of feedback the sender may restore possible misunderstanding. But it is often difficult to interpret feedback, because it is usually indirect, i.e. the receiver does not say how he interpreted the message. It may be inferred from his words, his tone of voice or behaviour. Questions about the content of the message signify for the sender that he has not handled the referential aspect properly. When the client does not do what the sender wants him to, then the sender knows that his message has failed regarding the appealing aspect, which in turn may be caused by the fact that the sender’s image does not meet the client’s expectations or the client does not feel himself treated properly.

As any other message, feedback has four aspects as well. Therefore, if some of them are misinterpreted, this may cause another communication breakdown. Feedback is very important to make communication successful, but it can easily turn into impression behaviour (‘see how good I am at spotting your mistakes’) and façade behaviour (justifying one’s own mistakes).

There are various possibilities for feedback:

• In face-to-face communication it may be verbal and non-verbal, it can be given immediately and the sender can respond to it at once.

• In a telephone conversation there is also the possibility for the immediate feedback, yet the sender cannot see the non-verbal signals.

Written communication offers little opportunity for immediate feedback, and is therefore the most difficult form of communication. The writer often gets no response to the message he produces and thus he should be very good at placing himself in the reader’s shoes and realising potential causes of miscommunication.

The ability to provide effective feedback is a manager’s skill absolutely essential to organizational effectiveness; people must know where they are and where to go next in terms of expectations and goals - yours, their own, and the organization.

Feedback taps basic human needs - to improve, to compete, to be accurate; people want to be competent. Feedback can be reinforcing; if given properly, feedback is almost always appreciated and motivates people to improve. But for many people, daily work is like bowling with a curtain placed between them and the pins; they receive little information. Withholding constructive feedback is like sending people out on a dangerous hike without a compass. This is especially true in today's fast changing and demanding workplace.

The effective manager should be aware of the many reasons why people are hesitant to give feedback; they include fear of causing embarrassment, discomfort, fear of an emotional reaction, and inability to handle the reaction.

It is crucial that we realize how critical feedback can be and overcome our difficulties; it is very important and can be very rewarding but it requires skill, understanding, courage, and respect for yourself and others.

As important as feedback is, this critical managerial task remains one of the most problematic. Many managers are reluctant to provide feedback - especially that feedback that might be viewed as critical. There are reasons for that:

• fear of the other person's reaction; people can get very defensive and emotional when confronted with feedback;

• the feedback may be based on subjective feeling and the manager may be unable to give concrete information if the other person questions the basis for the feedback;

• the information on which the feedback is based (e.g. performance appraisal) may be a very flawed process and the manager may not totally trust the information

• many managers would prefer being a coach than "playing God."

Other factors that get in the way of effective communication or feedback sessions are:

• defensiveness, distorted perceptions, guilt, distortions from the past

• misreading of body language, tone

• noisy transmission (unreliable messages, inconsistency)

• receiver distortion: selective hearing, ignoring non-verbal cues

• power struggles

• self-fulfilling assumptions

• language (different levels of meaning)

• managers hesitation to be candid

• assumptions (e.g. assuming others see situation same as you, has same feelings as you)

• distrusted source, erroneous translation, value judgment, state of mind of two people.

Providing effective feedback as a management skill will be discussed in detail later in the course “Communication Training”, yet generally speaking effective feedback has most of the following characteristics:

• It is descriptive (not evaluative) to avoid defensiveness. By describing one's own reactions, it leaves the individual fee to use it or not to use it as he sees fit. Describe your own reactions or feelings; describe objective consequences that have or will occur; focus on behaviour and your own reaction, not on other individual or his or her attributes;

• It avoids accusations and presents data if necessary

• It suggests more acceptable alternative; so you should be prepared to discuss additional alternatives;

• It is specific rather than general.

• It is focused on behaviour not the person. It is important that we refer to what a person does rather than to what we think he is. Thus we might say that a person "talked more than anyone else in this meeting" rather than that he is a "loud-mouth."

• It takes into account the needs of both the receiver and giver of feedback. It should be given to help, not to hurt. We too often give feedback because it makes us feel better or gives us a psychological advantage.

• It is directed toward behaviour which the receiver can do something about. A person gets frustrated when reminded of some shortcoming over which he has no control.

• It is solicited rather than imposed. Feedback is most useful when the receiver himself has formulated the kind of question, which those observing him can answer, or when he actively seeks feedback.

• It is useful when well-timed (soon after the behaviour - depending, of course, on the person's readiness to hear it, support available from others and so forth). Excellent feedback presented at an inappropriate time may do more harm than good.

• It involves the amount of information the receiver can use rather than the amount we would like to give. To overload a person with feedback is to reduce the possibility that he may be able to use what he receives effectively. When we give more than can be used, we are more often than not satisfying some need of our own rather than helping the other person.

• It concerns what is said and done, or how, not why. The "why" involves assumptions regarding motive or intent and this tends to alienate the person generate resentment, suspicion, and distrust. If we are uncertain of his motives or intent, this uncertainty itself is feedback, however, and should be revealed.

• It is checked to insure clear communication. One way of doing this is to have the receiver try to rephrase the feedback. No matter what the intent, feedback is often threatening and thus subject to considerable distortion or misinterpretation.

• It is checked to determine degree of agreement from others. Such "consensual validation" is of value to both the sender and receiver.

• It is followed by attention to the consequences of the feedback. The supervisor needs to become acutely aware of the effects of his feedback.

Constructive feedback opens the way to a relationship, which is built on trust, honest, and genuine concern and mutual growth. Part of the feedback process involves understanding and predicting how the other person will react. Or in the case of our receiving feedback, we need to understand ways that we respond to feedback, especially threatening feedback.

People often react negatively to threatening feedback. This reaction can take a number of forms including:

• selective reception and selective perception

• doubting motive of the giver

• denying validity of the data

• rationalizing

• attack the giver of the data

Following the guidelines to effective feedback can go a long way to limit these kinds of reactions but we need to be conscious of them nonetheless and be ready to react appropriately.

When we are on the receiving end of feedback, we should be careful to avoid these pitfalls. Try to keep these points in mind.

• try not to be defensive

• check on possible misunderstanding ("Let me restate what I am hearing")

• gather information from other sources

• don't overreact

• ask for clarification

Conclusion

The methodology of four aspects analysis described in lectures 1 and 2, on the one hand, makes it easy to criticise faulty messages in a more specific way, and on the other hand, makes message improvement more specific as we can find exactly what is wrong.

With four aspects of the message in mind, we can judge the quality of the message by answering the following questions:

• Does the sender give enough information for the client to take decision and to act?

• Does the sender make the desired impression on the client?

• Is the style of the message aimed at the client?

• Is the message convincing for the client to act?

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.20-22.

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-коммуникации. Стратегии и навыки. - Санкт-Петербург, 2001. – C. 56-60.

3. Reader Business Communication/ I.v.d. Linden (ed.). – Utrecht, 1994, p. 39-55.

4. Sheldon R. Business Communications. - Peter Andrew Publishing Co, 1989. – p. 4.

Glossary of the Basic Terms:

Appealing aspect	reflects the sender’s attempt to influence the recipient to do or not to do something
Appreciation	the extent to which the sender considers the recipient equal, worthy of respect and pleasant.
Communication breakdown	failure to communicate
Defensiveness	Behaviour by which a person tries to protect oneself from criticism (usually alienated and counterproductive)
Distance	the degree of intimacy between the sender and receiver.
Facade technique	the ways to hide one’s weaknesses.
Feedback	the giving of a response by receivers in such a way that sender knows the message has been received and understood.
Explicit appeal	unambiguous, clearly worded request
Expressive aspect	how the sender expresses him/herself as a personality while sending a message
Implicit appeal	hidden request to do or not to do something
Impression technique	the ways to stress one’s strong points (usually implicitly).
Pressure	the extent to which the sender guides the recipient, tries to make him/her do what he wants.
Referential, or informative, aspect	the actual information one wants to convey in a message
Relational aspect	the attitude the sender demonstrates towards the receiver while sending a message
Transmission	Sending or passing the message
Solicited feedback	Feedback which sounds as a request, advice, not an order or demand

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Donetsk National Technical University

Department of Foreign Languages for Professional Communication