The psychology of effective business communication
In everyday business communication, often there are situations where the partners in the communication process often get caught in what are called “the traps of miscommunication”.
This article tries to shed a light on some of those traps, as well as to give an insight of the psychology of effective business communication, and of ways to achieve it.
Starting off, in communication one needs to distinguish between focus (for performing socially significant tasks, for work, for results) and personal orientation (to satisfy personal needs).
While focus is the main objective to be followed in effective business communication, this means that personal orientation needs to be “set aside”, while in the process of communication with a client, having negotiations, conducting a presentation business meeting, etc.
Business communication is object-oriented activity and is aimed at organizing and optimizing one or another type of objective activity — presenting a business model, reaching an agreement with a client, starting a project, planning, as well as other business goals.
In business communication, the subject of communication and the participants’ attitudes towards it are the main determinants of the communication process. Ability to understand the partners’ substantive positions (which includes personal attitude) , including their own, is a necessary condition for the success of communication. The main objective of business communication can be called productive cooperation, the desire to bring together goals, establish and improve partnership relations.
Business communication, assumes the implementation of the following six key conditions :
- Obligation of contacts of all communication participants, regardless of likes and dislikes.
- Objective content of communication — transparency is a must here!
- Compliance with the formal role-based principles of interaction, taking into account the roles, rights and responsibilities.
- Interdependence of all participants of business communication in achieving the final result and in the implementation of personal intentions.
- Communicative control of interaction participants.
- Formal restrictions:
a) conventional restrictions, ie. observance of legal, social norms, adherence to regulations (observance of internal regulations, instructions, etc.);
b) Situational, ie. taking into account the situation of business communication (meeting, presentation, negotiations, etc.). Interaction purposefully, in a certain regulation, using adequate communication tools and achieving the expected result;
c) emotional, ie. the manifestation of stress resistance, the ability to control one’s feelings and emotions in a tense business situation;
d) violent, ie. it is permissible to interrupt the contact of either party in those situations when the content of information ceases to be of an objective nature, when the reactions of the communication partner are inadequate to expectations and established norms of conduct.
The methods of interaction depend on the goals of communication, the features of its organization, the emotional mood of the interlocutors, the level of their culture. It should also be noted that as a dialectical process, communication is a unity of two opposing tendencies: to cooperation, to integration, on the one hand, and to struggle, differentiation, on the other. The most noticeable is the dualism of communication in a variety of its kind, like business communication.
Scientists distinguish the following basic characteristics of communication:
- functions,
- content,
- side,
- manner,
- style
Communication can have different content, which is expressed in the following:
- the transfer of information from person to person;
- the perception of each other;
- a mutual evaluation;
- the interaction of partners in communicating with each other;
- partner interaction
- management of group or mass activity, etc.
Since business communication is a subject-target activity, the content of each communication form (talks, discussion, report, etc.), as well as each speech structure (conclusion, opinion, cue, critical remark, note) depends on the communicative intent and the expected result. Every specific goal in business communication requires the content of communication, which allows it to be implemented and to achieve the necessary results. The success of business communication, depends on the adequacy of attitudes, the understanding of his subject and interpersonal position, the knowledge of the patterns of various forms of communication and rules of behavior in various situations, the ability to form a tactical plan and implement it on the basis of existing social skills. This situation is especially important in those situations when there is an assumption about the possible insincerity of a business partner. As norms the society develops a certain system of patterns of behavior, the violation of which includes mechanisms of social control, which, in turn, ensures correction of deviant behavior.
As a conclusion, we could add that the components of effective business communication are critical, when it comes to doing business on an operational, as well as on strategic level (planning, developing a business model, etc.). Should one want to be a successful communicator in business deals, one needs to take those components into consideration. An idea, which we, at DeepSource share and put into practice!
If you got any value from this, please give me a clap or two so others will see it too!
