Business Communication

BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Module I: Importance of Culture in Communication
Principles of effective cross cultural communication, Developing Communication Competence

Module II: Barriers to effective communication
Sender, Receiver and Situation related barriers, Measures to overcome the barriers, Listening skills

Module III: Cross cultural communication
Characteristics of culture, Social differences, Contextual differences, Nonverbal differences, Ethnocentrism

Module I: Importance of Culture in Communication
Principles of effective cross cultural communication, Developing Communication Competence

Cross Culture Communication
Cross-cultural communication (also frequently referred to as intercultural communication, which is also used in a different sense, though) is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavour to communicate across cultures.

Interdisciplinary orientation: Cross-cultural communication endeavours to bring together such relatively unrelated areas as cultural anthropology and established areas of communication. Its core is to establish and understand how people from different cultures communicate with each other. Its charge is to also produce some guidelines with which people from different cultures can better communicate with each other.

Cross-cultural communication, as in many scholarly fields, is a combination of many other fields. These fields include anthropology, cultural studies, psychology and communication. The field has also moved both toward the treatment of interethnic relations, and toward the study of communication strategies used by co-cultural populations, i.e., communication strategies used to deal with majority or mainstream populations.

The study of languages other than one’s own can not only serve to help us understand what we as human beings have in common, but also assist us in understanding the diversity which underlies not only our languages, but also our ways of constructing and organizing knowledge, and the many different realities in which we all live and interact. Such understanding has profound implications with respect to developing a critical awareness of social relationships. Understanding social relationships and the way other cultures work is the groundwork of successful globalization business efforts.

Language socialization can be broadly defined as “an investigation of how language both presupposes and creates anew, social relations in cultural context”. It is imperative that the speaker understands the grammar of a language, as well as how elements of language are socially situated in order to reach communicative competence. Human experience is culturally relevant, so elements of language are also culturally relevant. One must carefully consider semiotics and the evaluation of sign systems to compare cross-cultural norms of communication. There are several potential problems that come with language socialization, however. Sometimes people can over-generalize or label cultures with stereotypical and subjective characterizations. Another primary concern with documenting alternative cultural norms revolves around the fact that no social actor uses language in ways that perfectly match normative characterizations. A methodology for investigating how an individual uses language and other semiotic activity to create and use new models of conduct and how this varies from the cultural norm should be incorporated into the study of language socialization.

Aspects of Cross Cultural Communication: There are several parameters that may be perceived differently by people of different cultures.These may include:

High and Low Context Cultures: Context is the most important cultural dimension and also immensely difficult to define. The idea of context in culture was an idea put forth by an anthropologist by the name of Edward T Hall. Hall breaks up culture into two main groups: High and Low context cultures. He refers to context as the stimuli, environment or ambiance surrounding the environment. Depending on how a culture relies on the three points to communicate their meaning, will place them in either High or Low context cultures. For example, Hall goes on to explain that low-context cultures assume that the individuals know very little about what they are being told, and therefore must be given a lot of background information. High-Context cultures assume the individual is knowledgeable about the subject and has to be given very little background information.

Non Verbal, Oral and Written: The main goal behind improving intercultural audiences is to pay special attention to specific areas of communication to enhance the effectiveness of the intercultural messages. These specific areas are broken down into three sub categories; Non-Verbal, Oral and Written messages. Non-Verbal contact involves everything from something as obvious as eye contact and facial expressions to more discrete forms of expression such as the use of space. Experts have label the term Kinesics to mean communicating through body movement. Huseman, author of Business Communication, explains that the two most prominent ways of communication through Kinesics is eye contact and facial expressions. Eye contact, Huseman goes on to explain, is the key factor in setting the tone between two individuals and greatly differs in meaning between cultures. In the Americas and Western Europe eye contact is interpreted the same way, conveying interest and honesty. People who avoid eye contact when speaking are viewed in a negative light, withholding information and lacking in general confidence. However, in the Middle East, Africa, and especially Asia eye contact is seen as disrespectful and even challenging of one’s authority. People who make eye contact, but only briefly, are seen as respectful and courteous. Facial expressions are their own language by comparison, and universal throughout all cultures. Dale Leathers, for example, states that facial expression can communicate ten basic classes of meaning. The final part to Non-Verbal communication lies in our gestures, and can be broken down into five subcategories; Emblems, Illustrators, Regulators, Affect Displays, and Adaptors. Emblems and Illustrators are the easiest to communicate since Emblems refer to sign language (such as the “Thumbs Up” which is one of the most recognized symbols in the world) and Illustrators mimic what we speak (such as gesturing how much time is left by holding up a certain amount of fingers). Regulators act as a way of conveying meaning through gestures (raising up one’s hand for instance indicates that one has a certain question about what was just said) and become more complicated since the same regulator can have different meanings across different cultures (making a circle with ones hand for instance in the Americas means O.K but in Japan the gesture is symbolic for money, and in France conveys the notion of worthlessness). The last two, Affect Displays and Adaptors, are the two the individual has very little to no control over. Affect Displays reveal emotions such as happiness (through a smile) or sadness (mouth trembling, tears) where Adaptors are more subtle such as a yawn or clenching fists in anger. The last Non-Verbal type of communication deals with communication through the space around us, or Proxemics. Huseman goes on to explain that Hall identifies three types of space; Feature-Fixed Space, Semifixed Feature Space and Informal Space. Feature-Fixed space deals with how cultures arrange their space on a large scale, such as buildings and parks. Semifixed Feature Space deals with how we arrange our space inside said buildings, such as the placement of our desks, chairs and plants. Informal space is the space that we place importance on. Talking distance, how close people sit to one another and office space are all examples. A production line worker will often have to make an appointment to see his supervisor however the supervisor is free to visit the production line workers at will.

Oral and written communication is generally easier to learn, adapt and deal with in the business world for the simple fact that each language is unique. The one difficulty that comes into play is Paralanguage, “Language refers to what is said, Paralanguage refers to how it is said. Even though, logically, the same words should convey the same meaning the volume, rate, and emphasis placed on those words can change the meaning of the phrase. The example given by Huseman took the sentence “I would like to help you” and simply by placing the emphases on the words I, Like, Help, You in four different sentences changes the meaning of the phrase. * Respect for differences in eye contact, body language, body contact etc. some cultures do not allow people to make eye contact out of respect. * Allow for mis-understandings, do not get upset or angry at this. * Allow for differences in religion, foods, housing, etc. * Do not assume your culture is better than others, it is merely different.

Developing Communication Competence
Communicative competence is a term in linguistics which refers to a language user's grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology, phonology and the like, as well as social knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately.

The term was coined by Dell Hymes in 1966, reacting against the perceived inadequacy of Noam Chomsky's (1965) distinction between competence and performance. To address Chomsky's abstract notion of competence, Hymes undertook ethnographic exploration of communicative competence that included "communicative form and function in integral relation to each other". The approach pioneered by Hymes is now known as the ethnography of communication.

Debate has occurred regarding linguistic competence and communicative competence in the second and foreign language teaching literature, and scholars have found communicative competence as a superior model of language following Hymes' opposition to Chomsky's linguistic competence. This opposition has been adopted by those who seek new directions toward a communicative era by taking for granted the basic motives and the appropriateness of this opposition behind the development of communicative competence.

Module II: Barriers to effective communication
Sender, Receiver and Situation related barriers, Measures to overcome the barriers, Listening skills

Situational barriers, or situation related barriers, exist in as many different forms as there are situations you can be involved in. However, for every problem there is a solution. Once you understand all of the difficulties and barriers that exist in a given situation, you can begin overcoming them.

Situational Barriers: A situational barrier is something that is a barrier in a given situation that might not be a barrier elsewhere. For instance, say that you want to go to college but cannot afford the tuition costs. In this case, your lack of financial resources is a situational barrier to you attending school. Say that you had money, but you lacked the time to attend class. In this case, free time would be the situational barrier rather than the money to pay for school.

Sources of Situational Barriers: As any given situation can be made up of a multitude of different elements, any one of those elements could be a barrier all by itself. If you are having trouble adjusting to a new job, you have the responsibilities of your job, the new coworkers you have to interact with, a different way of getting to work, the work environment itself and dozens of other things that might be causing problems that are hampering you from getting your work done. Anything can be a barrier in the right situation.

Overcoming Situation Related Barriers: If you have a situation related barrier that is getting in your way, figure out a way around it. Say that you lack the necessary social standing to join a certain club. In this case, you need to find out what the prerequisites for club membership are. You then should attempt to meet them. Alternatively, say that you are having problems getting to work on time because your car is broken. Telecommuting from home is a way to overcome the barrier that this lack of transportation represents.
Avoiding a Situation Related Barrier: Not all barriers can be overcome. However, not all situations are necessary. Say that you have trouble with dogs, but you always have to interact with them when you go to a park with your friend. If dogs are a permanent fixture of your problem and you cannot alter the way you relate to dogs, then the best solution is to avoid the situation altogether, thus eliminating the problem.

Barriers overcome
Eliminating differences in perception: The organization should ensure that it is recruiting right individuals on the job. It’s the responsibility of the interviewer to ensure that the interviewee has command over the written and spoken language. There should be proper Induction program so that the policies of the company are clear to all the employees. There should be proper trainings conducted for required employees (for eg: Voice and Accent training).

Use of Simple Language: Use of simple and clear words should be emphasized. Use of ambiguous words and jargons should be avoided.

Reduction and elimination of noise levels: Noise is the main communication barrier which must be overcome on priority basis. It is essential to identify the source of noise and then eliminate that source.

Active Listening: Listen attentively and carefully: There is a difference between “listening” and “hearing”. Active listening means hearing with proper understanding of the message that is heard. By asking questions the speaker can ensure whether his/her message is understood or not by the receiver in the same terms as intended by the speaker.

Emotional State: During communication one should make effective use of body language. He/she should not show their emotions while communication as the receiver might misinterpret the message being delivered. For example, if the conveyer of the message is in a bad mood then the receiver might think that the information being delivered is not good.

Avoid Information Overload: The managers should know how to prioritize their work. They should not overload themselves with the work. They should spend quality time with their subordinates and should listen to their problems and feedbacks actively.

Give Constructive Feedback: Avoid giving negative feedback. The contents of the feedback might be negative, but it should be delivered constructively. Constructive feedback will lead to effective communication between the superior and subordinate.

Proper Media Selection: The managers should properly select the medium of communication. Simple messages should be conveyed orally, like: face to face interaction or meetings. Use of written means of communication should be encouraged for delivering complex messages. For significant messages reminders can be given by using written means of communication such as : Memos, Notices etc.

Flexibility in meeting the targets: For effective communication in an organization the managers should ensure that the individuals are meeting their targets timely without skipping the formal channels of communication. There should not be much pressure on employees to meet their targets.

As often as possible, speak face-to-face: This will allow for questions and, most importantly, allow you to see the body language, which will convey much more meaning than over the phone or through email.

Listening skills

Listening is not the same as hearing and in order to listen effectively you need to use more than just your ears.
1. Stop Talking: “If we were supposed to talk more than we listen, we would have two tongues and one ear.” Mark Twain.
Don't talk, listen. When somebody else is talking listen to what they are saying, do not interrupt, talk over them or finish their sentences for them. Stop, just listen. When the other person has finished talking you may need to clarify to ensure you have received their message accurately.

2. Prepare Yourself to Listen: Relax. Focus on the speaker. Put other things out of mind. The human mind is easily distracted by other thoughts – what’s for lunch, what time do I need to leave to catch my train, is it going to rain – try to put other thoughts out of mind and concentrate on the messages that are being communicated.

3. Put the Speaker at Ease: Help the speaker to feel free to speak. Remember their needs and concerns. Nod or use other gestures or words to encourage them to continue. Maintain eye contact but don’t stare – show you are listening and understanding what is being said.

4. Remove Distractions: Focus on what is being said: don’t doodle, shuffle papers, look out the window, pick your fingernails or similar. Avoid unnecessary interruptions. These behaviours disrupt the listening process and send messages to the speaker that you are bored or distracted.

5. Empathise: Try to understand the other person’s point of view. Look at issues from their perspective. Let go of preconceived ideas. By having an open mind we can more fully empathise with the speaker. If the speaker says something that you disagree with then wait and construct an argument to counter what is said but keep an open mind to the views and opinions of others.

6. Be Patient: A pause, even a long pause, does not necessarily mean that the speaker has finished. Be patient and let the speaker continue in their own time, sometimes it takes time to formulate what to say and how to say it. Never interrupt or finish a sentence for someone.

7. Avoid Personal Prejudice: Try to be impartial. Don't become irritated and don't let the person’s habits or mannerisms distract you from what they are really saying. Everybody has a different way of speaking - some people are for example more nervous or shy than others, some have regional accents or make excessive arm movements, some people like to pace whilst talking - others like to sit still. Focus on what is being said and try to ignore styles of delivery.

8. Listen to the Tone: Volume and tone both add to what someone is saying. A good speaker will use both volume and tone to their advantage to keep an audience attentive; everybody will use pitch, tone and volume of voice in certain situations – let these help you to understand the emphasis of what is being said. (See our page on Effective Speaking for more)

9. Listen for Ideas – Not Just Words: You need to get the whole picture, not just isolated bits and pieces. Maybe one of the most difficult aspects of listening is the ability to link together pieces of information to reveal the ideas of others. With proper concentration, letting go of distractions, and focus this becomes easier.

10. Wait and Watch for Non-Verbal Communication: Gestures, facial expressions, and eye-movements can all be important. We don’t just listen with our ears but also with our eyes – watch and pick up the additional information being transmitted via non-verbal communication.

Module III: Cross cultural communication
Characteristics of culture, Social differences, Contextual differences, Nonverbal differences, Ethnocentrism
Characteristics
Culture Is An Adaptive Mechanism: It is believed that the first humans evolved in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa about 2.5 million years ago.
Since then, man has successfully occupied all of the major geographic regions of the world, but our bodies have remained essentially those of warm climate animals.
We cannot survive outside of the warmer regions of our planet without our cultural knowledge and technology.
What made it possible for our ancestors to begin living in temperate and ultimately subarctic regions of the northern hemisphere after half a million years ago was the invention of efficient hunting skills, fire use, and, ultimately, clothing, warm housing, agriculture, and commerce.
Culture has been a highly successful adaptive mechanism for our species.
It has given us a major selective advantage in the competition for survival with other life forms. Culture has allowed the global human population to grow from less than 10 million people shortly after the end of the last ice age to more than 6.5 billion people today, a mere 10,000 years later.

People Shape the Culture: Personalities and experiences of employees create the culture of an organization. For example, if most of the people in an organization are very outgoing, the culture is likely to be open and sociable.
If many artifacts depicting the company’s history and values are in evidence throughout the company, people value their history and culture.
If doors are open, and few closed door meetings are held, the culture is unguarded. If negativity about supervision and the company is widespread and complained about by employees, a culture of negativity, that is difficult to overcome, will take hold.

Culture is learned: The new cultural skills and knowledge are added onto what was learned in previous generations. As a result, culture is cumulative. Due to this cumulative effect, most high school students today are now familiar with mathematical insights and solutions that ancient Greeks such as Archimedes and Pythagoras struggled their lives to discover.

Cultures Change: All cultural knowledge does not perpetually accumulate. At the same time that new cultural traits are added, some old ones are lost because they are no longer useful.
For example, most city dwellers today do not have or need the skills required for survival in a wilderness.
Most would very likely starve to death because they do not know how to acquire wild foods and survive the extremes of weather outdoors.
What is more important in modern urban life are such things as the ability to drive a car, use a computer, and understand how to obtain food in a supermarket or restaurant.
However, the rate of change and the aspects of culture that change varies from society to society.

Culture is Difficult to Change: Culture change requires people to change their behaviors. It is often difficult for people to unlearn their old way of doing things, and to start performing the new behaviors consistently. Persistence, discipline, employee involvement, kindness and understanding, organization development work, and training can assist you to change a culture.
Change can occur as a result of both invention within a society as well as the diffusion of cultural traits from one society to another.
Predicting whether a society will adopt new cultural traits or abandon others is complicated by the fact that the various aspects of a culture are closely interwoven into a complex pattern.

Culture is Negotiated: One person cannot create a culture alone. Employees must try to change the direction, the work environment, the way work is performed, or the manner in which decisions are made within the general norms of the workplace.
Culture change is a process of give and take by all members of an organization. Formalizing strategic direction, systems development, and establishing measurements must be owned by the group responsible for them. Otherwise, employees will not own them.

Social differences
Contextual differences High Context | Low Context | Indirect and implicit messages | Direct, simple and clear messages | Polycrhonic | Monochronic | High use of non-verbal communication | Low use of non-verbal communication | Low reliance on written communication | High reliance on written communication | Use intuition and feelings to make decisions | Rely on facts and evidence for decisions | Long-term relationships | Short-term relationships | Relationships are more important than schedules | Schedules are more important than relationships | Strong distinction between in-group and out-group | Flexible and open |

Nonverbal differences
1. General Appearance and Dress: All cultures are concerned for how they look and make judgements based on looks and dress. Americans, for instance, appear almost obsessed with dress and personal attractiveness. Consider differing cultural standards on what is attractive in dress and on what constitutes modesty. Note ways dress is used as a sign of status?
2. Body Movement: We send information on attitude toward person (facing or leaning towards another), emotional statue (tapping fingers, jiggling coins), and desire to control the environment (moving towards or away from a person). More than 700,000 possible motions we can make — so impossible to categorize them all! But just need to be aware the body movement and position is a key ingredient in sending messages.
3. Posture: Consider the following actions and note cultural differences: * Bowing (not done, criticized, or affected in US; shows rank in Japan) * Slouching (rude in most Northern European areas) * Hands in pocket (disrespectful in Turkey) * Sitting with legs crossed (offensive in Ghana, Turkey) * Showing soles of feet. (Offensive in Thailand, Saudi Arabia) * Even in US, there is a gender difference on acceptable posture?
4. Gestures: Impossible to catalog them all. But need to recognize: 1) incredible possibility and variety and that an acceptable in one’s own culture may be offensive in another. In addition, amount of gesturing varies from culture to culture. Some cultures are animated; other restrained. Restrained cultures often feel animated cultures lack manners and overall restraint. Animated cultures often feel restrained cultures lack emotion or interest.
Even simple things like using hands to point and count differ. * Pointing : US with index finger; Germany with little finger; Japanese with entire hand (in fact most Asians consider pointing with index finger to be rude) * Counting: Thumb = 1 in Germany, 5 in Japan, middle finger for 1 in Indonesia.

5. Facial Expressions: While some say that facial expressions are identical, meaning attached to them differs. Majority opinion is that these do have similar meanings world-wide with respect to smiling, crying, or showing anger, sorrow, or disgust. However, the intensity varies from culture to culture. Note the following: * Many Asian cultures suppress facial expression as much as possible. * Many Mediterranean (Latino / Arabic) cultures exaggerate grief or sadness while most American men hide grief or sorrow. * Some see “animated” expressions as a sign of a lack of control. * Too much smiling is viewed in as a sign of shallowness. * Women smile more than men.
Eye Contact and Gaze
In USA, eye contact indicates: degree of attention or interest, influences attitude change or persuasion, regulates interaction, communicates emotion, defines power and status, and has a central role in managing impressions of others.
Western cultures — see direct eye to eye contact as positive (advise children to look a person in the eyes). But within USA, African-Americans use more eye contact when talking and less when listening with reverse true for Anglo Americans. This is a possible cause for some sense of unease between races in US. A prolonged gaze is often seen as a sign of sexual interest.
Arabic cultures make prolonged eye-contact. — believe it shows interest and helps them understand truthfulness of the other person. (A person who doesn’t reciprocate is seen as untrustworthy)
Japan, Africa, Latin American, Caribbean — avoid eye contact to show respect.
Touch
Question: Why do we touch, where do we touch, and what meanings do we assign when someone else touches us?
Illustration: An African-American male goes into a convenience store recently taken over by new Korean immigrants. He gives a $20 bill for his purchase to Mrs Cho who is cashier and waits for his change. He is upset when his change is put down on the counter in front of him.
What is the problem? Traditional Korean (and many other Asian countries) don’t touch strangers., especially between members of the opposite sex. But the African-American sees this as another example of discrimination (not touching him because he is black).
Basic answer: Touch is culturally determined! But each culture has a clear concept of what parts of the body one may not touch. Basic message of touch is to affect or control — protect, support, disapprove (i.e. hug, kiss, hit, kick).
Basic patterns: Cultures (English , German, Scandinavian, Chinese, Japanese) with high emotional restraint concepts have little public touch; those which encourage emotion (Latino, Middle-East, Jewish) accept frequent touches.
Smell
USA — fear of offensive natural smells (billion dollar industry to mask objectionable odors with what is perceived to be pleasant ) — again connected with “attractiveness” concept.
Many other cultures consider natural body odors as normal (Arabic).
Asian cultures (Filipino, Malay, Indonesian, Thai, Indian) stress frequent bathing — and often criticize USA of not bathing often enough!
Paralanguage
vocal characterizers (laugh, cry, yell, moan, whine, belch, yawn). These send different messages in different cultures (Japan — giggling indicates embarrassment; India – belch indicates satisfaction) vocal qualifiers (volume, pitch, rhythm, tempo, and tone). Loudness indicates strength in Arabic cultures and softness indicates weakness; indicates confidence and authority to the Germans,; indicates impoliteness to the Thais; indicates loss of control to the Japanese. (Generally, one learns not to “shout” in Asia for nearly any reason!). Gender based as well: women tend to speak higher and more softly than men. vocal segregates (un-huh, shh, uh, ooh, mmmh, humm, eh, mah, lah). Segregates indicate formality, acceptance, assent, uncertainty.
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's own culture. The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to his or her own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with concern to language, behavior, customs, and religion. These ethnic distinctions and subdivisions serve to define each ethnicity's unique cultural identity. Ethnocentrism may be overt or subtle, and while it is considered a natural proclivity of human psychology, it has developed a generally negative connotation.

Anthropology: People born into a particular culture that grow up absorbing the values and behaviors of the culture will develop a worldview that considers their culture to be the norm. If people then experience other cultures that have different values and normal behaviors, they will find that the thought patterns appropriate to their birth culture and the meanings their birth culture attaches to behaviors are not appropriate for the new cultures. However, since people are accustomed to their birth culture, it can be difficult for them to see the behaviors of people from a different culture from the viewpoint of that culture rather than from their own.

Examples of ethnocentrism include religiously patterned constructs claiming a divine association like "divine nation", "One Nation under God", "God's Own Country", "God's Chosen People" and "God's Promised Land"