COMMUNICATION SKILLS

(As per Anna University, Tirunelveli Syllabus)

R. DANIEL RUBARAJ M.A., M.Phil,

Assistant Professor and Head

Department of English
Sri Vidya College of Engineering and Technology
Virudhunagar.

RATNABALA PUBLISHERS
10 MIN NAGAR SURVEYOR COLON Y MADURAI.
 CONTANTS

UNIT – I COMMUNICATION IN BUSINESS

1.1 Communication skills – An introduction

1.2 Forms, Functions and Principles of communication
1.3 Management and communication
1.4 Communication patterns
1.5 Barriers to communication
1.6 Interpersonal perception
1.7 SWOT Analysis
1.8 Johari Window
1.9 Transactional Analysis

UNIT – II NON VERBAL AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

2.1 Importance of non verbal communication

2.2 Personal Appearance
2.3 Facial Expressions
2.4 Movement – posture –Gesture – eye contact – voice .
2.5 Beliefs and customs
2.6 World view and Attitude

UNIT – III ORAL COMMUNICATION

3.1 Listening skills – types

3.2 Barriers to Listening
3.3 Speaking Skills - introduction
3.4 Planning and audience awareness
3.5 persuasion and its goals
3.6 Motivation and hierarchy of needs
3.7 Interview
3.8 Discussions, Debates and conferences
3.9 Presentation skills
3.10 Paralinguistic features
 3.11 Fluency development

UNIT IV – BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE

4.1 Principles of business writing

4.2 Business letters – forms and types
4.3 Memos, E-mails, agendas, Minutes of the meeting.
4.4 Claims and Adjustments
4.5 Notice, Tenders, and Circulars.
4.6 Letters of application and resume.

UNIT V – BUSINESS PROPOSALS AND REPORTS

5.1 Project proposals – Characteristics and structure

5.2 Process and mechanics of report writing
5.3 Project Reports
5.4 Appraisal reports
5.5. Recommendation writing
 UNIT – I COMMUNICATION IN BUSINESS

.1 Communication skills – An introduction

The ability to communicate is the primary factor that distinguishes human

beings from animals. And it is the ability to communicate well that
distinguishes one individual from another.

The fact is that apart from the basic necessities, one needs to be equipped with
habits for good communication skills, as this is what will make them a happy and
successful social being.

In order to develop these habits, one needs to first acknowledge the fact that
they need to improve communication skills from time to time. They need to take
stock of the way they interact and the direction in which their work and personal
relations are going. The only constant in life is change, and the more one accepts
one's strengths and works towards dealing with their shortcomings, especially in
the area of communication skills, the better will be their interactions and the more
their social popularity.

The dominating question that comes here is: How to improve communication
skills? Well, the answer is simple. One can find plenty of literature on this. There
are also experts, who conduct workshops and seminars based on
communication skills of men and women. In fact, a large number of companies
are bringing in trainers to regularly conduct sessions on the subject, in order to
help their work force maintain better interpersonal work relations.

Today, effective communication skills have become a predominant factor even

while recruiting employees. While interviewing candidates, most interviewers
judge them on the basis of the way they communicate. They believe that skills
can be improvised on the job; but ability to communicate well is important, as
every employee becomes the representing face of the company.

There are trainers, who specialize in delivering custom-made programs on the

subject. Through the session they not only facilitate better skills in the
department of communications, but also look into the problems that come in the
way of being able to convey messages effectively. They discuss these issues
with the management and then sought to design programs accordingly. For
instance, time mismanagement becomes a cause for stress and frustration,
which then hampers the possibility of healthy communications at work. Then in
weeks to come the company organizes a program on time management. Thus, a
workshop on communication skills helps the management t to deal with the finer
employee nuances about which they lack awareness.

1.2 Forms, functions and principles of communication

Nature of communication

Many writers have identified the advantages of good communication skills. In

different ways they have suggested that good communication:

 Leads to personal effectiveness

 Helps to network with people
 Helps to collaborate with everyone at the work place
 Influences motivation for enhanced performance
 Builds better understanding between boss and subordinates
 Creates better interpersonal relations
 Increases listening ability
 Helps employees to understand need for change
 Creates better environment for understanding resistance to change

And a number of other benefits of effective communication!

All these benefits cannot be automatically achieved. One can understand the
nature of communication by examining the factors that make communication a
dynamic process. Only by consciously being a part of the process can one
realize how the intricate and interactive nature of the process of communication
can pose a challenge to us. To experience the challenge and overcome it, one
has to train oneself to be a communicator. The ability to communicate effectively,
therefore, is a learned behavior. When we communicate applying the techniques
and the skills, we do strike a better understanding with people in our environment
despite differences amongst us. Organizational differences are a part and parcel
of working but there are ways to deal with them, and the best way is to create a
climate of understanding through communication skills.

Definition of Communication Skills

Every individual needs to be well equipped with the tools to communicate

effectively, whether it is on the personal front, or at work. In fact, according to the
management gurus, being a good communicator is half the battle won. After all, if
one speaks and listens well, then there is little or no scope for misunderstanding.
Thus, keeping this fact in mind, the primary reasons for misunderstanding is due
to inability to speak well, or listen effectively.

According to the various dictionaries the definition of communication skills

is as follows:
Communication skills includes lip reading, finger-spelling, sign language; for
interpersonal skills use, interpersonal relations.

Communication skills are the ability to use language (receptive) and express
(expressive) information.

Communication skills are the set of skills that enables a person to convey
information so that it is received and understood. Communication skills refer to
the repertoire of behaviors that serve to convey information for the individual.

Communication skills are the ability an individual displays in consistently

demonstrates the ability to effectively communicate with clients, colleagues,
subordinates, and supervisors in professional manner and in the personal
department.

Communication skills are generally understood to be the art or technique of

persuasion through the use of oral language and written language. To
understand the basic of communication skills, one needs to understand that
communication is one of those words that is most hyped in contemporary culture.
It includes a large number of experiences, actions and events; also a variety of
happening and meanings, as well as technologies.

This means that every platform for communicating is a communication event.

This includes formal meeting, seminars, workshops, trade fairs, etc. Then there
are the communication media such as radio, TV, newspapers, etc. The
communication technologies include pagers, phones, etc. The communication
professionals include advertisers, journalists, camera crew, etc.

Communication has been further defined in different ways as:

 A transactional process that involves an exchange of ideas, information,

feelings, attitudes, or beliefs and impressions.
 A multi-level process in an organization because it involves the organizational
hierarchy, from the top to the bottom, and across the horizontal level.
 A culture interaction with people in groups for conversing and sharing ideas in
social gatherings and not talking shop.
 A disseminating process that involves passing on of information to the
masses through the media.
 An interaction process with the corporate
 A transformational process that motivates and fosters growth and mutual
understanding.
 A dynamic process that challenges ‘what you say’ and ‘how you say’ at that
particular moment.
 A mental / psychological process of talking to oneself in mind.
Simply put, communication is expression of an idea, which may be verbal, non –
verbal or vocal that is perceived, heard or read by another person.

The reasons for communication

Why do we communicate?

To inform, to share ideas, to get help / to extend help, to make corrections, to

extract work, to receive information / feed back , to provide information feed
back, to enforce discipline, to give advice and suggestions, to motivate, and
ultimately to get the expected response and reactions on anything and everything
the management considers to be essential and purposeful.

Miscommunication

For sharing information, you require two parties, the sender and the receiver,
without which communication cannot take place. However, it is not sufficient to
have two parties; there should also be cooperation and understanding between
them. They should have a mutually accepted code of signals making up a
common language. So, communication can be defined as the exchange of
information, ideas, and knowledge between the sender and receiver through an
accepted code of symbols. It is termed effective only when the receiver receives
the message intended by the sender in the same perspective. Otherwise it is
miscommunication.

The intent and content of communication

The relationship between thoughts and expressions is the relationship between

the intent and content of a message. Any communication is bound to be positive
and pleasant only when our thought process is under control and we are in a
positive frame of mind to communicate and also receive communication. Positive
communication, which is minus negative thoughts and words, is closely
connected with the communicator’s existing frame of mind and the core
competencies. In fact, a person whose inner qualities/core competencies are
positive is likely to be a better communicator than those whose perceptions,
values, outlook and attitude are not in a positive frame. However, given the
nature of communication, which is highly intricate and interactive, it is not
possible to have a complete control on ourselves. The concepts of ISEP and
ISEC clearly explain the tacit relationship between our thought process ( intent)
and the words we use to communicate ( content of a message )

The ISEP and the ISEC