Importance of Business Communication, Self-Awareness and Ethics

Running head: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Business Communication
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1BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
In this fast-paced world, communication, self-awareness and ethics have become a
way of life, particularly within the business environment. They are entwined together in
every workplace. They concern how we ought to behave and act within our boundaries or
standards that govern specific actions being ethical or unethical, right or wrong.
Communication is the key to success of various objectives and goals that are set by us
and the higher management. Hence, good and effective communication in the workplace is
very necessary in order to maintain a proper technical leadership within the organization. It is
said that the key to any successful and productive business is ensuring effective
communication in the workplace1. Therefore, development of the communication skills is
very important to manage in order to build as well as maintain a self-concept of the
employees. Effective communication reduces conflict within the organization, helps us to
adopt new ideas, builds better and stronger relationship among the employs and leads to a
successful career2. However, the importance of effective communication is unknown to none
but still billions and billions of dollars get wasted every year, because of poor
communication. It is proven that improvement in the communication skills throughout the
life will make us more successful and more productive in our workplace. This in turn will
simply reduce our stress level and will provide us with more rewards as well as our company.
Moreover, improving the communication skill will make us a valued leader. However, it must
be kept in mind that a good communication skill requires the use of critical thinking that
allows us to take control of our mind-set and opinions to make better judgments and that too
without jumping into conclusions and that can ultimately result in conflicts. Therefore, the
1 Cheryl Hamilton, Communicating For Results: A Guide For Business And The Professions(Cengage
Learning, 2013).
2 Erica Weintraub Austin and Bruce E. Pinkleton, Strategic Public Relations Management: Planning And
Managing Effective Communication Campaigns (John Wiley & Sons, 10th ed, 2015).

2BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
fact is that effective communication gives you an enormous benefit in this extreme
competitive business era.
What I think is that, for communication to become successful, it is very important to
make sure that the receiver is receiving the same message as it is conveyed to him.
Sometimes, some meanings get lost as the message encounters several barriers along with its
passage in between the receiver and the sender and this is known as miscommunication.
Some of the very common problems that results in failure of communication includes cultural
differences, noise, complexity of the subject matter, semantic issues, personal biases, poor
retention, filtering the information overloaded, slanting, poor listening, inferring, goal
conflicts and socio-psychological barriers3. Poor communication is also often regarded as one
of the biggest barrier to the organizational effectiveness. Also, some of the companies now-
a-days make use of technical language or specialized language and they are mainly used by
the professionals or employees who work in same field. It is called jargon and is also
considered as one of the major barriers to communication, only if the receiver is not
habituated with it4. Sometimes, time and distance too works as barriers to the smooth and
simple flow of information. These barriers negatively affect the effectiveness of
communication within the organization and are highly social-psychological-linguistic in
nature. However, some of the strategic managements that we can use to overcome such
communication barriers are active listening and clearly defining the roles and responsibilities
of employees. This helps in building personal communication skills as well as improving our
communication competencies.
3 Laura Hills DA, "Overcoming The Ten Most Common Barriers To Effective Team Communication" (2013)
29(2) The Journal of medical practice management: MPM.
4 Fiona Siu, "The Incorporation Of Eportfolios Into Five EFL Courses-Barriers Encountered In The Diffusion
Of Technology." (2013) 24(2) Journal of Interactive Learning Research.