Assignment on Effective Business Communications (EBC)

Running head: EFFECTIVE BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS
Effective Business Communications
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

EFFECTIVE BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS1
Executive Summary
Effective Business Communication is about achieving the best communication and delivering
the intended message between the speaker and the listener. Five diagnostic tools will be
discussed in this report and their potential use in identifying and analysing the flaws in the
existing communication skills. A literature review will be provided that would assist in
developing an idea on where to improve. An action plan will be given too that would
elaborate a plan discussing on how to improve and the timeline for improvement.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Diagnosis and Reflection...........................................................................................................3
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................8
Action Plan...............................................................................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................13
Reference List..........................................................................................................................15
Appendix..................................................................................................................................19

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Introduction
Communication is the process that conveys information from one entity or group to
another. There are several barriers to communication such as lack of attention, cultural
differences and many more that affect the quality of communication. Effective
communication is thus the elimination of the barriers to communication so that the entire
information is conveyed to the listener and no miscommunication takes place (Knapp,
Vangelisti & Caughlin, 2014). This type of communication principally comprises of verbal as
well as active use of non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication can be utilized
to express the emotional and the mental state of the speaker as well as the listener by using
facial expressions and body language. This report consists of diagnosis and reflection of the
different communication styles that would include verbal, non-verbal, active listening and
assertiveness. A literature review and a suitable action plan would be provided that would
suggest a timeline for communication improvement. The purpose of this report is to analyse
the effective communication skills and to identify the areas in communication that would
require improvement through the effective use of the recommended action plan.
Diagnosis and Reflection
The scale of effective communication can be measured using five diagnostic tools.
Here, I have measured my own communication skills and developed an effective
understanding of the diagnostic tools.
 Self-Perceived Communication Competence Scale: This tool can be used to identify
the level of communication competence when I am taking to my friends,
acquaintances or strangers (Shahbaz et al., 2016). I feel highly secured while
communicating with my friends whether it is small or large group. I am highly
motivated and competent while sharing my information with them. I am very upfront
and assertive in stating my opinions to my friends (Chung & Leung, 2016). Listening

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to their opinions is also very satisfying as I have known them for a long time and I
know that their source of knowledge is authentic. I am averagely competent while
talking to any acquaintance from my workplace. Being a little defensive while
communicating with them is always beneficial as I have little to no idea about their
thought process. Communicating with only one person or a small group of workplace
acquaintances is generally good for information sharing (Li, 2014). I prefer
individuals or small groups to talk at my workplace to as the conversation often leads
to rich quality information sharing. Large group meetings of acquaintances are not
preferred by me as most of the discussion is only for merriment and not work related.
I very assertive while taking to individuals or when I am communicating in a small
group. However, I am not assertive during my conversations with a large group of
acquaintances. Having a conversation with a stranger has never been my speciality. I
do not share much details about myself while having a conversation with them. My
body language is extremely defensive, I am a moderately active listener and I do not
show any assertiveness.
 Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension: This diagnostic tool
helped me to identify my communication skill while communicating people from
different cultural backgrounds (Neuliep, 2017). Identifying the flaws and backlogs in
this domain of communication is vital as I will have to work with different people in
my team, many of them might be from other countries. Such a situation would mean
that I would have to be comfortable working with them by effectively communicating
with them. I have analysed, by using this tool that I am very comfortable while
communicating with people from different cultural backgrounds. I tend to read
foreign books related to cultural practices followed around the world (Jandt, 2017).
Thus, I am not all nervous while communicating with them. I face no such fear while

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I am speaking to them. I am very eager to learn about the practices of different
cultures. Drawing reference from such cultures helps me in successfully planning my
life and develop an idea on what life is about. Hence, such conversations feel me up
with confidence and I enjoy such spending time with those people rather than
spending time on social media. My team consists of people from different work
cultures and working alongside them has helped me immensely to develop as a human
being. During brainstorming sessions, when we need to create new ideas having
people from different work cultures thus creates a pool of the most innovative ideas
that we can utilize in our work (Meyer et al., 2014).
 Nonverbal Immediacy Scale-Self Report: This diagnostic tool aids in analysing my
level of nonverbal communication skill. Nonverbal communication adds an additional
effect to successful effective communication process (Burgoon, Guerrero & Floyd,
2016). Visual aid has always been more helpful in delivering a successful message
rather than a monotonous speech. Facial expressions and body language can be
effectively used to communicate with the audience (Jack, Garrod & Schyns, 2014).
Sometimes the body language of the audience can also be used by the speaker to
analyse their thinking process (Pease & Pease 2016). I utilize different hand gestures
to better communicate with them. I use voice intonation while taking as it helps to
keep the audience captivated and interested to my speech (Elbert & Dijkstra, 2014). A
monotonous speech is dull to use and the audience generally losses interest on
speaking in that manner (Nakai et al., 2014). I smile while talking to people. I
maintain eye contact and lean forward during instances so that I could express my
interest in the conversation that I am having (Jones et al., 2017). All of these
demonstrates my confidence in communication. Showing confidence is of vital
importance as confident speaker is admired by everyone (Derman et al., 2016). A

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person who does not use nonverbal communication while communicating, usually
lacks confidence. Such a person would never be able to communicate effectively.
Usually I do not touch shoulders and arms of others while talking to them unless it is
to show sympathy or empathy (Koegel et al., 2016). Although I do a firm handshake
before or after having a conversation with a colleague and even with the boss. This
helps to convey my strong character and my confidence in myself and my actions.
 Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety: This diagnostic tool helped me to
analyse the problems in my public speaking abilities. I am very anxious while
speaking in public (Carlbring et al., 2017). Public speaking requires a lot of forte and
confidence. Public speakers are generally well versed in the psychology of the
common masses and they develop and manipulate their speech based on the reactions
of the audience (Mawson, 2017). I get tensed before giving a public speech. The
preparation phase for the speech is very unnerving for me. It generally takes a long
time for me to prepare a proper speech that is suitable to be delivered in public.
Practising the speech over and over does not produce any better result. Instead, my
level of anxiousness increases more. I tend to forget my speech after stepping on the
podium. I am in constant fear and tensed about giving my speech. However, all of
these go away after I start my speech. My hands and forehead remain sweaty form
before but my thought process is clear on the contents that I should say rather than the
speech I have prepared. This helps to effectively communicate with the audience.
Public speech can be very tricky and it is very demotivating and demoralising when
people leave while I am presenting my speech. It is considered very unorthodox to
involve the audience in my speech nonetheless I actively get the people to participate
in my speech and thus they feel obligated to stay during the whole duration of my
speech. Using the analysis that I obtained by using this tool I can decrease my anxiety

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levels before giving my speech in front of the public. I can immerse myself in
different stress relieving activities to mitigate the stress while I am getting ready to
speak to a crowd. Generally, I calm down while reading books of different authors. I
can use that to read books written by motivational authors that instigate confidence
(Evans, 2017). This would divert my attention from the speech and gives me more
time to relax yet brim with confidence.
 Talkaholic Scale Communication: I have used this diagnostic tool to analyse whether
I am a talkaholic or not. There are instances where I should have spoken but I kept
quiet because I did not want to humiliate myself in front of my colleagues (Sidelinger
& Bolen, 2015). I generally constrain myself and participate in conversations only
when it is an absolute necessity. I am confident at participating in conversations but I
do not put any effort in creating a conversation. I am not a talkaholic and I cautiously
choose the conversation that I would participate in (Goldstein et al., 2017).
The issues that I have identified while analysing using the diagnostic tools are as
follows:
 I have anxiety while communicating to a large group of people and while speaking to
the public and I avoid such communication as much as possible.
 I participate in limited number of conversations.
In the last twelve months, I had experienced different professional interactions.
Among them I would state and analyse two such interactions:
 I had to prepare for a seminar. Here, I had to give a power point presentation in front
of four thousand people. Here, I experienced anxiety issues while preparing for the
speech. I forgot the whole speaker notes that I had prepared as I stood in front of all