How to Plan Written and Spoken Messages | Episode 27 Video Lecture | Business Communication: The Ultimate Guide

now many times when we try to
communicate we often jump directly to
the the piece in which were actively
engaged and actually communicating
information to someone and what usually
gets overlooked is the planning process
to which we go through before we
actually even say anything and this is
an extremely important part because
oftentimes we are going to be judged
simply by how we what we say or what we
write and whether or not that may be an
accurate representation of who we truly
are it is often that first impression
where people will attach certain
meanings too and so it's extremely
important that when we communicate that
what we say is ultimately what we
intended to say and what the message we
want it to come across and in any
position that you be in regardless of
where it is that you work you're always
gonna have to communicate in some degree
regardless if it's maybe face-to-face
interactions with coworkers or customers
or if it's maybe written communication
to where you're actually writing
information and then obviously sending
that to someone else to read and so
communication is a very very important
piece rarely will we be involved in
certain positions where we aren't
communicating with someone so over the
course of the next few moments here what
I'd like to do is go over the planning
process and how you prepare those spoken
and written messages there are four
specific steps for what we can do to
better prepare ourselves to the point to
which we can communicate that much more
effectively the first step is
determining the purpose of our message
and also selecting the appropriate
channel ultimately the question that you
want to ask yourself here is why am i
trying or what am I trying to accomplish
by communicating with someone or
communicating with a certain group what
is my goal what is my purpose
essentially for actually engaging in
communication now you'll find there are
a lot of different reasons for why we
try to communicate sometimes it can be
simply just to obtain information
information seeking is a very very
common purpose for communication
the next step may be to answer a
question it may be to persuade somebody
in order to adopt your position or your
way of thinking or it may be to let's
say accept a request and the important
thing here is that depending upon what
you're attempting to communicate or what
your purpose is certain channels will be
more conducive to others okay if you're
attempting to persuade someone for
example oftentimes that requires you to
be able to read body language so that
you can in turn interpret feedback for
the purpose of attempting to maybe
develop another argument as a way of
persuading them if you're involved in
something with regards to persuasion
usually the face-to-face medium is more
appropriate because you can tailor your
message to the actual person you
wouldn't necessarily send a impersonal
email attempting to persuade someone
that because you don't necessarily have
the ability to take your tailor your
argument to the person the same thing if
you're trying to let's say disseminate a
large amount of information to a lot of
people right it's probably not conducive
to engage in face-to-face interactions
with everyone person right that just
would not be feasible in terms of time
maybe effective but it would not be
efficient with regards to your time and
so in that case maybe an email might be
more appropriate in terms of relaying
large amounts of information to a wide
number of people another example is
maybe you're trying to convey bad
information okay
particularly something that could be
emotionally charged and produce a
reaction of some sort in another person
in that case probably a face-to-face
interaction would be more appropriate
you know you don't want to necessarily
consider what's the best medium or
channel for myself but you want to
consider your audience's perspective as
well especially if there's the potential
for there to be some type of emotional
issues there or reaction then obviously
you want to have the ability to tailor
your message to the particulars that
you're referring to and so ultimately by
determining what
the purpose of your message you can help
or aid yourself in determining what is
the appropriate Channel is this a
face-to-face conversation is this a
telephone conversation is this an email
text and there's a wide variety of
different channels that we have to
communicate and so especially in the
kind of the technological age that we
live in our dilemma is not necessarily
not having the opportunity to
communicate it's really choosing what
channel is the best based upon what I'm
trying to communicate because we really
have so many options now once you've
determined what your purpose is and
you've selected the appropriate channel
for communicating your message it's
really important to do what's called
envision the audience and the main idea
here is you're trying to put yourself in
the shoes of your audience okay you're
trying to consider their backgrounds for
example you can look at things with
regards to age economic level culture
education or occupations needs or
concerns maybe you can look at
expectations that they might have and
the reason that you're putting forth
this much effort to truly understand
your audience is so you can adapt your
message okay the envision your audience
stage step two is the part of which
you're gathering research you're trying
to get as much information as possible
about who it is that you're trying to
communicate because the more information
that you gather in step two it makes
your life a lot easier once you get to
step 3 and that is adapting your message
to the audience's needs and concerns and
because you put forth the research in
step two you really step three is the
application portion it's putting it to
good use it's being able to tailor your
message to your audience and the reason
that we want to do that and you might
ask why should we necessarily tailor the
message to the audience that doesn't
make a whole lot of sense and ultimately
especially in business but even outside
of business the reason that we
communicate is to be understood and we
have to take into account things like
the age and education level of our
audience be
if our main goal is to transmit some
type of information then wouldn't it be
a waste of time if the way that we
actually transmit that message is
impossible for someone else to
understand what if we speak at a level
which is above the heads of everyone
that we're actually speaking to is that
effective communication it's not and the
reason is is if you're if the receiver
doesn't understand the message then you
essentially just wasted your time and so
we don't communicate because we try to
make ourselves feel intelligent or feel
good or smart now we communicate because
we have a purpose right we're trying to
convince someone to our way of thinking
we're trying to relay information or
whatever the case is and so it's
important that you communicate in a way
that is easily understood by your
audience and this might look different
depending upon who you're communicating
to you know take for example if you're
trying to communicate some technical
piece of information regarding your job
okay
if you were to converse with coworkers
you wouldn't necessarily have to change
what you would normally say because they
understand the technicalities of your
job they understand the specifics of
your job but if you're gonna communicate
a very technical aspect of your position
to maybe a group of high school students
who have no background understanding of
what it is that you do and what your
normal job responsibilities are you're
gonna have to change how you communicate
your message because your audience is
now different and if you don't you run
the risk of them not understanding a
single word that you are saying and then
ultimately wasting your time as well as
theirs
so adapting your message to the audience
is a very very pivotal part
unfortunately a lot of people don't do
it too often this happens a lot in a
college setting where you have
instructors and professors who like to
use big words because they sound good
but you have a on the other end you have
a room of confused students because
they're using terminology that they're
not familiar with and so it's important
to take into consideration the the level
of understanding the background the
education level of the audience
for the purpose of actually relaying
your message in the last step for the
planning phase is organizing a message
this oftentimes gets overlooked as well
a lot of times when we decide we have to
communicate something we jump to the
computer real quick and immediately
start typing or we walk into someone's
office and immediately begin to speak
and that isn't the best way to do it
because organizing your message is a
very very important part because it
allows there to be a systematic flow of
things okay a very common procedure
utilized for organizing a message is
preparing an outline now many of you are
probably familiar with an outline and
what the structure is of it by
establishing an outline what you're
doing is creating a roadmap for your
message almost like a blueprint if you
will well you're actually you know
exactly what points you want to hit in
what order and to what emphasis to put
on certain concepts it's a very
important piece by establishing an
outline what this allows you to do is it
allows you to reduce the number of
things that you miss right and I I'm
guilty of this as well
you know I'll engage in a conversation
with someone and instantly be thinking
kind of in one area of my brain and
talking about some different things and
then immediately I forget about the
three other things that I meant to bring
up because I wasn't organized in the way
I was communicating if I had gone
through the time to prepare an outline I
would have known exactly what points I
needed a hit and so that's what allows
you to do you don't forget things if you
have it clearly written down and clearly
stated what it also allows you to do is
to focus on the one or two things that
are really important and that you want
to communicate we've all been on the
other end of a conversation when you're
you're speaking with somebody or really
listening and it just seems like there's
no logical flow to what it is that
they're saying or there's no logical
flow to the email because they're just
bouncing around between different
subjects and it's very hard to
understand and for a listener it's very
frustrating because you're trying to
track with what they're saying and
you're kind of jumping between different
boxes trying to figure out okay we were
here before but now we're over here and
a very very frustrating process for
those of you
have been a part of that I can imagine
many of you have and so it's almost a
courtesy to the listener to prepare what
it is that we're trying to say so that
we can come across very simply it's much
more efficient because you know exactly
what it is you need to say you don't
have to beat around the bush so to speak
and it's much more effective in a
conversation the last thing that I'll
mention here with regards to organizing
a message is to assess whether to use
deductive or inductive reasoning and
these two are appropriate in various
situations however one isn't necessarily
appropriate in all situations for
example deductive reasoning typically
involves a main idea so you state what
your position is let's say and then you
provide all of the details on why you
feel a certain way on the tail-end so at
the end of it very very common we do
this a lot in business writing because
we want the audience or the reader to
know where we're going so we'll say this
is my proposal or this is my
recommendation and then after that is
the documentation and the support for
why we believe in a certain
recommendation or we're proposing a
certain course of action that would be
what we call deductive reasoning and
that's appropriate because you don't
want to necessarily have your reader
thumbing through your entire paper to
figure out what are you trying to say
what is your what's the 10% what's the
most important things that I need to get
away from this with however deductive
reasoning may be good in that scenario
but it's not good in all scenarios for
example if you're communicating some bad
information to someone let's say that
you're gonna be laying off an employee
and you have to obviously go over your
reasoning and all those different types
of things if you start by saying well
you know what you're not you're not
going to be here you're losing your job
instantly that person is now thinking
about well the fact that they've been
laid off now they have to find another
job
there's obviously the motion emotional
aspect there they're a little hurt
probably angry and all the while they're
thinking of these things they're
cancelling out anything that you're
saying and so the effectiveness of your
message is not very good at that point
in that case what would be more
appropriate is to use what we call
inductive reasoning an inductive
reasoning is starting with the details
first and then working to your major
idea or your main point okay not
appropriate in all situations but if
you're relaying potentially negative
information it is very appropriate
because you can go over your
justification you can walk them through
your thought process and then explain
what the end result is all the while
maybe at the end of the day they're not
going to agree and people will not
sometimes and you have to understand
that but if someone is logical they're
gonna understand okay well I wasn't
meeting my performance expectations yes
I've had it documented several times
that I have not been performing well yes
I understand that and they're kind they
get the opportunity to see your
reasoning to see your logic in your
thought process which may make that
ultimate message a little more palatable
might be a little easier to stomach if
at least they understand where you're
coming from so these four steps are very
very pivotal as I mentioned before at
the beginning of our time here it is
very important to plan out what it is
that we are going to say and then what
we'll do is later on in another video
I'll focus on the last three steps which
actually focus on the actual preparation
side of how to deliver spoken and
written messages for the time being here
we're going to focus on obviously are we
focused on the planning aspect but I'll
go ahead and post another video related
to preparing spoken and written messages
and not too long from now