Business Communication Culture

Business communication skills are necessary for a successful career in any field: success in corporate communication will largely depend on the skills of everyday communication, however, the professional sphere has its own specifics. The culture of business communication is a way of interacting with colleagues, superiors, subordinates and partners, as well as certain rules. It is very important to build communication depending on the situation, goals and objectives, as well as being able to quickly adapt to changing situations.

Communicative culture is a broader concept than a set of speech acts. It consists of many components. In the culture of business communication, appearance is of great importance: it must correspond to the sphere of your activity and the specific situation.

For working with clients there is usually a uniform, for working in the office - a business suit, people in creative professions dress in a certain way, and those who occupy senior positions need to emphasize their status with clothes and accessories. It may seem that the appearance is not directly related to business communication. However, it is the first impression that you make that determines the interlocutor’s attitude towards you. If this impression is negative, you will have to spend a lot of energy in the process of dialogue in order to rehabilitate yourself.

Non-verbal language is equally important in communication. Your postures, gestures and behaviors are very important from the point of view of psychology. Try to make sure that facial expressions are quite restrained. Gesticulation is very important, but it should be moderate, and not too intense.

If you are committed to partner dialogue, it is better to choose an open pose.You can try to gently adapt to the pose of the interlocutor. To avoid being perceived with aggression, eye contact should only take a few seconds. Sitting at the negotiating table is not directly opposite the interlocutor, but a little on the side.

Of equal importance is what you say and how you say it. It is very important to have reliable information, be able to operate on facts and correctly build the content of the discussion.

It is important to choose words, intonation, poses and gestures for a specific situation, because in different cases different behavior will be appropriate. The culture of business communication, depending on the situation and the goals pursued, can be divided into several types:

• Mentor type implies edification. This option is typical for the process of training trainees, for an educational and scientific event, for explaining subordinate individual working moments, as well as for teamwork with colleagues, if you are an expert in the field in which they are less well versed. Very often, such communication is built in the form of a monologue, however, in modern business communication, dialogue is considered preferable: even in the learning process, try to engage interlocutors in the discussion and listen to their points of view.
• Motivational type the aim is to interest a person in a project, to convince him of the appropriateness of a particular job, to help employees believe in themselves and feel more confident in some new or simply difficult business. For success, try to avoid common phrases and cliches. The best thing is to set a personal example, tell your own story and explain in your own words what exactly attracts you to a particular project.
• Confrontational type communicative culture provokes the interlocutor to object to you, to disagree with your point of view. This type includes a number of techniques used in the event of a conflict of interest. Most often, the situation of confrontation is characteristic of negotiations, as well as to increase attention when working with a passive, inert audience.
• Information type the most neutral - in its framework you can simply convey this or that information to the listener. Try to avoid confusing the information type with others. If the goal is to inform the interlocutor, you do not need to try to teach him, infect with your enthusiasm or enter into conflict. At the same time, it is necessary for the presentation to be intelligible - for this, try to adapt to the interlocutor and explain everything with examples that are clear to him.

Most of the important issues related to professional activities, decided to solve in the process of personal communication. For sociable and open people who know how to correctly present any information (through gestures, facial expressions and intonation), this is more of a plus than a minus. In personal business communication, the content of the discussion does not play a key role, the main thing is to establish contact and correctly state your position.

Personal communication can consist of rather long monologues or, on the contrary, from more or less short phrases. And in that, and in another case, it is very important not just to state the information, as if you were writing a summary, but to convey it to a specific interlocutor, adjusting to it. Before the negotiations, write down the key points you want to discuss, but never memorize speech - it is necessary to change the nature of the narrative, sequence, examples (depending on the reaction of the audience).

In the same way you need to work with intonation and gestures. If you lose the interlocutor’s attention, make the speech more emotional. If you feel an unwanted confrontation with a partner, try copying the person’s postures and gestures.It is very important not to behave too restrained, otherwise the presentation of information will be boring, and you will give the impression of an insecure person.

In the course of a personal conversation, one often has to spontaneously make difficult decisions. If the negotiation process does not address the topics that you expected, it is very important to remain calm. Try not to respond to problems with excessive excitement, always respond calmly. If you cannot immediately determine which decision to make, you can always take some time to think and weigh all the advantages and disadvantages in a calm environment.

Many issues are now being addressed by telephone. Usually these are insignificant clarifications of any information or organizational aspects: for example, when making a phone call, colleagues often specify names and exact numbers, make appointments, give or receive tasks. Long telephone calls usually take place only when there is no opportunity to meet in person. Moreover, video calls that have their own specifics are increasingly being used for more complete communication.

For a successful telephone conversation, affecting working moments, it is necessary to consider the following nuances:

• If you are calling someone, it’s important to ask if the person is comfortable talking now. Calling after hours in most corporations is not accepted according to etiquette (unless there was a separate agreement).
• Keep in mind that there may be interference with the communication - or extraneous noise may interfere with the conversation. In a telephone conversation, it is important to speak as clearly and not too fast.
• Build your speech so that it is as specific as possible and is perceived exactly as you intended. In the process of personal communication, facial expressions and gestures play a very important role - this allows you to better understand the interlocutor's hints, understatement and hidden motives. When talking on the phone you are deprived of this opportunity.
• Try to discuss necessary issues over the phone as briefly as possible. For complex negotiations or controversial discussions, telephone conversation is rarely suitable, therefore it is important to state only the most important. Details are best discussed in person or using video.

Video calls in modern corporate culture are now beginning to be used more and more. Firstly, they help maintain contact with partners from different countries and negotiate as efficiently as possible. Secondly, many people now work remotely from home, and video calls make it easy to resolve any issues.

If you have such business conversations, it is important to pay attention to the following:

• Your appearance will go a long way. Even if you are at home, try to get dressed in a businesslike way.
• Find a place in the house where the background will be more or less neutral. If in the background there is a kitchen, a working TV or playing children, this can interfere with solving business issues.
• Many people now use headphones, but it is worth remembering: they allow you to hear the other person better, but do not guarantee that the other person can hear you well if you speak through the noise. If you are solving corporate problems from home, ask your family to be quiet or just sit in a separate room.
• In front of the camera, it is especially important to control your own gestures and facial expressions. Often communication problems occur, the image may load slowly, and attention may be paid to all unsuccessful facial expressions.
• If you are discussing serious issues that require notes or documentation before your eyes, prepare all this in advance (before the call) and forward the necessary materials to your interlocutor.

Many issues in organizations are now being addressed by correspondence. One of the advantages of such business communication is the structure of information.If in the process of live communication you can not pay attention to certain points that are important for the interlocutor (or just forget the necessary information), in recorded form it will be possible to take into account all the nuances.

If you talk a lot with colleagues and correspondence partners, it is very important to be able to write correctly. Text editors do not always correctly correct grammar errors, so you should not rely on them entirely - if you are not sure about the spelling of a word, check yourself in the dictionary. Caution should be taken when sending text messages from phones and tablets - with the automatic input function, your words can be replaced by others, and the message will simply turn out meaningless.

Many consider business correspondence to be a simpler task than negotiating in real life - indeed, there is always time to think about a message, and in the process of a real dialogue you have to respond spontaneously. However, the minus is that you do not get a spontaneous reaction from the interlocutor, and this is an important psychological aspect.

Read more about the culture of business communication further.