Kailash Chandra P Jain

MBA – Lateral Entry Program

SMU – Sikkim Manipal University

Assignment for 1st Semester

MB0039 – Business Communication

Assignment Set - 1

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Q1. Describe any situation in your experience where the communication went wrong. Analyze
the situation by pointing out the type of barrier to communication and suggest how to
overcome this barrier?

Answer:

Situation where communication went wrong: Once in Saudi Arabia, I & my technician colleague,
both were working at far site around 150 KM from our residence.

As usual, we both used to go by car and reach the site morning and leave in the evening. It was
a project of one month. One day in evening I told him “OK shutdown & pack it & let us leave for
the day.”

My intension was to tell him to shutdown the laptop & pack it. But he shutdown the system
and we left the site. When we were almost near our residence that time we got the page (that
time GSMs were not very common) from the site & when I called back, I was told that system is
down & attend it urgently. When I told my technician that system is down & we need to go
there immediately.

Very surprisingly, he told me that as I told him to shutdown so he had shutdown the system.

Barriers may be classified as follows.

1. Environmental Barrier: This is similar to physical noise, which could be in the form of
distracting sounds, an overcrowded room, poor facilities etc.
2. Individual Barriers: A major barrier to interpersonal communication is a tendency to
judge, evaluates, approve or disapprove of the views of another person. This happens
particularly in situations where we have strong feelings about something. In such cases,
we tend to block out the communication and form our own viewpoints.
3. Organizational Barriers: In organizations that are to hierarchical, that is, where there are
multiple layers, messages may have to pass through many levels before they finally
reach the receiver. In this setup, message may get modified or loose the meaning.
4. Channel Barriers: In the earlier section, it was pointed out that communication can fail
due to any of the different elements going wrong. Wrong choice of channel is one of the
main barriers to communication.
5. Linguistic and culture Barriers: When the sender of the message uses a language that
the receiver does not understand, the communication will not succeed. Language may
be foreign language or may be too highly technical for the receiver to understand.

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 6. Semantic Barriers: The word semantics refers to the meaning words and the way in
which they are used. E.g. different words may have different meaning in the cultures.
Failure to take this into consideration could lead to serious blunders.
7. Non verbal Barriers: This refers to the non verbal communication that goes with a
particular message. Non verbal communication includes tone of voice, body language
such as gestures and facial expressions, etc. If the tone of voice and body language are
negative, the communication will fail, however positive the spoken and written
message.

Overcoming the Barriers to Communications: Certain steps can be taken, both at the
organizational level, as well as at the individual level, to effectively deal with the barriers to
communication, in order to try to minimize them.

1. Organizational Actions:
1. Encourage feedback: Organizations should try to improve the communication system by
getting feedback from the messages already sent. Feedbacks can the managers whether
the message has reached the receiver in the intended way or not.
2. Create a climate of openness: A climate of trust and openness can go a long way in
removing organizational barriers to communication.
3. Use multiple channels of communications: Organizations should encourage the use of
multiple channels of communication viz oral and written, in order to make sure that
messages reach the intended receivers without fail.

2. Individual Action:

1. Active listening: This means listening to the meaning of the speaker’s words, rather than
listening without hearing, or passive listening. Passive listening is a barrier to
communication, whereas real communication takes places when we listen actively, with
understanding.
2. Careful wording of messages: Messages should be worded clearly and without
ambiguity, to make sure that the message that is received is the same as the message
that is sent.
3. Selection of appropriate channels: Individuals should be competent enough to choose
the right communication channel, depending on the situation.

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Q2. Describe any two aspects of non verbal communication and give examples of how each of
them could be used to convey positive messages at the workplace?

Answer:

Non verbal may be defined as communication without words. It refers to any way of conveying
meanings without the use of verbal language. Non verbal communication is generally
unintentional. Gestures, facial expressions, posture and the way we dress, are all part of non
verbal communication.

Non verbal communication can have greater impact than verbal communication, since “how
you say something” is sometimes more important than “what you say”.

Non verbal communication is particularly important in the work place.

Following are the aspects of non verbal communication at the work place.

1. Kinesics: This is the most often studied and important area of non verbal communication
and refers to body movements of any kind. Different body movements can express inner
states of emotion.
3. Facial expression: it can convey feelings of surprise, happiness, anger and sadness.
4. Eye movements: Direct eye contact is an indication of intensity and interest, while lack
of it can convey feelings of nervousness and guilt.
5. Gestures: Such as movement of the hands while giving a lecture or presentation
indicates a high level of involvement in what you are saying.
6. Head movements: like nodding the head can convey interest, appreciation, agreement
or understanding.
7. Body shape or posture: body shape is not in one’s control. But posture is in one control.
If we have an erect posture than it is understand as attentive.
8. Physical appearance: Our way of dressing and jewelry can convey an impression of
formality and informality.

There fore at work place it is must to follow the positive aspect of above points.

2. Time language: This refers to the meaning or importance attached to time and varies
between different people. One may value time more than other. Time language also
differs with culture. We convey messages to the others through the time we spend on a

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 work related activity or by the importance that we give to time. Arriving early at work or
for a job interview shows interest, involvement and seriousness. Spending time with an
employee and giving him suggestions on how to improve his performance shows
interest and involvement in his carrier growth.

There fore at work place it is must to follow the positive aspect of above points.

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Q3. Which type of listening would be required the most at the workplace? Explain with suitable
examples.

Answer:

Effective listening in a business context is very essential quality of a successful manager. It can
boost quality, profits and productivity.

At workplace, there are many aspects, where one needs to listen. Below are the examples:

1. Listening to customers: today organizations are customer oriented. Customer

orientation means identifying and then satisfying customer needs, which in turn
involves listening to what customer really wants. For effective listening to customers,
there are certain points which need to be taken care.
 Believe the customer: It is important to take the customer for his word, even though
he may not be telling the truth.
 Listening actively: One need to customer feel that, he listening empathy, or putting
himself in his place. When customer starts to complain, it is important to hear out
the complaint completely, before responding or offering solution.
 Apologize: Even if the customer and not the company are at fault, it is always a good
idea to apologize to complaining customer. From the customer point of view, he is
right and expects an apology.
 Satisfy: Satisfied customers are advertisement to the company.
 Thank: Even though customer has launched a complaint, it is important to thank him
for bringing it to our attention.

2. Listening to employees: This type of communication should be encouraged and

suppressed, since valuable suggestions may sometimes come from employees.
Superiors need to be open to the suggestions and complaints of employees. This is an
indication that they are listening to their employees. Listening also means inviting
suggestions and personal opinions of employees through regular downward
communication.
3. Listening during job interviews: Listening is also skill that is needed by both job
interviewers and interviewees, in order to make the interview a success. Ideally,
listening should take up half the interviewing time, although this rarely happens in
reality, since one person or other fails to listen for some reason or the other.

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Q4. Imagine that you have to make a presentation on your MBA project to a group of your
professors and industry experts. Prepare the following.

a) A general statement of purpose

b) A specific purpose of purpose
c) The key idea
d) A brief audience analysis
e) Delivery style

Answer: I am presenting a project “Campaigning of starting a new Hyper market” to my college

professors & education industry experts.

a) A general statement of purpose: I wish to prepare a project about the campaigning of

starting a new hypermarket. The objective of the campaign is create the awareness
among the general public about the location of the hypermarket and promotions and
items available there.

b) A specific statement of purpose: Through campaign, I wish to increase the foot traffic in
the hypermarket, and make general public realize that this hypermarket is the cheapest
one and have all products and brands under one roof.

c) The key idea: The key idea is to increase the foot traffic in the hypermarket and make
this hypermarket one shopping destination.

d) A brief audience analysis: Analysis of different available other markets will help in,
evaluating the success of hypermarket. Different satisfaction surveys will help in
evaluating the service which we will be offering in hypermarket.

e) Delivery style: An oral presentation of 12 -15 power point slides which highlight the
hypermarket’s opportunity and different plans to capture market share. 10-12 power
points slides on launch action plan.

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Q5. In your opinion, does the success of a meeting depend more on the chairperson or the
participants? Justify your answer.

Answer:

The task of conducting and moderating the meeting rests with the chairperson. He or she must
be well versed with the procedures for opening the meeting, encouraging balanced
participation, and solving problems creatively, concluding the meeting and managing time
efficiently.

Success of the meeting depend more on the chairperson because of the following reasons.

1. Opening the meetings: The manner in which the meeting is opened is important, since a
good opening will ensure that the rest of the meeting will proceed smoothly. As it is the
task done by chairperson, hence success of meeting depends on the chairperson.

2. Encouraging balanced participation: It is also the responsibility of the chairperson to

encourage silent members to contribute to the meeting and to moderate the dominant
members, so that they do not hijack the meeting. There are several techniques to
encourage participations.
- Encourage participation in the reverse order of seniority
- Nominal group technique
- Encourage participation in turn
- Use overhead questions

3. Managing times: There is no prescribed length for a meeting. The duration of a meeting
will depend on the type and purpose of the meeting. In any case, chairperson should set
a time for the meeting, depend on the agenda and ensure adherence to the time limit.

4. Keeping the meeting focused: Often, a lot of time is wasted during meetings by doing off
track and by discussing topics that are irrelevant. In such situations, it is the
responsibility of the chairperson to make sure that the discussion remains focused on
the topics mentioned in the agenda.

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 5. Enduring Convergence: Convergence means hearing the points of view of all the
members and then arriving at a decision. It is again the responsibility of the chairperson
to bring the meeting to a point where an opinion emerges on each item of the agenda.

6. Summing Up: This means summing up the different points of view, the decisions and the
actions to be taken. This should be done by the chairperson, identifying the role of each
person on each item of the agenda, along with a specific deadline.

7. Concluding the meeting: The way a meeting is concluded is as important as the opening,
since it will influence the follow up action taken on decisions made during the meetings.
The chairperson will know how and when meeting need to conclude.

8. Keeping the minutes of the meetings: Since meetings are called to take important
decisions concerning the organization, it is important to maintain a permanent record of
the proceedings, which can be referred at a later stage.

Because of above points, which are done by chairperson, meeting’s success entirely depends on
the chairperson.

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Q6. How do memo differ from other written communication channel? Give examples of two
business situations that would require either an informational or a persuasive memo.

Answer:

A memo, which is a short form for memorandum is also referred to as an “inter office memo”.
Memo’s purpose is to communicate to peers, superiors and subordinates within the
organizations

A memo is condensed form of a report and can be used to pass on information, give
instructions and make decisions.

Writing a memo is similar to précis writing, or condensing an article to one fourth its length.
The principles of precise writing also apply to memo writing. These principles are referred to as
the three “C’s”, namely-
- Condensation or reduction of the original article
- Comprehension or retention of the essence of the original article
- Coverage or inclusion of all the main ideas
A memo is of maximum two pages in length and includes the following standard components.
- Header with “To, From, Date and Subject” lines
- Body with main points
- A call for action, in case of a persuasive memo
Memos are generally of two types – Informational memos and persuasive memo

Whereas other circular or written communication channel are sent to small or selective groups
within the organization. They are written in the same way as memos and are brief and to the
point. Notices are displayed on official notice boards and are meant for larger groups, usually all
the employees of the organization. Occasionally, notices may be sent to individual employees in
the form of “Show cause notice”, asking for an explanation for misconduct and mentioning the
action that could be taken.

Example of informational or persuasive memos:

In persuasive memo, request is made first and then reasons are explained. As in this case,
requesting person is sure or confident that his proposal or request will be accepted without
resistance.

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1. For example, Sales manager requesting for increasing the number of sales persons in
his territory, to the Marketing Manager.
2. Operation manager of a particular plant, requesting to Head of the organization for
increasing the number of technician and engineers, to keep the operation run
smoothly because of increase in production.

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