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Why Communicate
Why Communicate
Hurley
Eng 209/WI
graduates (as measured by both career advancement and salary) shared personality traits
that distinguish good communicators: a desire to persuade, an interest in talking and
working with other people, and an outgoing, ascendant personality. As students, these
achievers developed their communication skills by choosing courses such as business
writing, persuasion, selling ideas, negotiation, and speaking.
The need for communication skills is important in virtually every career, not just
those that are traditionally regarded as people-oriented. Practitioners in Big Six
accounting firms spend 80% of their work time communicating with others, individually
and in groups. Likewise, engineers spend most of their professional lives writing,
speaking, and listening. Technical people with good communication skills earn more, and
those who are weak communicators suffer. William Schaffer, international business
development manager for computer giant Sun Microsystems, made the point
emphatically: "If there's one skill that's required for success in this industry, it's
communication skill." Other high-tech experts back up this claim. Over 90% of the
personnel officials at 500 US businesses stated that increased communication skills are
needed for success in the 21st century.
The importance of communication is not surprising when you consider the
staggering amount of time people spend communicating on the job. One study, published
in Business Outlook, based on responses from over 1000 employers at Fortune 1000
companies found that workers send and receive an average of 1798 messages each day
via telephone, email, faxes, papers, and face-to-face communications. Some experts have
estimated that the average business executive spends 75 to 80 percent of the time
communicating, about 45 minutes of every hour.
The importance of communicating effectively on the job is clear. But this
discussion so far hasn't even addressed the fact that communication skills often make the
difference between being hired and being rejected in the first place. A study published in
the Journal of Career Planning & Employment asked almost 250 employers "What skills
are most important for college graduates?" Their overwhelming response was written and
oral communication skills, followed by interpersonal skills, teamwork, and analytical
abilities.
As you can see, having strong written, and oral, business communication skills
will make you more competitive, more promotable, and more productive on the job. And
the best part of all? You can develop these skills now, as a student, before you enter the
job market. As author Jim Richman writes in The Scientist, "If I give any advice, it is that
you can never do enough training around your overall communication skills."
source: excerpted mostly verbatim from Ronal Adler and Jeanne Elmhorst, Communicating at Work (McGraw 2008,
Ch. 1, pp. 5 - 8. ) For a list of notes documenting the statistics and quotations above, email Ms. Hurley.
Hurley