Business Communication

Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3
In the earlier module, I talk to you about oral communication. We also discuss the presentation aspect
of oral communication. You would also remember that we created a pattern of oral communication
and further discussed the three broad guidelines.

• The first guideline that we use in oral communication is the relationship with the audience, is
a relationship between the speaker and the audience personal or professional.

• The second big element that we spoke about was the objective of communication. We had
broken this down into interpersonal, basic tasks, and forming each other, decision making and
influence.

• And the final, guideline that we discussed was to know how many people are we
communicating with? Are we talking only to one person or there are many? This broad
diagram will help you navigate your way through the presentation application of oral
communication.

Now there are many scenarios where you will not make presentations to a large group of people. In
fact, you will spend lot of your time at your desk and you will spend a lot of time interacting with
people in the hallways, cafeterias, meetings, and even outside the office, like a conference or in airport
lounge etc. You will communicate orally with each other and this realm of communication is called the
interpersonal communication.

In this module we will look at the elements of interpersonal communication but for a managerial
context. Outside the managerial context this subject is called social skills. But we limit our discussion
to a managerial context in a business setting. We will learn the importance
of interpersonal communication in workplaces be aware of what happens if we don't communicate
properly and we will also talk about our own behaviour and our own personalities, as it is very
important to understand oneself in order to communicate with others.

Next, we will discuss the theory behind interpersonal communication. We will also talk about the
importance of verbal and non-verbal elements of communication in an interpersonal setting. What to
say? What not to say? How to say? And what are the behavioural traits we need to keep in mind before
we communicate?

And finally, we will end this module with a discussion on etiquette's and their relevance in the
managerial scenario.

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