Business Communication

Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3

In the preceding module, you were introduced to the basic concepts and characteristics of written
business communication. This week we shall put those concepts into practice.

First let’s start by examining the need for written business documents. Because more and more
business is transacted verbally, either over the phone or through presentations, I receive many
queries as to why we need to focus on writing as part of a manager’s portfolio of skills.

Firstly, writing is more concrete as well as complete; a business document is the result of rational
and considered thought. Next, business documents, by virtue of their being written down are more
permanent, and unless deliberately edited or changed, and capable of being reproduced,
transmitted and distributed repeatedly with high fidelity. So also, they are capable of being stored
and retrieved more than once.

Further, a written message is capable of being edited if need be; this results in a well-crafted and
efficient form of messaging that meets other criteria, such as being correct or accurate and
consistent.

And finally, as you know, written messages have greater credibility than spoken message. Legally,
while verbal contracts may be legally binding in some countries, there is a greater emphasis on the
written word.

As such, the written word will continue to play an important role in business for time to come.

Businesses use different types of documents that are deployed to address varying processes,
functions and decision situations. One way of describing the wide variety of documents could be to
classify them by the purpose that they serve. On your screen you will see a listing.

As an exercise, work on identifying and listing one or two examples of documents based on this
classification; use the facility provided as part of this unit to do so, and then check the list of
documents that I have cited. A more detailed note on the types of business documents is provid ed
as part of this Unit, and you are required to read this document and attempt the quiz that follows.

Each type of business document is characterised by set of characteristics, such as components,

structure, format and so forth. As such, when you create a document, you need to ensure that what
you do in in conformance with what is expected or specified; for instance, if you are submitting a
price quotation in response to a customer request, you need to ensure that all the basic fields as
well as those specifically asked for by the client are included in your document, and that it conforms
to the generally accepted layout and format that one associates with such a document.

To give you deeper insight into a selected set of commonly used business documents, this module
includes discussion and exercises on the creation of Letters, E-Mail, Minutes of Meetings, Personal
Summaries or Biographies and Reviews & Critiques.

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 Business Communication
Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3
This Module is fairly detailed and will require more effort from you – the only way to get better at
creating business documents is to invest time and effort in doing so, and I invite you to make this
investment, which will yield rich returns to you as a person and a manager!

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 Business Communication
Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3

Corresponding through E-mail has become an accepted and expected practice in business communication
these days. However, when we use this medium in the context of business or management, we need to be
conscious of the fact that most business communication is formal in nature, and as such, we need to be aware
of the best practices while executing email.

In this video, we look at a few things that we need to do in order to make our email both effective as well as
business appropriate.

We all know what email is; however, for completeness, please look at a typical layout of a commonly used e-
mail client screen:

While we shall look at some of the components on an email message, it is important to keep in mind that this
form of messages adheres to the generalised structure used in business messaging, namely the opening, body
and close elements. In addition, the layout of the email application contains addr ess, date, copy and subject
fields.

In the Opening we include a Salutation and an introductory paragraph that sets the context of the message.
The Body is the message itself, and this is followed by the Close, which comprises of a closing paragraph, which
typically has a call for action, and a sign-off. Make sure you incorporate all these elements in any message that
you might compose.

While planning an email message, be sure to consider how long it should be – very long messages are difficult
to scroll through and important information may be overlooked by the reader. I typically try and limit
messages that I write to a maximum of one screen or viewing plane and use attachments for longer messages.

© All Rights Reserved, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

 Business Communication
Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3
When your email includes a Letter, a Slide deck or a Report or other document or image, your message should
clearly set the context of your message, and specifically provide information what and why the attachment is
included, and what the recipient need to do with the attachment.

Using the To and Copy fields is the first thing you need to be careful of; the usual practice is to use the To filed
only for those who will actively use and respond to the message; the CC and BCC field are normally used only
to send the message to others. Be selective while marking copies, limiting it to only those who absolutely need
to know. While responding to a message, be careful about using the ‘Reply All’ function; while this is easy, you
need to review the list and take out the recipients who may not need to receive your respons e.

The Subject Line is next; this is a very vital component of your message – in a situation where you need the
recipient to respond in a desired or timely manner, you need to invest time and thinking in crafting an
effective Subject line. Keep it Short and to the point. Make it indicative of the core message your email
message contains. Avoid using the Subject line as your message – it is very poor form to do this and send out a
blank message body with only a Subject Line.

Sometimes, messages go back and forth in long conversations – so much so that the Subject of the original
message might no longer be relevant or valid – before Sending or Forwarding a message that involves a long
mail trail, always review the relevance of the Subject Line and modify it i f necessary. Also be sure to delete the
trailing messages in the mail trail if they are no longer relevant or are needed by the addressees.

Coming to the main body of your message, let’s first look at the opening components.

A Salutation is a must in formal mail. In some organizations, addressing by name is preferred. In such cases,
“Dear Mr. Chauhan” or “Dear Vijay” can be used, depending on your relationship with the addressee. Address
all the people whose names are in the “To” bar, For example, “Dear Vijay, Rama and Shilpa”. If there are many
people, the salutation “Dear All” or can be used. Using the mail merge facility that some mail clients offer, it is
possible for you to customise your salutation for each recipient.

Always include an opening sentence or paragraph that has the opening courtesies (such as Thank You),
provides a reference to earlier messages or discussions, and finally to explain the purpose of the current
message, and what the recipient is expected to do with the message.

Once you are done with the Opening, go ahead and write your message. As I had mentioned earlier, plan in
advance what you will include in the message body, and what will go into attachments. Follow the basic
principles of writing that you learnt in the preceding Modul e.

Sometimes, and especially for complex and important messages, you may wish to draft them using Word or
other word processors and copy the edited text into the email – this could save you time and effort.

Once you have got a draft in place, be sure to check and re-check whatever you have written. Do a
spell/grammar check. Use built-in tools first, and then once again manually! (all errors may not be detected by
your Spell Check app). Avoid using slang, acronyms and short forms that may not be obvious to all in the
mailing list or might make your message sound casual. And finally, unless you are very close to the recipients,
avoid using a casual tone.

Coming to the Close or closing section of your message, be sure to include a short summary of action required
or outcomes to be noted by the reader.

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 Business Communication
Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3
A closing formal salutation, such as “With Thanks and Regards”, “With Regards”, “Yours sincerely” is a must.
Avoid phrases such as “Cheers”, “Have Fun” or ‘Ciao’ in formal business messages.

It is a good practice to have a smart, professional Signature to round-off your message; you could create more
than one signature for formal, semi -formal and casual messages, and us the one that is appropriate

At the very end of your message, resist the urge to include “pearls of wisdom” and “motivational quotes” –
while this may sound very good to you, it may not convey a professional image to the recipient.

To conclude, always take care to use these learnings whilst drafting and sending formal business email.

Be sure to look at the accompanying slide deck that contains additional Dos and Don’ts relating to the
composition of business email.

© All Rights Reserved, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

 Business Communication
Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3
In your managerial career, it is very likely that you will be called upon to serve as secretary to
meetings. This is a crucial function, as one of the tasks assigned to the secretary of a meeting is to
record and draft a document known as the Minutes of a Meeting. This is sometimes referred in short
as the Minutes or Meeting Minutes. In this video clip, we shall discuss this business document in
terms the types of Minutes, the components of this document and how it is written.

Meeting minutes are a formal record of the what transpires when people get together to take
decisions or plan future actions. Minutes are recorded and drafted; in some cases, they are sent to
participants for their inputs on and ratification of what has been recorded. Once ratified, meeting
minutes serve as the reference for decisions taken, and to form the basis for action to be undertaken
by the organisation.

Minutes therefore need to be a concise and accurate record of what was discussed and agreed to in
a meeting. The target audiences for meeting minutes could be both those who participated in the
session, as well as some people who did not, but are affected by or responsible for the outcomes o f
the meeting.

There are four different kinds of minutes, namely

Notes of Meeting,

Narrative minutes,

Resolution Minutes and

Action minutes.

Each one of these variants have different layouts and formats; however, all of them will invariably
include following components:

1. A Title that clearly identifies the document and the meeting: for example, the title of the
document could be:

Minutes of the Meeting of the Technical Coordination Committee: ABC Garments

2. The Location or Venue and Date of the meeting, such as

Main Conference Room, Plant 1

3. The Start and Finish times

4. A list of people invited to the meeting, the actual Participant List, and a list of people apart
from the participants to whom these minutes will be distributed.
5. An indication fo the topics to be discussed – this is typically drawn from the Agenda for the
meeting, and which would have been circulated to all invitees in advance, and
6. In some cases, the security or confidentiality classification of the document is also part of
mandatory component set.

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 Business Communication
Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3
Having set down the mandatory components, let look at the differences between the different types
of minutes:

Notes of Minutes, sometimes verbatim notes of minutes, record in complete detail everything that
was said – these are sometimes based on audio recordings of the proceedings. The document clearly
indicates who the speaker was, and exactly what was said. As you will have concluded, verbatim
minutes will be very detailed, lengthy and difficult to read and act upon. This type of meeting
minutes is mostly used in legal and regulatory situations.

Narrative Minutes, as the name implies, provide a detailed description of the proceeding of the
meeting. Narrative minutes get to into some detail and explain what decisions were made, or
actions were decided upon, without being exhaustive. The names of people who made suggestions
or important contributions will be indicated; as also the names of prospers and seconders and the
exact wording of what was proposed; brief descriptions of views for and against the proposition and
the decision reached. It will also include a summary of documents handed out, slides presented, or
other information passed on in the meeting.

Resolution Minutes: In contrast to narrative minutes, in the case resolution minutes, only the
decisions made and actions to be taken are recorded, without mentioning who proposed them,
what arguments were proposed and by whom, or how these decisions were reached.

Action Minutes are the shortest form of minutes, because it records only the most i mportant actions
that need to be taken based on the discussions in the forum. Typically, it will refer to the agenda
items one-by-one, describe the action to be taken in that regard, in what time frame the task is to be
completed, and who is responsible for its completion. Action minutes are sometimes drafted as
columnar tables to make it concise and easy to read and execute upon.

Having defined the types of meeting minutes, and their components, it is important to look at the
linguistic aspects associated with this form of business document.

- Minutes are formal documents, and therefore written in a style that is appropriate to a
formal document
- Most parts of the minutes document are written in the Past Tense and in the passive voice.
While the passive voice is not generally recommended in modern business communication,
its use in minutes ensures that the tone is correct, neutral as well as formal. Of course, those
parts of the document that refer to actions that need to be carried out, the future tense is to
be used.
- Pronouns are typically written in the third person, and the use of ‘we’ is assumed to refer to
the company or organisation. Minutes use reporting verbs, such as said, stated, illustrated,
explained, informed, reported, commented, replied, added, answered, disagreed,
concurred, argued, questioned, demanded, suggested, emphasized, highlighted, stressed.

To learn more about the various types of meeting minutes, be sure to look at the sample documents
that have been posted as part of this Unit.

© All Rights Reserved, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

 Business Communication
Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3
In conclusion, the task of keeping and writing the minutes of meeting is to be taken seriously and
executed with a high degree of precision and rigor.

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 Business Communication
Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3
Managers are frequently asked to provide their assessment of something, which could be a report, a
presentation, a product or services, or even the competencies of a colleague or co-worker. In this
discussion, we focus on reviews and critiques in the field of business, and therefore do not refer to
material from the domains of fiction, poetry, film, art and such like.

The way that you, as a manager, carry out the task of assessing a piece of business communication
will reflect on both your powers of reasoning as well as professionalism. As such, this unit includes a
discussion of two types of commonly used assessments. In this video clip, we will look at the
differences between a review and a critique, and the ways in which a professional critique might be
written.

Let’s start with a discussion of a review; the goal of a review is to disseminate information about a
piece of communication and to judge it. When you write a review, your job is to state your opinion
or judgement and support it by presenting reasons and evidence. The objective of your review could
well be to influence the opinion of the person who reads it; subjectivity is allowed when you write a
review.

As such, in business, we focus on assessing material in a more neutral, balanced and professional
manner, with less emphasis on opinion or other subjective factors. And therefore, a review is not
what is expected from you in most cases.

A critique, on the other hand, is a detailed evaluation of something. Typically, the objective of a
critique is to present the reader of your critique with a balanced and dispassionate discussion of the
piece and allow him or her to come to their own position on the efficacy of the original message.

Before we proceed, it is important to understand that the word ‘critique’ is not the same as
‘criticize’. The term ‘evaluate in this definition is important – there is a difference between
evaluating something and criticising it – the term ‘criticise’ has a negative connotation, but the word
‘evaluate’ implies a more considered analysis of a piece or writing or a video clip or a product. Again,
a critique is neutral in approach, in that it is not usually based on one’s opinion or p osition on the
piece that is being critiqued. Typically, you will evaluate the piece against the stated or implied
objectives of the author, or commonly accepted positions on the topic adopted by experts in the
field.

In communication terms, when we examine a piece of writing or a presentation or a report or other

document, a critique is therefore a careful analysis of an argument to determine what is expressed,
how well the points are made, what assumptions underlie the argument, what issues are
overlooked, and what implications are drawn from such observations. It is a systematic, yet personal
response and evaluation of what you have read or watched.

Thus, the process of drafting a critique of a piece of business writing starts with a thorough reading
or viewing (maybe more than one) of the piece, followed by analysis of what has been presented.
The analysis starts by asking questions:

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 Business Communication
Prof. Bringi Dev and Prof. Rakesh Godhwani

Week 3
• What is the nature of the piece?
• Who wrote it, why, and what are his/her qualifications?
• What is the significance of the piece with respect to the declared target audience?
• What are its objectives? How well are they achieved?
• What is the design or method for the piece? Is it appropriate?
• What is its relevance or specific appeal or even its lack of appeal?
• What assumptions have been made? Are they sound and valid?

Once you have asked these questions and come up with some ideas and positions, you can begin to
draft your critique. A typical structure or flow of ideas follows:

First, introduce the subject of your critique – the piece under analysis. Describe it adequately to give
your reader as much context and information as needed to understand the topic.

Then review the background facts or issues that must be understood before the point of the piece
can be appreciated: its significance, structure and methodology, relevance, and so on. You also need
to review the assumptions made by the author and explain these so that they are clearly understood
before you take a position.

Having done so, state your position: what is your evaluation? Explain the basis for it, and link this to
the comments made in the preceding discussion of facts, objectives, structure and so on.

You are now able to discuss and review the author’s ideas considering the position you have taken
and elaborate on each point that relates to it. For instance, if you felt the piece was lacking in
relevance, you need to provide evidence and argument to support this statement. Similarly, if you
felt the piece performed well against the objectives stated by the author, you will need to point out
why and how it does so.

Finish with a concluding paragraph, in which you re-state the points you have made and your
reasons for making them. Remember that your conclusion should be as brief as possible.

A good way to get more comfortable with the process of review writing is to first read a piece of
writing, such as an article or white paper, and then read critiques of that piece. As part of this unit I
have provided you with links to sample pieces of writing and one or critiques associated with them –
please take the time to go through these before you attempt to write your own critique.

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