Assignment on effective communication

Part- 1: Write a theoretical evaluation on effective communication

Communication is the act of exchanging thoughts, information and feelings between individuals or groups. Different methods used for communicating, such as person-to-person engagement, email, reports, and radio, television and web-based campaigns. When the recipient of a message understands its meaning and can express that meaning back to the speaker or sender of the message then it is effective communication. For the success of an organization or an individual it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of communication.

In various spheres of life effective communication is important. It can help us to avoid misunderstandings.  For achieving productivity and maintaining strong working relationships at all levels of an organization good communication is an essential tool. For every organization leader, manager, supervisor, and employee effective communication is an important element of success. By communicating effectively people experiences fewer of the misunderstandings that create friction between people, waste time, and cause mistakes in an organization.  By effective communication the strategy of this enterprise become clear to all and each person understands how his or her work contributes to that strategy. Employees listen to customers and, in turn, are clear and convincing in describing their company’s products and services. There are different forms of communication like-written communication, verbal/oral communication,non verbal communication, top bottom communication,bottom top communication,formal communication, informal communication,network communication, electronic communication etc . In order to evaluate the effectiveness of communication we use different procedure and for becoming effective communication it needs to have some characteristics and requirements. There are many types of barriers to effective communication like- filtering (the deliberate manipulation of information to make it appear more favorable to the receiver), selective perception, Information Overload, emotions, language, gender, national culture, jargon (technical language that is not understood by outsiders) etc.  We can overcome from these barriers to effective communication by using feedback, simplify Language, listening actively, constraining Emotions and watching nonverbal cues. Some characteristics of effective communication are, it should be- Segmented, specific, accurate, timely, frequent, multichannel, face-to-face, two way etc. For effective communication first we need to define goals and expectations; then we should clearly deliver our message, we also need to choose our medium carefully, we must keep everyone involved and listening and showing empathy. For effective communication it doesn’t matter how many times we send the message. It didn’t hit the mark, if it wasn’t read and received by our intended audience. We can test if the audience read and, most importantly understood the message by several ways. We can get data by questionnaires or pulse surveys, focus groups, or one-on-one interviews. We can evaluate the effectiveness of communication skills by the following steps- 1) Hear the responses listeners give you. 2) Don't take yourself, or your ideas, too seriously. 3) Be clear and concise 4) Speak clearly 5) Remain calm 6) Respect the viewpoint of others 7) Ask your co-workers and friends if they see you as an effective communicator; better yet, ask your boss. By evaluating the effectiveness of communication we can improve the effectiveness of the communication,  it also helps to find out the strategies and tactics which need to change, it can help to  effectively engage with audience  and  helps to allocate resources wisely.

Communication is an essential part of human interaction. Effective communication enhances all aspects of our personal and professional lives. Serious problems or embarrassment may happen as a result of Ineffective or misunderstood communications in our personal and professional lives. So evaluation effective of communication has a great importance.

Part-2 : Write a letter inviting a guest speaker to a forthcoming event

Glyndŵr University                                                                                                                                       Mold Rd, Wrexham LL11 2AW, 

United Kingdom

                                                                                                                                                           

15 November 2013                                                                                                                                    

Mrs Josie Burton                                                                                                                                       President                                                                                                                                     

Wrexham Chamber of Commerce and Trade Limited                                               

Hilliards Court,Chester Business Park                                                                              

Wrexham, Chester, Cheshire CH4 9QP

Dear  Mrs. Burton                                                                                                                                       My name is Harry Youngperson, and I am writing on behalf of the students of Glyndŵr University. We would like to invite you as a guest speaker to attend a special event to be held at our university.

In our town many young people facing difficulties in finding job after they graduate; some students of our university have been working on a project to develop solutions to these difficulties. In the university library at 11.00am on Tuesday, 2 December our special audiovisual presentation will be presented; where we will try to show our investigation, and a variety of proposals which we believe will help generate jobs for local young people.

You are a member of chamber of commerce and you working in this field for a long time; so we are really interested to learn something from you. You may show us some guidelines to make our efforts more effective.

We will be pleased if you will attend in our program as our guest speaker on 2 December.

Could you please let us know if you will be able to attend,  by phoning the university on 44 1978 290666 before 29 November?

We look forward to the prospect of you speaking at our meeting.

Yours sincerely

Harry Youngperson

Harry Youngperson

Part-3: Write a justification for your answer part-2

Most of time highlight of many events is the guest speaker’s presentation. A prominent speaker can influence people to make an event successful. The speaker who has experience on particular field can offer valuable insight for the members of an event. Attendance of a talent and well known person makes any event prestigious. So if we find a right speaker for our event, it is our responsibility to sending a professional, informative letter to invite him to participate.

It is quite difficult to write to a Guest Speakers. An invitation letter generally reflects the personality or the values of the person or organisation writing it. The mood of the letter need to It is not necessary for this type of letters to be more formal but it is important  to keep all the information necessary for your invited speaker to decide whether to accept your invitation or not. Following standard business formatting is vital; it also expectable to keep the tone professional and don't use slang or frivolous language. It is important to mention the sender/ organization’s name and address clearly, I mention them properly on my letter. Then we need to write recipient's name, title, company name and mailing address which you could see on my letter in part-2. Opening with the traditional salutation is desirable by using the prospective speaker's title and name -- "Dear Dr. James" or "Dear Miss Samantha," for example. It is also done in my invitation letter.  First paragraph is mainly used for actual invitation where it need to be direct and clear in language, telling our speaker we are inviting him to speak at our organization's conference. Indicating when and where the event will take place is important, we may mention title of the event and the topic we would like him to address in his presentation. In my letter I invited our guest speaker on behalf of my university, I also mentioned the date, time and place of the event. Listing and describing the objectives of the conference and relate those to his acknowledged expertise is effective way to motivate him. Indicating how we believe his speech will benefit the participants in their efforts to learn more about the subject at hand is a good way to motivate the speaker to believe that we really believe him as an important person for our event. In my letter I tried to mention our motives and efforts for creating job for local people to the speaker. I also tried to motivate her by mentioning how her speech will inspire the students. Concluding with our contact information and a request that he contact us by a specified date to let us know whether he will speak at the conference is important to get conformation message from the speaker. In my letter I provided contact information to the guest speaker; I also mentioned the deadline of contact time. Using "Sincerely,” in the closing is the formal way, which followed by several spaces, then writer need to type his name. Normally writer sign his name in dark blue or black ink in the blank space above the typed name. I finished my letter in same procedure which is mentioned on previous line.

As an English language student we need to know how to communicate with different type of people.  Sometimes we need to invite different type of people on different type of event. Inviting a guest speaker in right way is important because they play a vital role to make any event successful. So we should properly learn how to write an invitation letter to guest speaker.

Reference-

1)      The importance of effective communication[Online], Available at: http://www.flexstudy.com/catalog/schpdf.cfm?coursenum=97003 [Accessed: 5^th November, 2013]

2)      The importance of good communication[Online], Available at:http://www.michaelpage.co.uk/content/18361/the-importance-of-good-communications.html [Accessed: 5^th November, 2013]

3)      Richards, L. (2012), 8 Characteristics of Business Communication [Online], Available at:http://smallbusiness.chron.com/8-characteristics-business-communication-1728.html [Accessed: 5^th November, 2013]

4)      Hicks ,Michelle(2013) , Measuring communication effectiveness [Online], Available at:http://idahobusinessreview.com/2013/08/23/measuring-communication-effectiveness/ [Accessed: 5^th November, 2013]

5)      Jones , Amy K.(2012) ,How to measure the effectiveness of communication [Online], Available at:http://www.wikihow.com/Measure-the-Effectiveness-of-Communication [Accessed: 5^th November, 2013]

6)      [Online], Available at:http://www.imo.org/blast/blastDataHelper.asp?data_id=18000&filename=InternationalSeminar.pdf [Accessed: 5^th November, 2013]

7)      [Online], Available at:http://dev.comnetwork.org/resources/downloads/AreWeThereYet.pdf [Accessed: 5^th November, 2013]