What is communication?

There are five essential questions to ask about our communication:

(1) Why am I communicating? What purpose?

(2) Who will receive my message? What do I know about them?

(3) Where will they be when they get my message? When?

(4) What do I want to say? What do they need to know?

(5) How shall I communicate? Write; phone; personally?

For effective communication there are six Cs:

* Clear

* Concise

* Courteous

* Constructive

* Correct

* Complete.

THE PRINCIPLES OF GOOD COMMUNICATION

The basic purpose of communication is always one or more of the following four functions:

* Instruction

* Information

* Entertainment

* The influencing of attitudes.

Most of the communication with which the manager is concerned is "two-way", so it is primarily two-way communication with which we are concerned here.

This means that the manager is fortunate in that he has a control mechanism available to him by which he can measure his progress.

We call this "feedback", and it is the reply or reaction from the audience which enables him to measure how well his message has been understood.

It is worth considering the planning process involved in good communication. The extent of this will vary enormously between the hours or days involved in preparing a major presentation, and the split second in preparing the answer to a verbal question. The principles and planning sequence should, however, consciously or unconsciously, remain the same.

PLANNING...