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ENG3771: Advanced Career Writing (Sec E280)
Prof. Chris Shannon | Spring 2015
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TO: Chris Shannon
FROM: Catherine Paczkowski
DATE: February 4, 2015
SUBJECT: Summary of “Communicating Effectively for Dummies”
Effective communication is necessary to foster positive relationships and succeed in the workplace. This entails listening well, engaging your audience, and using strategy to build strong working relationships with others. What follows is a summary of ways to avoid communication pitfalls and become an effective communicator.
• Ways to Listen Well
o Focus on the message including content, emotion, and delivery for understanding.
o Be a great listener by being patient, maintaining steady eye contact, and giving concise verbal feedback to the speaker.
o Have a sincere and nonjudgmental tone and show understanding of the speaker’s true message.
• How to Communicate Effectively to an Audience
o Use your voice and body language to engage the audience by speaking clearly at a consistently audible volume, keeping an alert posture and steady eye contact, and using your hands to gesture and emphasize key points.
o Project yourself as genuine and respectful by being direct and honest, and focus on getting solutions when talking about problems.
o Show professionalism by keeping your message concise and to the point, and by pausing to gather thoughts to keep your delivery smooth.
• Using Effective Communication to Build Strong Working Relationships
o Be positive by emphasizing what you can do to meet requests, be non-judgmental and don’t rush to give advice, and show respect in every interaction including using humor in good taste.
o Show your sincerity regarding problem solving by doing what you say you’ll do, work out concerns with the source, not with others, and focus on issues when discussing work matters and problems.
o Validate your listeners by always expressing appreciation when given assistance or support, try to understand differences in views or ideas from their perspective, and always be direct and sincere.
• Ways to avoid pitfalls in Workplace Communications
o Be constructive: Offer alternatives that will work. Listen to others needs and then describe how you will meet them. Emphasize what you can do and how you will do this. Focus on working out solutions with others.
o Be direct: work out problems in person and make sure your message comes across clearly and respectfully when dealing with sensitive or tough issues.
o Be unbiased: Avoid opinionated criticism but provide specific performance-based feedback based on your observations. Receive your speaker’s message without passing judgment on it.
o Be active: Interact and provide verbal feedback to check your understanding of the message. Show that you hear concerns from others and address them.
Attached: Cheat Sheet “Communicating Effectively For Dummies” by Marty Brounstein
Copyright © 2015
Thanks, Catherine! Great work!
TO: Chris Shannon
FROM: Samuel Acosta
DATE: 2-4-2015
SUBJECT: Memo of “Communicating Effectively for Dummies”
In this article I have personally learn that when you speak to someone having a calm, patience tone its much more effective than having a heavy and rude voice. Also listening is just as important as speaking is but when we speak we need to project the topic or subject that the other person was talking about that way we can keep them interest.
Some of the stuff that I read that I already have are
-Concentrate on what the speaker has to say
I like to pay attention to people when they speak because I want them to pay attention to me when I speak.
-Stay patient when people talk to you
This is something that I still need training doing because sometimes I jump and interrupt people when they talk and I know is annoying because I hate it when people do it to me.
Also something that I need to practice on is when you have concerns, work them out with the source, not with others. This is something I need to work with because I find myself telling things to people that won’t help at all instead of talking with the problem. Talking with the source of the problem might bring a great solution and will help you for the better.
Last but not least something that will be really useful is: Using e-mail to express concerns. Instead, go to the source to work out problems in person this is totally true and it applies to me because when you try to solve problems through e-mails or text one person usually ends up misunderstanding what you said, or finding it disrespectful.
Thanks, Sam! Great work!
TO: Chris Shannon
FROM: Christopher Martinez
DATE: 2/4/15
Subject: “communicating effectively for dummies”
Points in this article that stood out to me where to concentrate to what the speaker is saying as the whole speech may be very important an any part u don’t listen to may have a negative effect in the understanding of the discussion.
Another point that I believe is important was that during delivering a speech one must be loud and confident while talking. Also making eye contact with the audience is very important as they can see you are giving the speech to them.
I am currently taking public speaking and in the class we are delivering speeches to an audience and we have to make sure we complete every step of being a public speaker. There are many steps a few I was given are to give a silent greeting to the audience, second to have eye contact with everyone in the room and lastly to speak up clearly. Many of the steps I was given are strategies we all should use.