The thought of checking emails, having to send updates, or making some important calls every morning indeed makes most functioning adults frustrated. At times, this thought must have popped in all our minds, "What's the point of all these?" But then again, there are incidences where one phone call saved the day for everyone in your team. So, this brings us to the question, is business communication an integral part of our work-life, or is it overrated?
We, human beings, cannot stay without communication. Even if we keep our mouths shut and do not deliver anything to anyone, stay locked up in a room and watch TV, that TV is still communicating with us. Organisations consist of real people, which is why they cannot even exist without business communication. Yet, rarely do we stop and think about what role business communication plays in our workplace. That is why we do not realise the significance of effective communication in different spheres of our job and end up taking it for granted.
Every organisation in the world continuously communicates within and out of its doors. From simply delivering ideas to the work team to submitting completed work, every single employee and executive maintains constant communication both upwards and downwards their position. In all departments, management, IT, finance, marketing, accounts, operations, administration, HR, etc., there are several sorts of communication ranging from co-worker interaction, delivering or receiving tasks, sharing ideas, providing and getting feedback, and decision-making to emergency responses.
With all types of verbal and non-verbal business communication going on every day, what matters most is how effective the communication is. When the party communicated to receive the full idea, is not hurt personally, understands the significance of the delivered information, and acts to it, we can call it a successful business communication. End of the day, half of the work is done when people are communicated thoroughly.
As Muib Ahmed Saadman, president of IBA Communication Club at DU, said, "It is crucial to maintain well-structured communication with both internal and external stakeholders. In my work, business communication helps with keeping things organised and relaying information most efficiently."
While a single communication of even a gesture can hold huge significance, failed attempts of communication can be a reason for time and energy wastage. Often, in our workplaces, we take the role of communication for granted and make space for assumptions, expectations. For instance, if someone opposes an idea in a meeting, there is no point in talking about it for hours with other people who are not directly related to it instead of raising the issue formally in the meeting in front of the participants. In another case, we sometimes focus on the 'formality' of communication and end up not communicating the main information. An anecdote of this can be that classic,'writing an email with all the formalities maintained but forgetting to attach the required files with it!'
The fear of perfecting the 'formality' of communication takes a lot of effort in the communication itself than the purpose of it in the first place. Muib portrayed it in his words, "The issue with business communication starts when the excessive focus is put on the formality of the communication. This ends up creating bottlenecks and slows down work. For example, in my work, there were numerous instances where things took way longer than expected because of the formalities that the channels of communication maintained."
As technology thrives, new modes of communication are arriving to fill the gaps of long chains of delivery. Project management software and tools come to play where there are a lot of people to be updated about a single project. In our country, all the educational curriculums teach modes of business communication as old as writing letters but at times lack the teaching of effective communication through clear and appropriate delivery.
About this, Ashraful Shabab, management trainee-HR at Unilever Bangladesh, shared his thoughts, "Business communication is the pivotal construct that goes into the foundations of your career growth. Educational institutions must focus on building the relevant communication skills in students for them to be on par with the global standards. This doesn't work as an add-on; it's a necessity. And we definitely need to have a standardised process for imbibing business communication skills across all universities to ensure a better standard of leaders for tomorrow."
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