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Chapter 3: The Communicator: Objectives and Creditability

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Chapter Outline
What Do You Want to Accomplish?
Your objective
Your Style
Your tone
How Does Your Audience Perceive You?
What is credibility?
How can you enhance it?

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WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH?


1. Your objective as a communicator
The first setup to establish what you want to accomplish is to set an
objective.
To be an effective communicator you need to specify:
i.
ii.

The response, a communicator desire from the audience


Specific means to achieve the desired response.

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2. Styles of Communication

STYLES OF COMMUNICATION
Once you have defined communication objective, choose the appropriate
style to accomplish that objective. The following model, adapted from
organizational theorists Tannenbaum and Schmidt, displays the range of
communication styles used at various times in virtually any job. The two
dimensions to consider how much you want to involve your audience. The
more you control, the less you involve; the more you involve, the less you
control.

There are four Communication Styles


A.
B.
C.
D.

Tell Style
Sell Style
Confer Style
Join Style

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A. Tell Style
In the tell style, you are informing, instructing or explaining your audience;
you want your audience to understand or learn by giving the answers of
their questions.
A report to your boss on your department activities
A letter explaining a policy to a customer
For Example:
An Army officer is teaching the war strategies to his student officers. so he
must have enough knowledge about the war strategies that clear the
concepts to the other officers effectively because the trainees doesnt have
any experience with the war strategy so they cannot share their experience
or ideas, the only thing they can ask questions about the subject which
usually takes 5-10 % of communication so the teacher must have enough
knowledge about the subject.
B. Sell Style
In the sell style, you are persuading or advocating: you want your audience
to perform an action or to change their thinking or behavior.
In this style of communication, you know the answers and you want them
to act differently because of these answers.
For Example:
Let say an officer of planning and development section of a Department wants to
launch a new project at a site. He will first prepare a PC-1 and after the
approval of the Head of department, the PC-1 would be sent to the
Planning Commission along with the member of the board from that
department. Now the officer will deliver the presentation regarding his
proposal, mentioning all the objectives of that project and proves that, this
project will go in the favor of the Government and the public as well. Here
his convincing power will affect his communication if he succeeds to sell his
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ideas he will get his project approved by the Commission so now the
planning Commission will approve the project PC-1 in respect of his
presentation. This was an effective example of sell style of communication.
C. Confer Style
Confer style is appropriate when you are trying to consult or interact with
your audience to gather the information and you want to learn the answer
from them as you dont know the answer. It is sometimes called the
inquiry style,
For Example:
A common example to confer is the gathering of a social group where some
of the members of that group are working for the betterment of a
specific society and there is a monthly or weekly meeting of that group to
exchange their ideas and experiences gained from that society. The
members are the communicators and the audience as well and gain the
answers of their desired questions about that society from one anothers
ideas and experiences. Such type of meeting is usually called Conference or
Workshop where different Ideas and experiences are exhausted. Communicator
will now ask the members about their experiences and ideas about that society in that
way so that he would get enough knowledge regarding his desired objective.
D. Join Style
In Join Style, you are collaborating with your audience to come up with the
content (such as brainstorming session).
For Example:
Take an example of a student of PhD, who has given the task to research on
the relevant topic. Now he do have that much knowledge or he do not have
any knowledge about the given topic, he would be g iv e n a lo n g s pa n
o f ti me to be do ne with his research so that he could gather
enough information about the research topic. So the student
would start research on his task and would go into the field and try to
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get information about the objective, he would concern each and


every source from where could he get the information and collects
the information about the subject. After researching he has a lot of
information that he could create his own theory on that objective
which shows, how effective and creative this style of
communication is.
Your communication style should vary with each situation you encounter.
Generally, uses tell/sell styles when:
1. You have sufficient information,
2. You can understand that information without help from others, and
3. You are concerned with a quick, logical, orderly decision.
Generally, use consult/ join styles when:
1. You need more information,
2. You need critical evaluation from other, and
3. You are concerned with implementation of the decision

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3. Tone of Communication
Tone is the way you speaking or writing sound, the feeling it conveys the
mood you set.
Like mood your tone can very indefinitely:

From Placid to agitated


From playful to somber
From modest to proud
From thankful to bitter
From Whimsical to factual
From pleading to ordering
From fanciful to factual

In business communication, however you will rule out rapture and rage.
What is Right Tone in Business Communication?
There are no hard and fast rules regarding TONE.
Tone is based on various variables (Your personality, your audience,
and your topic and objective).
Example: Imagine you are trying to communicate the necessity for
keeping certain work area clean. You can adopt a:
I.
II.
III.

Light Tone : Lets all pitch in and get rid of the garbage we have all
been wading through in the work area
Formal Tone: This is to inform you that anyone found leaving
garbage in the area will be docked one hours pay.
Middle Tone: To increase productivity, we must work together to
clean up the work area

Again, none of these tones is the right or wrong one in absolute


sense. Their appropriate is based on analysis of situation.

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HOW DOES YOUR AUDIENCE PERCEIVE YOU?


Q# Define Credibility. Explain how can you build and enhance credibility.
1. What is credibility?
Once you have formulated what you want to accomplish, consider
your audiences perception about you.
Audiences perception means your own credibility: their belief,
confidence, and faith in your power reliability or trustworthiness.
There are five factors that affect credibility:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
I.

Rank/ Status
Good Will
Expertise
Image
Fairness/ Morality
Rank/ Status

Credibility is by virtue of rank/ Status. The higher rank a person holds the
bigger power of punishment and reward he carrier. This is also called as the
audience perceives dependency on the communicator.
II.

Goodwill

People tend to believe in you if you write or speak in their favor.


III.

Expertise

Your competence, achievement and expertise in a field do have a marked


influence on the communications.
IV.

Image

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Your image also plays a vital role about your credibility. An actor is another
share advertisement does not know how much about the product. The
audience however, perceives him differently as to how attractive and
dynamic he is.
V.

Fairness and Morality

Morality and Fairness is the final contributing factor in the audience


perception about communicators credibility. Your morality, your values
and objectivity play an important role.
In conclusion credibility stems from at least five factors.
2. HOW CAN YOU ENHANCE YOUR CREDIBILITY?
You can enhance your credibility by knowing your initial credibility and
increase your acquired credibility.
INITIAL CREDIBILITY:
Initial credibility refers to your audiences perception of you before
communication itself ever take place, before they ever read or hear what
you have to say.
Your initial credibility may stem from their perception who you are, what
you represent, or your previous relations.
Acquired Credibility:
Acquired credibility refers to your audience perception of you after your
communication take place, after they have read or heard you.
Even if your audience knows nothing about you in advance, your good ideas
and your persuasive writing or speaking will help you earn or derive your
credibility.

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How to enhance credibility


One can enhance credibility through following techniques:
Associating yourself with or citing a high-ranking person.
Building your goodwill by emphasizing audience benefits whats in it
for them. Offering balanced evaluations; acknowledging conflicts of
interest.
Associating yourself with or citing authoritative sources
Building your image by identifying yourself with your audiences
benefits; using nonverbal and language your audience considers
dynamic
Establishing your shared values or ideas acknowledging similarities
with audience.

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