Preface

What is communication? Communication is what it does—bringing people together. How does it do it? By establishing a “commonness” among them. The message (verbally/non-verbally developed idea), the medium (carrier of the message), and the environment (surroundings in which the communication takes place) bring about this commonness, a situational relationship for a (common) purpose. That is how the authors would like to explain communis, the Latin origin of the word “communication”.

If, for an individual, communication is a social need, for an organization, it is the lifeblood. If we, as individuals, communicate for 70 per cent of our waking time, an organization communicates for 90 per cent of its working time. If individuals communicate for their personal purpose, communication in an organization is for business purposes. Thus, the role of communication in an organization can be seen as a job of bringing all aspects of the business together—employees, customers, suppliers, intermediaries, public, etc. That is why, we need to understand business communication at different levels—the individual level, the organizational level, etc. Therefore, this is also how a book on business communication should ideally be structured—the concepts (for a basic understanding of the fundamentals of communication by individuals), the illustrations (to provide the organizational backdrop), and the applications (for the extension of communication in a business).

This book is the result of a sum total of more than 65 years of the authors' (combined) experience of teaching, training, researching and consulting in the areas of English language, report writing, technical writing, language skills, communication skills, presentation skills, negotiation skills, personality development and marketing communication. Therefore, most of the concepts, cases and application areas presented in this book are thoroughly examined and tested with a large variety of groups of students, executives and academics.

The book includes a total of nine chapters. It deals with the concepts of communication—the definition, the nature, the process, and the barriers of communication; upward, downward and horizontal communication; and effective communication—skills, objectives, approaches and projecting. Thus, the first two chapters—‘Nature, Value and Process of Communication' (Chapter 1) and ‘Communication Barriers and Methods to Overcome Them' (Chapter 2)—highlight the theory and basics of communication.

The next set of chapters deal with the two different ways of communication—verbal and non-verbal. Under verbal, come oral and written; and under non-verbal, body language. Thus, the chapters included are ‘Oral Communication' (Chapter 3), ‘Written Communication' (Chapter 4), and ‘Non-verbal Communication' (Chapter 5). Also included are chapters such as ‘Listening' (Chapter 6), which emphasizes on the importance of listening in today's world, and ‘Organizational Communication' (Chapter 7), which focusses on communication in an organizational setup between the superior and the subordinate and also at different levels of hierarchy.

However, the extraordinary features of the book are the chapters on applications (Chapter 8) and grammar (Chapter 9), which are becoming essential components of the business curriculum in undergraduate courses over the world.

To facilitate the modern method of teaching a course like business communication, this book has been specially designed for undergraduate teaching. The logical flow of topics and simple, interactive language should help the readers appreciate an idea, or a point, as well as the totality of the subject better.