Communications
On the QT Newsletter, Communications
April 21, 2009
Did you know? As the overall volume of e-mail increases, the overall volume of other kinds of communication drops. E-mail and texting are convenient, easy to use, allow employees to stay in touch with loads of people, and enable them to accomplish huge amounts of work together. While companies surely depend on e-mail and IM, they are finding that e-communications increase the likelihood of conflict and miscommunication, because they fail to convey the nonverbal messages that add nuance and valence to our words. Consequently, employers want employees and new hires to be skilled communicators, able to choose and use multiple mediums to send their message. While many of our students are prepared to meet these communication challenges, they often begin striking the keys without considering their options. This activity will encourage your students to communicate with more than their fingers.
Try this:
- Tell your students that employers want to hire job candidates who are good communicators … that means the ability to use the best communication medium to send a message.
- Discuss some of advantages and disadvantages of electronic communications.
- Distribute, review, and have students complete What’s the Right Medium for Your Message? (There are no right or wrong answers … )
- Share the challenges and problems you and your students have encountered because you chose the wrong medium.
Add an experience: To follow up and increase students’ awareness of communicating face-to-face and on the phone, have your students complete Sound Advice. This voice evaluation exercise will help them understand more about the importance of how they sound and give them a simple tool to measure and modify their voices to sound their best. For additional information about the activity or to review similar exercises check out — Everyone Has a Customer to Serve.
Quik Quote: Radicati estimated that business users sent/received on the average of 156 emails a day in 2008.
