Afterword:
Communicating Competently and Confidently
Throughout this book, you have learned a lot about the five core competencies of business communication: professional, clear, concise, evidence-driven, and persuasive. You have learned why each is important and practiced big-picture strategies and hands-on techniques for achieving each one. All of this learning has helped prepare you to face communication challenges in your professional life.
By now, you should be able to handle many of the basic day-to-day business communication challenges with relative ease and tackle some of the more difficult ones with sustained effort. Of course, there will also be times that you encounter complex communication challenges that may seem insurmountable. When that happens, your confidence may be shaken. But we want you to remember that you already have many of the tools necessary to meet even the toughest challenges.
At the core, you can rely on your guiding framework for approaching business communication. You know that you can start by asking yourself questions about your three goals: What do I want to achieve? What kind of relationship do I have with my receiver, and what kind of relationship do I want? What kind of identity do I want to convey for myself? Then, with your goals in mind, you can ask questions about your receiver: What does my receiver need to know? What are our relational dynamics? What does my receiver think about my position? By being goals-oriented and receiver-centric, you can build a “big picture” plan.
Then, as you begin putting your message into writing, you can continue to apply your framework, examine your message, and ask these questions: Am I being professional? Clear? Concise? Evidence-Driven? Persuasive? You might even make adjustments to better align with each of the competencies. When you answer “yes” to each of the competency questions, you can be confident that you are sending a highly competent message that will reflect well on you.
By reading this book (and by completing your business communication course, of course), you have made important progress in building a foundation of strong communication skills that will serve you well throughout your professional career. We hope that you recognize the great strides you have made in developing your communication competence and that you have built confidence in your ability to meet business communication challenges for years to come.
