Page 13 - Today’s Business Communication; A How-to Guide for the Modern Professional

2 TODAY’S BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

that the key to good relationships and networks in business is remember-
ing that the people you meet today may not be immediately important
to your business, but could become very important 5 years or more in
the future. He also says relationships and networks must have mutual
benefit—the benefit can’t be a one-way street. Ryan also offers advice on
2
public speaking. You can find him on YouTube.

Communication Is About Relationships

Many, if not most, communication books focus on the process model.
3
To demonstrate how the process model works, we’ll use an example
from CBS television’s The Big Bang Theory, which was, according to the
Neilson Company, the #1 show in the valuable 18–49 demographic for
the week ending February 13, 2013. Let’s imagine that “Penny” is sitting
on “Leonard’s” couch. She thinks about what she wants to say and then
speaks those thoughts to him. He responds to her with some hilarious
facial expression and says something back to her that makes the audience
laugh. The Big Bang Theory scenario just described is an example of what
researchers call encoding a message through symbolic and spontaneous
messages.
4,5
Although the process model helps us to understand barriers to effec-
tive communication—for example, how “Sheldon” grinding away on
a blender in the kitchen behind “Penny” and “Leonard” could present
interference, thus preventing “Penny’s” message from being accurately
delivered to “Leonard”—it does not get to the real heart of communi-
cation: relationships. Part of what makes the comedy in The Big Bang
Theory so hilarious to audiences is the complicated and dysfunctional
relationships shared among the characters on the show.
Without communication, relationships of any kind would fail to
exist. And just like the characters on The Big Bang Theory, we have in
both our personal lives and our business careers, complicated, sometimes
humorous, relationships with our coworkers, supervisors, direct reports,
vendors, clients, customers, and stockholders, among others.
Great business communicators—and you should start lumping
yourself into that category—must think beyond the process and under-
stand that business communication is all about business relationships.