Guide to managerial
communication
Mary Munter
• Managerial communication is different
from other kinds of communication
because a brilliant message alone is not
sufficient: you are successful only if
your message results in your desired
response from your audience.
1. Objective
• “As a result of this communication, my
audience will. . .”
2. Strategies
• Communication objectives: Define the general
objective and the expected action to follow: the
audience will learn something, sign, give me
info, engage in defining a strategy, approve a
plan
• Style: (content control vs. audience involvement)
– Tell/Sell
– Consult/join
• What is your credibility?
3. Credibility (persuasiveness): stress pre-existing; increased
acquired
Factor
Based on . . .
Stress initial credibility
Increased acquired credibility
Rank
Hierarchical
power
Emphasizing your title
or rank
Associating yourself with or citing a
high-ranking person
Goodwill
Personal
relationship or
“track record”
Referring to relationship
or “track record”
Building your goodwill by
emphasizing audience benefits “what’s
in it for them”
Trustworthiness
Offering balanced evaluations; acknowledging conflicts of interest
Expertise
Knowledge,
competence
Sharing your expert
understanding
Explaining how you
gained your expertise
Associating yourself with or citing
authoritative sources
Image
Attractiveness,
audience desire
to be like you
Emphasizing attributes
audience finds attractive
Building your image by identifying
yourself with your audience’s benefits;
using nonverbals and language your
audience considers dynamic
Common
Ground
Common values,
ideas, problems,
or needs
Establishing your shared values or ideas
Acknowledging similarities with audience
Tying the message to your common ground
4. Audience
•
•
•
•
Who are they?
What do they know?
What do they feel?
How can you persuade them?
– Using audience benefits
– Using credibility (check table previous page)
– Using message structure
Using message structure
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Opening and closing: emphasize benefits
Problem/solution structure: First convince them that there is a problem so
you can then convince them that there is a solution
One-sided or two-sided: Two-sided for controversial topics. Helps
establishing common ground
Pro/con or con/pro. Pro/con for noncontroversial
Ascending or descending order. Informed audience ascending, uninformed
descending
Foot in the door technique: break down your request
Door in the face technique: Follow an outregous request with a reasonable
one.
Wrong structure for your papers: Answering questions like if the
paper was an exam
5. Message
THOUGHT PROCESS (drafting)
ends with conclusion
STRATEGIC PROCESS (writing)
emphasizes the conclusion
Bad ideas
Assumptions
Good ideas Data
Organized
ideas
Reach
conclusion
last
State
conclusion
first (usually)
Organized
ideas
Organized
ideas
Facts
Organized
ideas
TIME
Message strategy
• How can you emphasize?
– Do not bury things in the middle
– Direct approach: front loading or bottomlining.
– Using the indirect approach: back loading or
mystery story approach (by enlarge not
appropriate in business writing and thus not
appropriate in your assignments)
Macrowriting
Goal:
Design document
for “high skim
value”
Signposts to show
connection
Effective
paragraphs or
sections
To increase
readability, show
organization
To show logical
progression
To organize
paragraphs or
sections
Throughout the
document
Openings
closings
Generalization and
support
Paragraph
signposts
Methods: “Headings”
White space
Typography
Macrowriting
• Introduction: What exists, why write, how
organized.
• Closing: closure
– Ineffective:
• Introducing new topic or information
• Apologizing
• Ending abruptly.
• Paragraphs:
– (1) heading and when no heading topic sentence
– (2) Signposts to clearly connect ideas within each
paragraph or section.
Microwriting
Goal:
Editing for brevity
Choosing a style
To make writing concise
To make tone appropriate
Methods: Avoiding wordiness
Avoiding overlong
sentences and paragraphs
Businesslike or bureaucratic?
Active or passive?
Jargon or no jargon? Jargon
only as short hand not to
show that you know the
word
Microwriting
• Avoid wordiness: See table Munter’s book p. 73
• Overlong sentences
– Clues:
• (1) Too many main ideas in a sentence, usually signaled
by using the word “and” more than once.
• (2) Hard to find main idea, usually signaled by using too
many piled-up phrases, parenthetical ideas, and qualifiers.
• Business like or bureaucratic (see p. 77)
• Active or passive?
Active
Passive
to avoid wordiness
to avoid formality
to place responsibility
to save readers time
to de-emphasize writer
To avoid responsibility
For transition
Writing Exercise: Present and defend the vision statement that you have been writing for
CAPSIM. Use the back of this page. I will put them in the overhead projector so… write
“pretty”. The goal is to convince me that it is a good vision.
Audience: Chair of the Board of Directors (me).
Introduction: Write just a couple of lines which states your vision. Remember what we
have discussed in the lecture. You are advocating, defending, championing a particular
vision.
Body of the document: Write about 3 headings or the titles for the sections that you
would write to convince the board of directors that the vision you have defined is good.
See tables 2.1 and 2.2 in textbook as to what is a good vision. See Munter’s writing
guide as to what is a good heading and a good way of organize a paper to create a
convincing argument.
Closing: A couple of sentences (see Munter’s guide for what is a good closing)
The whole paper should use white space and indentation to make it pleasing to the eye
and easy to read.
The purpose of this exercise is to review and practice how to write effective business
documents. We will follow this model for all your written assignments.