Best Buy Assignment
[Name of the Writer]
[Name of the Institution]
Best Buy Assignment
Introduction
Communication is the heart of every organization. Everything an employee does in the workplace results from communication. Therefore, good reading, writing, speaking and listening skills are essential if tasks are going to be completed and goals achieved (Hargie, 1997). As a person develops their career they will find various reasons why successful communication skills are important for them.
To understand the importance of communication in professional life, the following report will take the example of diverse organization, Best Buy Inc. Best Buy Inc is a multinational brand and organization that deals in consumer electronics. The company has its head office in Richfield, Minnesota. This organization has been taken as an example because it adheres to the strongest principles of communications and engages a number of channels in order to enhance the effectiveness of the process.
Discussion
As already discussed that communication skills are extremely important for an individual no matter in what field they are. The skills of communication garner much more importance in the case of professional communication, where these communication skills help in conveying the message effectively. The following piece of writing will look into the details that what exactly are communication skills and how they are defined. Moreover, this report will also elaborate that what is exactly professional communication and which factors that contribute positively to the development of communication skills in an individual at the workplace.
Communication Skills
Communication skills are one of the core skills of human interaction. Sadly, fewer and fewer individuals pride themselves on having strong communication skills. Perhaps worse, the electronic communications of today — being forced to limit communications to a limited number of characters, the employment of emoticons rather than describing one’s feelings using words, and the Wizard of Oz phenomena stemming from the anonymity of communicating via keyboard rather than in person, etc. — mitigate against the employment of good communication skills, especially in-person communication skills such as listening, empathy, and compassion. Consequently, those who do undertake improvement of their communication skills will have a significant competitive advantage in just about all aspects of their personal and professional lives.
Importance of Effective Communication Skills
As Richard Branson would put it, “Being able to effectively communicate is what separates a person from others”. This clearly points out that, it is one's ability to communicate that earns the confidence of others to choose him/her as their leader. Having good communication skills always helps a person to grow in his business or in his career growth. Advantages of good communication skills are as follows:
Excellent communication skills prevent misunderstanding. It gives clarity and direction.
Effective communication skills provide clear and defined policies. Organizational communication helps an organization to be successful.
Effective interpersonal communication skills such as listening skills, making eye contact gives a boost to your personality.
If you are an effective communicator helps to make understand and understood things. It gives self-satisfaction.
If you have good communication skills you are able to communicate a goal in an organization. The people you communicate will perform their jobs more effectively.
Effective communication is productive, soothing to the ears and satisfying the souls of the listeners.
Effective communication also enhances harmonious living, by way of taking everyone's opinion into consideration.
The personal integrity in a person is improved by effective communication.
It also helps persuade, influence and inspires.
Build rapport making it easier in gaining alliances and partners in business or any undertakings.
Increases the value of a person.
It also helps others to sit up and listen.
Effective communication can bring about a lot of other advantages to both personal and team. It will help one to face the crowd and not just another face or name among the crowd but being remarkable which is incredibly important for anyone to succeed in their endeavors. Building an effective customer service communication strategy should be an integral part of the company values (Arnold, & Boggs, 2019). These strategies help to promote your brand to future customers, build a strong relationship with existing customers, and address customer concerns.
Factors that Contribute Positively to Enhancing Professional Communication
This section will not only discuss the basics of communication skills but also elaborate that how these factors contribute to the development of communication skills, specifically at the workplace. In addition to these details, the underlying details will also include the recommendations that how to work on these aspects in order to improve the communication skills.
Education
There is a famous saying:
“If you just want to survive then you don't need to gather knowledge, but if you want to live up to fullest then knowledge is must and through your knowledge, if you are able to bring change in many life's then people won't let you die.”
Education is a tool to always put forward yourself. This can be explained in generalized terms rather than being specialized. Actually, education not only means getting good score in examinations, but it means to gather knowledge as much as you can of different domains. It enforces behavioral improvement of a person; if it does not bring behavioral improvement in an employee, or an individual, in general, it is useless.
In order to develop a connection between education and good professional communication skills an individual needs to develop a basic understanding of what communication skills are. Communication skill is speaking up the relevant about the issue/topic in precise manner, presenting yourself along with facts and figures, if needed. When an individual behaves as per the accurate situation then definitely will react or communicate in a correct way and will speak up only the relevant (Boissy, et. al., 2016). He or she can determine easily what needs to be said in a particular situation and all this could happen only when they have knowledge about that domain and they possess in-depth understanding by analyzing the aspects related to it.
It can be understood in a more simplified manner. In ancient times it was perceived that if a person is educated, he or she has the power to do anything. If a person is educated and has knowledge about anything he or she would be confident enough to move anywhere and even can communicate easily. If an employee is not so educated he or she would not be able to communicate with any of the other people or the management. They would hesitate or jitter. Education teaches a person each and everything and if educated, will automatically not hesitate to communicate with any fellows because an educated person has got that much guts that help him/her to put forward his point in an appropriate manner.
Education strongly influences people’s communication because of the following factors;
Education provides employees with enough information so that they have sufficient material to organize their thoughts clearly so as to be able to convey them in an effective and intelligible way to others.
Once an employee’s thoughts are clear enough, the next requirement for effective communication is a fairly good vocabulary which aids people in lucid delivery of their thoughts and information. Education lends the professionals a helping hand in initiating and enhancing their vocabulary on a continual basis.
The third requirement is grammar, and but for education, no one can ever hope to get a clear idea and grasp of grammar principles (Jackson, 2015). The communication of such people who do not possess adequate knowledge of grammar will always be lacking in some important aspects and their message will always be a poor second compared to the communication of educated intelligent individuals.
Education provides the platform for regular interaction with other educated and informed people which enriches one’s practical knowledge which in turn adds substance and shine to one’s expressions.
Education supplies the essential impetus which motives one to strive for continuous development and desirable evolution, and communication is verily one of the important aspects of mankind’s evolution. Without education, such a desirable growth will severely be hampered.
Training
Communication is an integral part of our lives and more effective it is the more our tasks become easier. Effective communication is a two-way process. The first part of the process is listening. If you listen well, you too will be listened to properly. The clarity of thoughts, the conciseness of the message and the levels of voice tone and pitch are the essential components of effective communication when it comes to your turn to speak. An individual’s communication skills also reflect several aspects of the individual’s personality as a whole. The non-verbal communication in the form of body movements, gestures, etc. also help to analyze an individual’s personality.
Needless to mention, an impressive personality braced with excellent communication skills greatly enhances the confidence level of an individual and also improves the chances of both vertical and horizontal growths in professional career. The above aspects and several more are all covered in corporate training courses and professional training on communication skills and personality development for professional individuals. I recommend highly of Global Academy of Consulting and Training or Global ACT, who are the trendsetters of most innovative techniques incorporated in their training systems and hence, adding value to their corporate training programs. The participants are greatly benefited as for their personal fulfillment of learning and improving their chances of career growth. The global ACT offers custom-based and specific need-based soft skills training to its valued client organizations keeping in mind the enhancement of professional skills of the trainees as their prime focus and ultimate goal.
These training programs have a number of corporate trainers on various categories of learning like Communication skills, Leadership skills, behavioral skills, Negotiation skills, Presentation skills, and several others. Such soft skills training not only makes one aware of the business environment dynamics but also makes learning the codes of ethics required for different professional situations or conditions.
As a matter of fact, training in communication would be around 2 or 3 months when an employee goes outside like coaching classes. That span of coaching would not help them attain perfect communicator designation. But training in communication helps them to
Know the basics of communication: With the basics taught by the professor would help them to understand the general level of communication so that they can develop by themselves.
They teach ways to communicate effectively: At this point, it can be said, that they teach an individual how to improve their communication effectively and what are some ways to communicate effectively.
They organize: It’s very important to join classes because once a person has completed your course they organize some sessions and exams with that they can know up to which level their communication ability is when compared with other people. This helps them to concentrate better to improve your speaking skills.
Communication is not about only speaking; Yes.it’s not about only speaking but listening, thinking and confidence. In training sessions they gonna teach you how to be more confident and they organize some seminars so that you could gain confidence in public.
Lastly crowd: There will be so many people in the training sessions. Interacting with them improves an individual’s communication ability than learning continuously. These training sessions can only teach an employee up to some extent but communication skill is a constant learning process
Personal Development
Personal development is also a big factor that helps in the improvement of communication skills. This factor not only develops the professional communication skills but also the skills of conveying the messages at a personal level. Some of the factors that help in the enhancement of personal development are:
Talk to strangers. Pick one every day and talk to them about their lives, their ambitions, everything that they are comfortable telling you.
Talk to yourself every day. The more crystal clear you are internal, the more clarity it will exhibit during your outside dialogues.
Take feedbacks, especially from girls. They have the ability to judge a guy on a lot of fundamental traits. Be ready to consume some negative stuff too.
Dress well and as per the occasion. Dress something which comforts you and not the eyes of others.
Propose/ask a girl out eye to eye. This might be chivalrous and hence give a try after giving a good thought at it.
Listen to a lot of great personalities. Gradually, you will pick their traits and improvement will begin to show up.
Do 20 push-ups every day. This way you will have broad shoulders. Broad shoulders exude a lot of confidence.
Read, read and read. Cannot state the importance of this life-changing habit.
Be polite while dealing with people.
Smile wholeheartedly, it attracts a lot of forces towards you.
Do mirror speaking, envisage as if you are delivering a speech to a large gathering or mentoring a group of young folks. It will help you in accepting yourself with all the visible flaws.
Write your random musings in a diary. This helps in cleaning the upper space which eventually gives you more clarity. And yes, a clear mind translates into good communication skills.
Teach a few nearby kids every day. The best way to improve communication is to let others agree with your method of learning.
Dance with all the emotions and expressions. When you move your feet in correspondence to the underlying emotions in the song, it provides you manifold benefits.
Participate. Participate a lot and you will see its intangible benefits afterward.
Take balanced and healthy diet. Avoid food that your body is not prone to adopt.
Do a lot of public speaking/extempore. I have gained a great deal of confidence by doing this. And I still keep doing it.
Lastly, rub off the assumption that a good personality means a bulky, curvaceous body. No, it is not that way. Rub off the misconception that speaking fluent English is a sign of good communication skills. Build a pleasing personality, be a person in front of whom people find comfort and feel good talking to. Become a communicator who can describe the complex theories of physics in layman language (Kearney-Nunnery, 2015).
Professional Development
Professional development of an employee also leaves a great impact on the communication skill exhibited buy them in their professional setup or organization. If an employee of Best Buy is developed in terms of professional learning, they can prove to be extremely beneficial for their job, as well as their organization, i.e, Best Buy. The professional development doe not only provides a smooth career trajectory for an employee but also helps them present their opinions, values, and thoughts to their seniors, peers, colleagues, and juniors. Here are some tips that can be used to develop an employee not only in Best Buy but at any organization:
1. An employee should be very clear what they want from their life, their organization, and their profession. They should know exactly where they are headed and who they want to be as a person - their beliefs, values and their truth.2. They should live your truth but do so in such a way as to not cause harm to others physically and emotionally.3. A person should listen to others so that they can learn who they are, what they feel about things and why. Never just listen so that they can reply - listen so that they can learn.4. An employee should speak truthfully, but with compassion and consideration for others at all times, as they are not them and may not share your beliefs. Ason should always keep in mind that their beliefs are not globally right - they are just right for their own selves.5. A person should ensure that they spend their time and energy on and with people that help them evolve as a person. If a person has people in their life who just bring drama and problems that they don't need, and they do not want to change. The employee should remove them from their life (gently for them) and live their truth.6. An employee at Best Buy should be trained to do all this with a smile and as much unconditional love for people as a person can.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, it is evident from all the above details that how important communication skills are in a person’s daily life. The importance of communication skills multiplies to many folds when they are applied in the case of an organizational setup. These communication skills that are applied and used in the case of an organizational setup are known as professional communication. The professional communication skills help an employee in order to understand the culture and the environment of the organization. There are many factors that impact the process of professional communication like education, training, personal development, professional development, etc. These skills can be enhanced with the help of various practices and can help a diverse organization like Best Buy to reach heights of skies.
References
Arnold, E. C., & Boggs, K. U. (2019). Interpersonal Relationships E-Book: Professional Communication Skills for Nurses. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Boissy, A., Windover, A. K., Bokar, D., Karafa, M., Neuendorf, K., Frankel, R. M., ... & Rothberg, M. B. (2016). Communication skills training for physicians improves patient satisfaction. Journal of general internal medicine, 31(7), 755-761.
Hargie, O. (Ed.). (1997). The handbook of communication skills. Psychology Press.
Hosťovecký, M. (2017). Communication skills as the competitive advantage of sellers.
Jackson, D. (2015). Employability skill development in work-integrated learning: Barriers and best practice. Studies in Higher Education, 40(2), 350-367.
Kearney-Nunnery, R. (2015). Advancing Your Career Concepts in Professional Nursing. FA Davis.
