​Today’s ubiquitous mobile phones are used for getting directions, listening to music, watching movies, accessing the internet, sharing on social media, taking photographs, managing calendars, playing games, conducting business, shopping online, and more. The features and benefits of mobile phones are unarguably impressive, but some mobile-phone usage is disruptive to other activities, such as conducting meetings.
​
The Research
A recent research article, “Not So Different? Student and Professional Perceptions of Mobile Phone Etiquette in Meetings,” reported research about students’ perceptions of mobile-phone usage in meetings. The objective of the study, by Emil B. Towner, St. Cloud State University; Heidi L. Everett, Minnesota State University Moorhead; and Bruce R. Klemz, St. Cloud State University, was (1) to analyze student perceptions of appropriate mobile phone behavior in formal and informal meetings and (2) to compare the student perceptions with those of working professionals as revealed in a previous study.

The anonymous online survey was conducted at a medium-size Midwestern university. In additional to including questions about mobile phones usage in formal and informal meetings, the survey included questions related to gender, age, education, and major.

​The following table shows a high degree of agreement regarding what professionals and students think about mobile phone usage in meetings. The color coding reveals only minor variations in the rankings.

*The original study of professionals did not distinguish between browsing the internet and searching the internet for answers to questions relevant to the meeting.

​Probing into variances in student demographics, the data analysis also revealed a slight movement of perception between students’ freshman and senior years, with younger students being more accepting of mobile phone usage in meetings and more mature students being less accepting of checking texts/emails during informal meetings. Additional findings also revealed that females are more likely to use mobile phones in their daily routines but are less likely to view mobile-phone usage in meetings as being appropriate.

The Implications
Overall, this study showed a high degree of correlation between students’ and professionals’ perceptions about appropriate and inappropriate use of mobile phones in formal and informal meetings. Thus, there does not appear to be a great need to spend significant classroom time teaching mobile phone etiquette in meetings. However, instructors would certainly be justified in taking time to briefly review the most- and least-acceptable mobile-phone behaviors in meetings as identified in this study.
 
You can read the entire article here. Also feel free to share your own thoughts and insights in the comments. How do you teach your students about using mobile phones? How do you control mobile phone usage in your classroom?

To learn more, check out Chapter 1 in our textbook on controlling mobile phones in meetings.
 
-Bill Baker

Source: Business and Professional Communication Quarterly

​Image by Headway

Business communication instructors agree that audience is a key consideration when composing business documents. But how do we know whether students are grasping what we're teaching them about the importance of audience? Reflections can be a good choice.

The Research
In new research, Danica Schieber from Sam Houston State University and Vincent D. Robles from the University of North Texas assessed the use of reflections to gauge their students' awareness of audience. After responding to a case requiring them to write multiple business genres to varying audiences, students reflected on their audience awareness. The researchers uncovered three themes in the students reflections:

-Identifying reader benefits and constraints
-Considering reader values and priorities
-Estimating one's own credibility

The researchers found that students faced most difficulty delivering bad news to a customer and persuading a manager. Students found it difficult to "keep a positive tone while still giving bad news." When persuading a manager, students found it difficult to sound and feel credible, to avoid sounding "bossy," and to provide adequate detail.

The Implications
This study suggests that reflections can be a great tool for instructors to gauge their students' awareness of audience. Further, it suggests that different combinations of audiences (e.g, a customer versus a manager) and genres (e.g., persuasive versus bad news) can increase the difficulty of audience-focused assignments. If instructors want to provide their students with increasingly challenging practice, they might systematically adjust assignment audiences from an external customer to colleagues to a manager and adjust assignment genres from an informative message to a bad news message to a persuasive message.

For additional information that can help students strategically consider their audience, consider using our PACS framework described in this post or in Chapter 2 of our textbook. You can also read the entire article “Using Reflections to Gauge Audience Awareness In Business and Professional Communication Courses” by Danica Schieber and Vincent D. Robles to learn more about using reflections to assess your students’ awareness of audience. 

If you have assignments or teaching strategies you use to help your students gain an awareness of audience, please share them in the comments below.

-Matt Baker

Source: Business and Professional Communication Quarterly

​Image by Free-Photos

In your business communication courses, do you ever wonder how much emphasis you should be placing on writing emails? In “The Snowball of Emails We Deal With’: CCing in Multinational Companies,” Ifigeneia Machili of University of Macedonia, Greece; Jo Angouri of Warwick University, UK; and Nigel Harwood of University of Sheffield, UK confirm that email is the current most dominant business communication genre.
 
Emails are not, however, alone on center stage. They interweave with video conferences, phone calls, texts, webinars, and more. Also, they function interdependently with previous and subsequent emails, reports, face-to-face conversations, social media, local and remote meetings, and phone calls. Further, emails must be fluid and flexible as they develop credibility, build/maintain social and organizational relationships, and be sensitive to formality, politeness, credibility, accountability, self-projection, and multiple audiences.
 
The Research
In their analysis of email chains in an international organization, the researchers found that emails play a pivotal role in managing interpersonal relations and operational matters. Through discourse-based interviews, the researchers learned how employees strategically highlighted their professional achievements and owned or denied responsibility for decisions throughout the email chains. In addition to transmitting information, emails employed CCing (carbon copying) and formality to help (1) establish accountability, (2) contribute to decision-making, and (3) enable self-projection.
 
The Implications
The results validate the need for business communication instructors to include intensive email instruction. Students must realize that emails are not simple one-and-done messages, but rather critical communication exchanges that must be sensitive to a host of subtle contextual factors. Showing real-world email chains can help students become aware of the contextual twists and turns they will encounter on the job. Using scenarios and simulations, instructors can require students to write emails at different points in an email chain, developing appropriate strategy and content and deciding whom to CC.
 
You can read their entire article here. Learn other tips about creating effective emails in Chapter 3 of our textbook Writing and Speaking for Business.

-Bill Baker
 
Source: Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
 
Image by William Iven  

Staying current on the ever-changing features of social networking sites (SNS) can be daunting for anyone who teaches business or professional communication. Shifting focus from site features to student skills can help.

In a study led by Alexander J.A.M. van Duersen of the University of Twente, the researchers propose three groups of SNS skill for professional communicators:

Communicating: The researchers assert that SNS communication skills involve both communicating so others can understand you, and listening so you can understand others. Specific communication skills include effectively using SNS for external and internal correspondence, writing understandable narratives, understanding others’ emotions over chat, and participating in forum discussions.

Creating: Creation skills involve knowing how to create and publish professional SNS content for your organization. The researchers highlight skills of creating online media that communicate and align with your organization’s brand and values, and creating and publishing content in a way that enables and receives positive engagement from other users.

Strategizing: Strategy skills focus on making decisions, which includes gathering and analyzing SNS information and then using that information to achieve organizational goals. Specific strategic skills include using SNS for gaining customers, increasing profitability, getting ahead of competition, and enhancing relationships with stakeholders.

By focusing on the skills of communicating, creating, and strategizing, business and professional communication instructors can stay focused on what really matters: helping students gain skills that will transfer beyond the next site update.

Read the entire article “Social Network Site Skills for Communication Professionals: Conceptualization, operationalization, and an Empirical Investigation” by Alexander J.A.M. van Deursen, Carla Verlage, and Ester van Laar to learn more about essential SNS skills you can teach your students.

To learn other tips for teaching students about social media communication, take a look at Chapter 6 in our textbook Writing and Speaking for Business.

-Matt Baker

Source: IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication

​Image by Gerd Altmann

—Matias, a retail store manager, must tell his employees that store hours will be extended one additional hour into the evening.
—James, a customer service manager, has to deny a customer’s request for a refund.
—Heidi, a personnel manager, needs to document in an email why a subordinate is being put on probation.
 
Each of these situations involves giving bad news, while still attempting to retain goodwill with the person receiving the news. Sooner or later, everyone in positions of responsibility has to give bad news, which is rarely a pleasant task. There’s no one right way that works in every situation, but here are a few tips that can help.
 
Start by completing a CAPS planning process, ultimately selecting appropriate communication strategies.
 
Context analysis: Identify the factors that make this bad-news message necessary. What is your current relationship with the person? Is it a positive, neutral, or negative relationship? What would you like your future relationship to be like? What is needed to move your relationship to the desired level? Is the message recipient inside or outside your organization? If inside, remember that you’ll have to work with this person in the future.
 
Audience analysis: Look at the situation through their eyes. Try to comprehend how the bad news will affect them. Then sincerely try to minimize the negative effect of the bad news.
 
Purpose: Clarify the purposes of your message—to inform, to persuade, and to strive to build, maintain, or strengthen trust. Decide on what you think would be the ideal outcome of your message.
 
Strategy: Take steps to achieve the ideal outcome. Consider using the following four strategies—provide good reasoning, use an appropriate psychological approach, provide options as appropriate, and use appropriate wording
 
1. Provide good reasoning. Ideally, you want the readers of your negative messages to agree that you are justified in your reasoning. Therefore, be sure to have good reasons, whether financial, legal, ethical, or otherwise. Then clearly explain your reasoning in the most persuasive way possible.
 
Example: “With more daylight during the summer evenings, more customers are shopping later, so we need to keep our stores open longer to meet their needs.”
 
Regardless of your reasoning, people are still receiving bad news, which they won’t be happy about. But if you can convince them that you used solid reasoning in arriving at your decision, that will usually help soften the blow.
 
You might not feel a need to cite all the reasons for your decisions, but make sure to include the reasons that are most persuasive. For instance, your main motive for terminating someone might be their negative attitude, but because negative attitude is so difficult to measure or quantify, you might just cite discuss their substandard customer service ratings as the reason for your decision.
 
In your reasoning, include any benefits coming from your decision.
 
Example: “This policy enables us to maintain our low prices, which provide benefits for you and all of our customers.”
 
2. Use an appropriate approach. If the impact on the audience is going to be minor, you can take a more direct approach. But if the impact will be major, an indirect approach will usually be best. With a direct approach, give the negative news at or near the beginning, followed by the reasons for the bad news.
 
Example: “I’m sorry to have to deny your request for a replacement of your Columbia hiking shoes. These shoes come with a full-refund policy if the shoes are returned in like-new condition within 30 days. As we analyzed your purchase of these shoes, we found that the shoes were returned three months after purchase, not within the 30-day required refund period.”
 
With an indirect approach, give the reasons for the bad news, followed by the bad news.
 
Example: “Thanks for your request for a refund on your Columbia hiking shoes. These shoes come with a full-refund policy if the shoes are returned in like-new condition within 30 days. As we analyzed your purchase of these shoes, we found that the shoes were returned three months after purchase, not within the 30-day required refund period. Therefore, we are unable to give a refund.”
 
To de-emphasize the bad news, you can also embed it in the middle of a paragraph. For example, begin the paragraph with the reasons for the bad news, followed by the bad news, followed by other information that softens the blow.
 
Example: “These shoes come with a full-refund policy if the shoes are returned in like-new condition within 30 days. Because the shoes were returned after the 30-day required refund period, a full refund can’t be given. However, we are sending you a 30 percent coupon that you can use toward the purchase of another pair of shoes.”
 
3. Provide options. When giving bad news, try to find something positive to offer the person.
 
Example: “I’ll be happy to give you time off to attend our monthly two-day customer-service training.”
 
Also explain other actions the readers might take to minimize or reverse the negative situation, such as, “You can find additional online customer-service training to help improve your ratings.”
 
4. Choose appropriate words. As you give bad news, minimize the use of negative words, such as won’t, can’t, and didn’t. Instead, use more neutral or positive words. For example, instead of saying, “We can’t give you a refund,” you might say, “If the shoes had been returned within the 30-day period, we would have been able to grant your refund request.”
 
Also, you can use passive-voice sentence construction, instead of active voice, in conveying the bad news. Don’t say, “Because of your 2.6 customer service rating, I can’t give you a ‘Satisfactory” review.” But rather say, “Because of your 2.6 customer service rating, a ‘Satisfactory’ review can’t be given.”
 
The foregoing tips are proven methods for dealing with delivering bad news, whether in face-to-face situations or in writing. As you apply these methods, you’ll find that both your confidence and your effectiveness will increase.

​–Bill Baker

Consider using “pyramid quizzes” for high-involvement learning. Pyramid quizzes progress from small to large—beginning with individual thinking, moving to small-group sharing, and concluding with entire-class discussion.
 
Pyramid quizzes are especially useful in learning grammar and sentence basics. For example, students complete a punctuation reading assignment (for an example, see pages 260–65). Then in the subsequent class, you administer the pyramid quiz as follows:
           
Round 1. Each student completes a closed-book punctuation quiz (for an example, see pages 279–81).  
Round 2. In teams of three or four, students compare quiz answers. Then counseling together, and consulting the textbook as needed, they come to a consensus on the correct quiz answers.
Round 3. Instructor gives the correct quiz answers, facilitates appropriate class discussion, and gives appropriate explanations to ensure learning.
 
Try pyramid quizzes this semester. Both you and your students will enjoy this active-learning process. 

-Bill Baker

If you’re having trouble writing a cover letter for employment, there are good reasons. Because a future job is on the line, cover letters are high-stakes communication. Usually, they’re written under a deadline (the closing date for a job opening), which makes the writing even more stressful. They also need to be personalized to each employer, and since most job seekers apply to multiple jobs, this translates into a lot of time.
 
To overcome some of the stress and time of writing cover letters, I’ve created a template that enables me to write cover letters quickly and effectively. Following an OABC organizational structure, the template includes four parts.
 
Opening: Connect with the hiring manager or company in some way. For example, mention a shared acquaintance, talk about how you’ve researched the company online and appreciate the values or mission of the company, detail what you’ve learned through an information interview with a current or past employee, or share a positive experience you’ve had with the company’s products. The goal is to show enthusiasm and to signal your sincere interest in the job.
 
Agenda: Identify the skills or characteristics the employer seeks and that you possess. For help in this process, review our previous blog on preparing to communicate for jobs. Select two or three skills and use them for the agenda that forecasts your body paragraphs.
 
Body: Relate a PAR story that illustrates each skill or characteristics you selected for your agenda. For help in this process, review our previous blog on PAR stories.
 
Closing: Summarize your characteristics, and then invite the employer to consider you carefully for the position you’re applying for.
 
To see all of these pieces put together, take a look at this example:

It’s a format that has been used time and time again for centuries—for movies, for novels, and for fairy tales. A person is placed in a difficult context with formidable challenges. The person takes action, and, against all odds, comes out as the hero. Think of the plot in fairy tales, such as Cinderella and Snow White, in movies like Moana, and even in the great stories of the Bible—Moses confronts Pharaoh and frees the children of Israel, Joshua wins the battle at Jericho, and Esther risks her life to save her people.
 
This three-part story structure is also a powerful model for persuasion in business presentations, employment interviews, public relations campaigns, and more. As humans, we love to see the underdog come out on top (except when we are the dog on top), and we can appeal to this human characteristic in multiple situations.
 
One of the beautiful things about this three-part story structure is its simplicity. Remember it with the easy-to-remember acronym PAR—representing Problem, Action, Result.

• Problem—Explain the original context, including the problem or challenge.
• Action—Describe the action taken to overcome the problem or challenge.
• Result—Highlight the positive results that came from the action.

 
Here is how a PAR story was used by one college student in an employment interview (used by permission):
 
Problem. Growing up, my dream was to play quarterback for my high school football team.  My dream was almost crushed in eighth grade when my football coach told me I would never play quarterback because I was too small and too slow.
Action. I spent the next four years of high school trying to prove my eighth-grade coach wrong. During summers, I spent four hours every night running, throwing the football, and lifting weights.  The summer before my junior and senior year I took part in an intense 14-week sprinting program. I would also throw over 200 passes a night and lift weights for over an hour.
Result. My senior year I was named our region’s Most Valuable Player. I was also named to the All-State team, was chosen as the top quarterback for the 1A-3A All Star Game, and was one of the Arizona Wendy’s All-American  Heisman finalists.
 
In addition to using PAR stories for telling things of the past, they can be used in describing future scenarios.
 
Problem: We are having serious problems recruiting new employees for our fast-food restaurants.
Action: We could offer recruiting incentives to current employees.
Result: This action would reduce the amount of time and money that we now spend in recruiting efforts, and we would see an increase in the job satisfaction of our current employees.
 
Take a moment to think of three situations in which you might use PAR stories in your current workplace. Then write a rough PAR outline of a story you could use in each situation. Finally, put the stories into action. We think you’ll like the results you get.  
 
-Bill Baker

Recently I went to dinner with a former student who graduated 12 years ago. This student is now a successful attorney who writes numerous legal briefs and other documents that are read by judges and others in the legal profession. During the evening he described how he still uses writing and design principles I developed for my business communication classes: “I use OABC and HATS all the time in my writing, and they give me such a great advantage in writing for judges.” He also said, “I learned more in your writing class than in all the writing classes in law school.”
 
Obviously, I was happy to receive the compliment for my course, but his comments caused me to think about learning retention—what is it that enables students to remember and use writing principles learned in business communication courses?
 
Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel (2014) have written a landmark book on this topic: Make it Stick—The Science of Successful Learning. Roediger and McDaniel are cognitive scientists whose careers have focused on learning and memory, and Make it Stick captures the results of years of their own learning. In this intriguing work, the authors conclude that people generally go about learning in the wrong way.
 
For example, the idea that people learn better when they receive instruction in a manner consistent with their preferred learning style (e.g., auditory or visual) is not supported by research. Further, the idea is false that if we can make learning easier and faster, the learning will be better. In fact, learning that requires more mental work lasts longer.
 
In addition to identifying what doesn’t work in learning, the authors also identify what does work. Three of their proven strategies likely helped my former student retain and use his classroom learning years after graduation.
 
Mnemonics. First, use mnemonic devices. Mnemonics link a memorable name to a larger mass of information.
 
In this case, OABC stands for opening, agenda, body, and closing. This acronym provides a proven pattern that can be used for many business writing situations. HATS refers to headings, art/graphics, typography, and spacing. After a basic message is crafted, students can add headings, appropriate graphics, typographic enhancements, and white space to make the message more visually appealing to the reader. The OABC and HATS acronyms provide easy ways for students to create clear, organized, and visually powerful messages.  
 
Integration. Second, integrate all the knowledge learned. All new learning has to connect with previously known information.
 
OABC and HATS are taught early in the semester, and then they are integrated into subsequent assignments throughout the rest of semester. Thus, by the end of the semester, students have had experience applying OABC and HATS in a variety of contexts.
 
Repetition. Third, all new learning requires a rewiring of the brain. Therefore, provide repeated application of new learning to create and reinforce the new wiring. Don’t assume that students have learned new material just because you have covered it once. Rather, continue to re-emphasize important material throughout the course.
 
OABC and HATS are taught fairly early in the course, and students are required to apply the principles contained in these acronyms in all subsequent assignments. This repetition reinforces the learning, which improves the likelihood that students will continue to apply the learning later in their careers.
 
The result is that my student now has these principles so deeply ingrained in his mind that they spontaneously come into his mind whenever he faces a writing project. Further, he not only knows how to use these principles but has a strong conviction of their value in his work.  

Today’s professional organizations spend millions of dollars each year on training, yet much of this training has little impact on participants’ subsequent business practices. In most cases, it is because real learning never takes place. Consider your own situation. Is there an opportunity for you to implement mnemonics, integration, repetition, and other Make It Stick learning tactics in your organization?
​ 
If you are a trainer or teacher, I strongly recommend the reading of Make it Stick. Further, I suggest that you visit with a few of your former students (or current students at the end of a semester) and ask them to recall what they remember most from your instruction. If you’re not satisfied with their answers, take time to clearly identify what you want students to learn, and then reinforce that learning with principles of mnemonics, integration, and repetition.
 
I welcome your comments.
 
-Bill Baker