19 Supplement #5: Business and Professional Communication

Representing Yourself and Your Organization in a Business-Like Manner

Being professional is simultaneously the most important and the least important competency of business communication. This may sound strange—and impossible—at first. But it’s true.

Think about applying for a job. If you submit a résumé filled with typos, chances are you won’t be contacted for an interview, regardless of your qualifications. At the same time, you can have an impeccable résumé, but still be overlooked for a job if you don’t meet the company’s expectations—like not having enough years of experience or a particular certification. In this way, your professionalism is far less important than the skills and experience that make up the substance of your resume.

This most important–least important contradiction applies to all business communication, whether you are preparing emails, letters, reports, social media posts, slide decks, or any other kind of business document. Ultimately, the substance of your messages will be the deciding factor of whether you meet your goals. But if you turn off your receivers with unprofessionalism, they will never read or listen long enough to get to the substance.

This is because professionalism serves a gatekeeping function. That is, your receivers are going to determine whether to pay attention to your message based on how professional it is. If it is professional, they’ll read it or listen to it because you appear (at least on the surface) to be competent and trustworthy. If it is not, they will likely disregard it—whether it’s because the message is discourteous, sloppy, or “just doesn’t look right.” And obviously, you need your receiver to pay attention to your message if you are going to achieve any of your instrumental goals.

Professionalism is also important for establishing, building, and maintaining business relationships. Whether you are writing a report to your manager or instructions to your employee, professionalism signals respect for your receiver. When you present a carefully worded, professionally formatted report to your manager, he or she might think, “Look at the time and effort put into this document. This employee clearly respects me.” Similarly, when you send instructions to your employees that are courteous and careful in tone, they might think, “Our manager respects us and values the work that we do.”

Professionalism plays a role building your own reputation, too. How you communicate is a reflection of you. So when you communicate professionally, your bosses, coworkers, employees, and customers will be more likely to think of you of as an overall competent professional. Because you also represent your organization (or department, committee, club) when you communicate, you will build its credibility as well.

There are “Three C’s” of being professional in business communication: courtesy, which is using a polite, conscientious, and civil tone; care, which is paying attention to details to ensure there are no mistakes; and conventionality, which is following business norms and standards (sometimes called “conventions”). In this chapter, you will learn more about each “C” and get specific strategies for how to infuse professionalism into the messages you compose.

 Communicating Courteously

The first “C” of professionalism is courtesy. Courtesy refers to your ability to adhere to standards of etiquette, to behave civilly, and to demonstrate tact and emotional control. Courtesy can be one of the most difficult aspects of professionalism to master—even for people who are generally very polite. This is because sometimes even a tiny detail can cause receiver to interpret messages as rude or discourteous.

Courtesy involves two broad principles that help you craft your messages: following general principles of business etiquette and defusing defensiveness.

Follow General Principles of Business Etiquette

At the most basic level, there is an expectation that business communication should follow basic business etiquette. This does not mean that messages must be formal and stuffy, but they do need to be polite. Basic business etiquette is more than simply good manners. It sets the professional tone that creates a positive relationship and allows your receiver to see the true intent of your message.

By this point in your life, you probably have a strong sense of what constitutes politeness. Here are a few tips that may be a little more business- specific.

Address People Properly

One of the ways you can demonstrate courtesy is by how you address your receiver. Proper attention to addressing people sets them at ease and helps them feel respected. Improper addresses may create tension, annoyance, or even anger. While some people may never think twice about how they are addressed, others may be offended (and then think that you are unprofessional) if you address them in ways they think are improper.

Ideally, you should address people the way they have asked you to address them. But often in business you may not know this information, as you may be contacting someone for the first time. For instance, if you are writing an email to James Mackey, you may be unaware that different people refer to him in a variety of ways: Mr. Mackey, James, and Jimmy, depending on how well they know him.

Proper business etiquette dictates that as a rule, you should address someone formally at first. So when you first meet, you would call him Mr. Mackey and address any emails accordingly. If he gives you explicit permission to call him by his first name, James, then you should. But even if you hear others in the office call him Jimmy, you should wait until he signals his permission or explicitly ask him his preference of how he’d like to be addressed before you take that liberty. For women, proper forms of address are even more complicated, as explained in the Communication Tips box.

Make Requests Politely

In business, you may find that you spend a lot of time making requests of people. Whether you are delegating a task to an employee, asking a customer for a payment, or seeking approval for vacation time, you are making a request.

Politeness is a communication strategy that is used to ensure that everyone involved in a communication exchange feels affirmed or at least not threatened. In the case of making requests, there is a range of specific tactics for softening the threat of imposition.

One of the simplest ways you can make requests politely is by saying “please,” “thank you,” and “you’re welcome.” These expressions, which you were taught to say as a child, can be just as important in business as they were in elementary school. Even the simplest polite words can soften your request to your receiver.

Impolite: Submit your expense report by Friday.

Polite: Please submit your expense report by Friday.

Even if you have the authority to tell people to do something, it is more affirming for them to be asked. Therefore, another approach to polite requests is to frame the request as a question. Often the question is one that, in practice, is more of a statement than a question. But the less demanding way of expressing it will come across more politely, especially when you are communicating with someone who is expected to comply with your request (like the office intern).

Impolite: Make these copies for me.

Polite: Will you make these copies for me?

Finally, you may also indicate the request is voluntary and not required. This approach typically includes an “if” statement accompanied by an expression of appreciation. More often, this approach is used when making a request of someone higher-powered than you or someone who does not have to fulfill your request.

Impolite: I need you to fill out this survey.

Polite: If you are willing and able to fill out this survey, I would greatly appreciate it.

Refrain from Profanity

Four-letter words are tricky in professional communication. While some organizations have cultures where swearing and profanity are acceptable, it can get you into trouble. In fact, a research study indicated that people who swear may be perceived by coworkers and bosses as socially inept, incompetent, and untrustworthy.2 Even if you do work in an organization where swearing is acceptable in casual conversation, it is a good idea to avoid swearing in written messages. Doing so creates a permanent record of less than professional language. And those messages can be read with more insidious intent or anger than was intended.

Detect and Defuse Defensiveness

When it comes to delivering bad news or a challenging message, being courteous becomes even more important—and often more difficult. That is because when people receive bad news, they often become more sensitive to messages. They may become more emotional and respond with irritation, anger, or sadness. If their own identity is threatened in some way, they may become defensive. That means that they may become more critical of the words that you use and judge you more harshly.

For example, research shows that receivers tend to read messages in less positive ways than they were intended.3 Perhaps you may have already experienced this personally if you ever thought you sent a text message to a friend or family member who accused you of being rude.

If your receivers are defensive, achieving your goals is going to be difficult, if not impossible. Chances are if a receiver is defensive, you may have already  betrayed  your  explicit  or  implicit  relational  goals.  The defensiveness and the bad relationship then snowball to create a poor identity meaning (the receiver may think you are inconsiderate, condescending, or just rude), which will make it hard to achieve your instrumental goals.

Anticipate Receiver Dissatisfaction

One of the first things to do to deflect defensiveness is to be attuned to when you are communicating a message that your receiver may not want to hear. In particular, you should be assessing your message for whether your receiver will be satisfied, neutral, or dissatisfied with your message.

Some of the things that can generate dissatisfaction are loss of time or money (e.g., a fee increase), loss of opportunity (e.g., a candidate was not hired for a job), increase of effort or work (e.g., an additional work task), personal judgement (e.g., a less-than-perfect job evaluation), or any response which includes the answer “no.”

When you anticipate receiver dissatisfaction, then you need to put yourself on high-attention mode as you craft your message. Below we provide several strategies for writing more sensitive messages.

Replace Negative Language with Positive Language

When people hear negative words, it can trigger a negative response—even if the intent of the message is positive. When the message you are sending is a disappointing one, negative language only adds to the risk of generating defensiveness.

A good strategy to defuse defensiveness is to use as much positive language as possible—or at least neutral language. This doesn’t mean that you are changing bad news to good news. Instead, it means that you are delivering the intended message with the most positive tone possible.

To change negative language, you can do the following. First, search for any “no,” “not,” “un-,” and “in-” words. When you spot a sentence with a negative word, rework the sentence to convey the same meaning with positive words.

Negative Statement: We will not review your budget request because it is incomplete.

Negative Words Identification: We will not review your budget request because it is incomplete.

Positive Statement: Once you submit your completed budget request, we will review it.

Note that in the example, you did not change your position from the negative statement to the positive statement. You still are requiring your receiver to submit a complete budget request before you review it. But the reworked example is more positively expressed, and therefore more likely to be received well.

Eliminate “You” Language

When you express or even imply judgments about your receiver, you are likely to generate defensiveness. Just read the comments section of any online news article and you will quickly see a litany of ways that people pass judgment on others. They hurl insults, call names, and make blanket categorizations. You do not even have to be so blatant for your receivers to perceive you have judged them.

In business, you must be particularly careful about passing judgment on people in ways that call into question their intelligence, competence, work ethic, moral judgment, and maturity. Even if you are not trying to pass judgment, sometimes it can come across that way. Receivers can feel as though you are pointing a finger at them.

In your messages, look for sentences containing the word “you.” If that statement could possibly be considered to be judgmental, attempt to rewrite it. One approach for rewriting is to use “I” or “we” statements instead of “you” statements.

Even though the differences may be subtle, there can be a big difference in how the message is received.

You Statement: You misunderstood the terms of service.

We Statement: We should have communicated our terms of service more clearly.

In this example, the “you” statement makes the claim that the receiver did something wrong, which could induce defensiveness. The receiver may possibly even think that you are claiming he or she is unable to understand the terms of service, which could be perceived as an attack on their intelligence. In the “we” statement, you are deflecting the blame for the misunderstanding away from the receiver and back to you.

If using “I” or “we” statements doesn’t work well, you also can divert attention away from the receiver by focusing attention on other things. For example, consider the following two examples.

You Statement: You made several errors in the code.

Diverted Attention Statement: There were several errors in the code.

You Statement: You were not selected for the position.

Diverted Attention Statement: We filled the position.

In the diverted attention statements, the focus shifts off the receiver. While the receivers may know that they were responsible for the errors in the code and will know that they were not selected for the position, the reworked messages are less judgmental because there is no direct finger pointing with the word “you.”

Authentically Acknowledge Your Receiver’s Feelings

Human beings all have feelings and emotional reactions. Disregarding, invalidating, or displaying neutrality towards those feelings can actually increase the negative reaction to a situation. Think about some of your own business interactions that have raised strong feelings. Perhaps you’ve been stranded in an airport before an important business meeting. Perhaps you’ve been frustrated by dealing with the fallout from identity theft. Perhaps you’ve lost your job because of downsizing.

When communicating with receivers who may be having an emotional reaction to a situation, it is important to acknowledge their feelings—especially negative feelings such as anger, sadness, or frustration. The first step for acknowledging your receiver’s feelings is first to do a quick emotional scan of the situation. Is your receiver showing any indication of having an emotional reaction? This could include explicit declarations of his or her emotional state (“I’m really upset!”), subtle or not-so-subtle implicit signals (typing in all CAPS), or acknowledgement of some event that can be safely assumed to cause emotional distress

The next step is to make a brief and authentic expression of empathy. Of course, it is important to keep your own goals in mind and not to go too overboard in your expression of empathy.

For instance, assume that your employee Marcus has written an emotionally-charged email complaining about his recent performance review. You have concluded the review is accurate so it won’t be changed. How you acknowledge (or invalidate) his feelings could lead to much different results.

If you do not acknowledge Marcus’ feelings anywhere in the message and just stick to the facts, he may remain frustrated and judge you to be cold and harsh. If you go overboard in acknowledging his feelings (“I can tell you’re upset. I would be upset, too, if I were you.”), Marcus may end up feeling even worse, or perhaps he might have some sort of grounds for escalating his case to a higher authority. If you invalidate his feelings (“I don’t understand why you’re upset. This isn’t a big deal.”), it could lead to the worst effect of all. With Marcus now being upset both about the original review and because of the insult, you could be viewed as a total jerk.

Consider instead, a more appropriate response. You authentically and briefly acknowledge his feelings by saying, “I understand that you were hoping for a better performance review and are upset by some of the scores.” You have then set the stage for calmly and professionally explaining your answer.

Talk With or Talk Up To, but Don’t Talk Down To Your Receiver

Perhaps you are “above” your receiver in some way. You may have a higher position of authority in the company. You may have more experience or knowledge of a certain topic. You may have more status and influence. You may have the power to fix the receiver’s problem. But implicitly or explicitly pointing out your superiority will only raise defensiveness.

If your interaction with your receivers includes condescension, rudeness, or anything they can interpret as an attitude of superiority, you are likely to raise their hackles. Even if that is not your intent, it can be a serious problem for generating defensiveness. Some of the ways this occurs are when you talk down to receivers, use a condescending tone, or draw attention to their lower position.

Talking Down: Maybe someday when you have as much experience as I do, you will understand why that idea won’t work.

Talking With: Let me explain why that won’t work.

In the “talking with” example, you have minimized your status difference and positioned yourself as a peer, or perhaps an approachable mentor or supervisor who is committed to their professional development.

It also is important to note that if you are “below” your receiver in some way, “talking with” can be just as problematic. When you position yourself as equal to someone above you in the organization, it can generate as much defensiveness as talking down to a peer or subordinate because you have effectively “lowered them” to your level.

“Talking with” might occur if you communicate with superiors in too friendly of a tone or call them by their first names before you’ve received implicit permission to be on a first-name basis.

And “talking down” to a superior can be downright detrimental. For example, you may write to your manager saying, “Please approve my vacation request by Friday.” Even with the politeness of the word “please,” your manager may still think that you overstepped your bounds by telling him or her what to do.

Change the Channel

Another valuable strategy for defusing defensiveness is to change the communication channel. What is meant by communication channel is the method by which you communicate. This includes things like email, phone, online meetings, and face-to-face communication.

Channels vary in the amount of “richness” they contain. Richer channels, like online and face-to-face meetings contain words, tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language. Thin channels like text messages and email carry only words. Not surprisingly, thinner channels can be easier to misinterpret as cold and uncaring.

Therefore, if you have a difficult message to deliver or if it appears tensions might be escalating with every back-and-forth email reply, you might consider changing channels. Instead of putting the negative information into a thin and cold email, pick a richer and warmer channel.

You might be surprised that with the additional cues of tone of voice or facial expressions that you just might be able to solve a problem much faster and eliminate defensiveness altogether.

 Present Messages With Care

The second “C” of professionalism is care. Care in business communication deals with your ability to pay attention to the details, and to present yourself without mistakes, sloppiness, or other things that can detract from your message. The consequences of carelessness can be devastating. You may come across as sloppy and inattentive and, as such, not the right person to hire or promote. That negative image may also be projected onto your company as a whole, which could adversely impact business.

Some carelessness may even cause costly business problems. If a typo goes undetected, you may under-charge a client for work performed (wrong price), book non-refundable travel arrangements (wrong date), or miss out on a major sales lead (wrong contact information). In fact, an entrepreneur from the United Kingdom estimates that simple spelling errors cost online businesses millions of pounds every year in lost sales.1

Here we cover two broad strategies for demonstrating care.

Find and Fix Mistakes

Sure, everyone makes mistakes. Most of the time, people in business will forgive a small and inconsequential mistake. But a pattern of mistakes in your messages can signal a much bigger problem. Mistakes can include spelling mistakes, grammar errors, and typos.

Unfortunately, finding mistakes in your own writing can be quite difficult. One reason why it is harder to spot your own mistakes is because you know what you are trying to say. When you are reading your own writing, your brain will fill in the gaps and make the corrections for you. Another reason is that if you have been working on a message for a while, chances are that you may be getting tired. So you might be skimming instead of reading closely. Even if you are making an effort to read closely, if it is something you’ve already read a time or two, your brain will again fill the gaps for you.

Here are two broad strategies to help you spot and correct mistakes.

Use Technology

Technology will not magically fix everything, but it can help you find the obvious. All word processing applications, even those that are online, have built-in spell checkers and grammar checkers. Many email programs have automatic spell check options that can check your messages before they are sent to help you catch mistakes. Even most social media platforms and comment forms online have spell checkers, or you can install free plugins from organizations such as Grammarly.

But don’t rely only on automatic checking and defaults. Even when misspelled words are automatically highlighted, it is worth running an additional spell check before finalizing longer documents. If you use unusual names or words frequently, add them to your word processor’s dictionary. That way, the software can assist you in spotting spelling errors.

Proofread

The human eye can spot even more mistakes than a computer can, assuming you have trained yourself to read carefully. Here are some helpful approaches.

Read Your Message Carefully

Get in the practice of rereading every message from top to bottom before you send it. Do not skim it, read it. Slowly. Even if you haven’t made any spelling errors, you may find that you have omitted a word, left in a fragment of a sentence, or used a wrong version of a word (like their, there, or they’re).

Read from Bottom to Top

After your read from top to bottom, read back up from the bottom of the message. Often when you are rereading something you have written, your brain will fill in the missing pieces and you will see what is not there. Your brain is forced to pay closer attention in reverse.

Start at the bottom of the document and read to find missing or misplaced words, sentences, or even paragraphs.

Read out Loud

It may feel strange at first, but when you read your messages out loud, your ear will likely pick up mistakes that your eyes simply miss. If you feel too awkward reading your own message out loud, have your computer read your messages to you. You can use some of the accessibility tools built into your computer software to read your files. Simply listen to that computer-generated voice. It can be a great way to spot grammatical errors.

Let it Sit

If you have time to spare, one of the best things you can do is to put your document aside for some time. Even an hour or two away from the screen will allow you to rest your eyes and “clear the slate.” When you come back to read it later, you will be able to better spot your own errors.

Ask a Coworker to Proofread

Again, it is easier to spot someone else’s mistakes than it is to spot your own. Of course, this solution is impractical for all of the email messages you send in a day. But if a document is high priority or if it is particularly long, get a coworker to read it for you. That person will be able to spot errors. (They may also be able to point out any parts that are unclear—but more on that in the next chapter). Having a coworker proofread might be especially helpful for reports or PowerPoint slide decks.

Attend to Details

Another component of care is presenting yourself as consistently and neatly as possible. Here, it’s not just about eliminating actual mistakes, but also about attending to little details that differentiate sloppy communication from polished communication.

Consistency

Consistency refers to doing something the same way every time. Inconsistencies can show up within a single document or single presentation and signal a lack of care. For example, a report might be single spaced throughout, except for a few random paragraphs that are double spaced. Or a presentation slide deck may have some slides in one font and then other slides in a different font.

Neatness

Neatness refers to presenting yourself in an orderly way. It looks different depending upon what kind of message you are sending and how it is being delivered. Some examples of business communication that doesn’t meet the standard of neatness include documents that still have sections that are missing or incomplete, emails that are missing attachments, messages that are sent to the wrong email address, images that are skewed or highly pixilated, and handouts that are bent.

Even though details such as these may seem nitpicky or inconsequential, cumulatively they can impact the overall professionalism of your message. So taking extra time to attend to the details of your message is important.

Following Business Conventions

The third “C” of professionalism is conventionality. Conventionality refers to your ability to conform to professional expectations (format, style, etc.). For instance, a résumé looks like a résumé, a report looks like a report, and an email looks like an email. Following conventions is important in business because it implicitly signals that you belong in the community. You know the rules and you know how to follow them. Alternatively, if you break the mold, you do it with high-quality creativity so that your receiver has no doubt that you still know the rules and belong in the community.

Conventions of business communication are culturally bound. They differ from country to country, and to a lesser extent, from organization to organization or industry to industry. Generally, conventions remain fairly constant and slow to change, although they may change rapidly with new technologies or as societal standards change.

You can see some of the changes to conventions most vividly in how people dress for business or in how email technologies changed how people write memos, and text messaging and instant messaging changed how people write emails. For example, following the COVID pandemic, dress codes have become decidedly more relaxed. Communication has become somewhat more casual over the years with it becoming more common for business people to use emojis in emails.

Identify and Follow Conventions

So how do you identify conventions, especially of business writing and presentations? Well, there are numerous examples provided in books—from how to write cover letters to how to develop a PowerPoint presentation. We won’t go into details of all the different conventions here. Instead, we offer basic steps you can follow to learn what the conventions are for any type of message.

Gather Examples of a Particular Message Type (business letters, annual reports, etc.)

These will be most helpful if they are gathered from within your own company or at least your own industry. You can also search the Internet for examples of any kind of document.

Look for Similarities Across the Examples

These can be in how things are formatted (fonts, colors, white space), how content is ordered, or even particular turns of phrase that are used with regularity. The similarities you notice are the standards of the conventions.

For example, if you look at business letters, you will likely notice several similarities. Business letters normally appear on some form of company letterhead (i.e., the stationery that has the company logo on it). The information is ordered in the same way (date, name and address of the receiver, a salutation, the letter itself, and a signature block). Paragraphs are single spaced with blank lines in between. Those are the standards and you should not deviate from them.

Look for Differences Across the Examples

Now look for ways in which the documents differ from each other. The differences demonstrate where there is wiggle room.

Things that might look different are varying fonts, sometimes the salutation uses “Dear” and sometimes not, sometimes the closing says “Sincerely,” but other times it says “Regards,” or “Best,” or something similar. Sometimes paragraphs are indented and sometimes not. Those are the areas of wiggle room. In those regards, you can use your judgment and personal preference to decide how you want to write the letter.

Check for Company Guidelines

Another thing to keep in mind is that your company may have its own strict guidelines for how it wants messages to be formatted. Company standards are more common in large companies than small ones. For instance, your company may have a designated template to use for PowerPoint presentations that includes approved company colors, fonts, and logos. These can be called “brand standards,” and they are particularly important if you are communicating with external receivers.

Break Conventions Carefully

In some instances, you may decide you want to break the conventions to catch your receiver’s attention. You can do this by exhibiting high-quality creativity. The catch is that any time you break the conventions, it must be both high-quality and creative. Anything less risks looking like an unprofessional error. You have to decide whether the potential payoff of breaking the convention to catch attention is worth the risk of being judged unprofessional or incompetent.

Résumés are a common document in which people break conventions. Let’s face it: the job market is competitive, and you need to stand out. Unconventional approaches to résumés can include things like infographics, online portfolios, video showcases, and QR codes that link to websites or blogs.3 Nontraditional formats like these can draw positive attention and show off your skills—especially if you are seeking a job in a creative field. But other human resource professionals warn that creative resumes may actually prevent you from getting called for an interview. If you are not sure about your ability to demonstrate both high quality and creativity, you are more likely to have a better outcome following the established conventions.

Discussion Questions

1. How would you react if you were the receiver of these original messages?
2. How would you react if you received one of your revised messages?
3. How do you think people would react to you if you used more positively- worded messages?

Activities

Read the statements below. What is it about each one that might provoke dissatisfaction? Try to rewrite the sentence to defuse defensiveness:

1. You were not as qualified as the other applicants.
2. I won’t stay late to do that assignment.
3. Parking fees have increased this year.
4. We will not be authorizing any more vacation requests for the month of July.
5. Employees are not allowed to telework on Mondays and Fridays.
6. You are dressed inappropriately for the office.

Attribution

This supplemental chapter was adapted from Business Communication: Five Core Competencies Copyright © 2023 by Kristen Lucas, Jacob D. Rawlins, and Jenna Haugen is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, except where otherwise noted.

We acknowledge that UMD’s TerpAI tool was used to adapt some of the contents of this chapter.

References

Byron, K. (2008). Carrying too heavy a load? The communication and miscommunication of emotion by email. Academy of Management Review, 33(2). https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2008.31193163

Coughlan, S. (2011, July 14). Spelling mistakes ‘cost millions’ in online sales. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/education-14130854

Johnson, D. I., & Lewis, N. (2010). Perceptions of swearing in the work setting: An expectancy violations theory perspective. Communication Reports, 23(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/08934215.2010.511401

Martin, R., & Guevara, M. (2022, July 7). The pandemic has changed workplace fashion. What does that mean to you? NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/07/1109317208/pandemic-workplace-fashion

Vaughn, C. (2022, February 19). The 7 best alternative resume formats for professionals. Make Use Of. https://www.makeuseof.com/best-alternative-resume-for-professionals/

Yokoi, T., & Jordan, J. (2022, May 30). Using emojis to connect with your team. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2022/05/using-emojis-to-connect-with-your-team