Skills of Workplace Communication: A Handbook for T&D Specialists and Their Organizations

Ability and skill are important, but they are not everything. Equally important is how you communicate yourself--your competencies and achievements--to others. Teacher and consultant Richard Picardi takes a long, thoughtful look at the things we all need to understand in order to allow our ideas to be heard and understood in today's noisy, hotly competitive organizations. He covers not just the skills of putting your ideas, recommendations, and analyses in writing, but also the other way in which effective communication is accomplished: nonverbally. He shows you the internal and external roadblocks to effective communication and how to break through them. In Part I, Picardi analyzes the nature of verbal and nonverbal communication. He shows how to recognize and remove internal and external barriers to effective communication and create messages that get the results you want. He then focuses on the specific goals of business communication, showing how the concept of change interacts with all forms of communication--in fact, how change is implicit in them. Picardi lays out the elements of organization that are essential in creating reader-based messages, then explains how to compose the clear, forceful sentences and paragraphs to express them. Later, in Part III, he presents his system of text boxes, showing how to write typical business memos and letters, using direct and indirect patterns of writing to demonstrate different types of messages you want to communicate, and ends with a systematic method to revise and improve upon first drafts. He goes on to apply the principles of reader-based communication, effective organization, and clear expression to proposal and report writing. He shows how proposals differ from reports and how to write both effectively. For training and development specialists, the book provides the material you need to teach these skills to others.

Table of Contents:
Communication: Its Flow and Its Flaws Introduction: Successful Communication in a Competitve Environment Human Communication: Its Basic Flow and Potential Flaws The Flow of Business Communication Removing Internal Causes of Business Communication Flaws Removing External Causes of Business Communication Flaws Becoming A Successful Business Writer The Foundations of Effective Business Writing Achieving the Style and Tone of a Successful Business Writer Organizing and Developing the Total Document Making Your Ideas Flow Easily Through Your Documents Writing Clear, Forceful, Reader Based Sentences Writing for Change Through Memos, Letters, and E-Mail Memos and Letters That Achieve Your Goals Writing and Revising Neutral and Good News Memos Writing and Revising Negative News Memos Writing and Revising Neutral or Positive News Letters Writing and Revising Indirect Letters for Negative News, Persuasion, and Sales Writing Reports for Business and Government Report Writers, Managers, and Audiences Report Categories and Formats Report Research, Statistics, and Illustrations The Content and Structure of the Formal Report Organizing and Outlining a Formal Proposal Index

About the Author :
RICHARD P. PICARDI is a communications consultant and Adjunct Associate Professor of English and Speech at St. John's University, New York./e Throughout a career of more than 30 years he has served as a department chairperson and assistant principal, and has owned his own business. Currently, in addition to his position at St. John's, he also teaches writing in the City University of New York system. He is the recipient of the 2001 Teaching Excellence Award at St. John's University.