This book demonstrates the power of writing in informal and formal organizations in the past and the present. It shows how writing, despite long lasting criticisms that can be traced back to Plato, and in spite of its frequent definition as a mere recording medium is in fact a creative mode of communication that supports the expression of emotions, the developing knowledge, and the building of strong communities among faraway individuals. The first part of the book illustrates how this has been true historically. The focus on writing as a fundamental mode of communication - the other being speech or the oral mode - is still important in our technology-infused world, where writing seems to have been reduced to short cryptic text messages or tweets. Precisely because of their heavy reliance on technology, current practices are in need of a deeper understanding that focus on deep as opposed to surface features and unveil the four essential mechanisms - objectification, reflecting, specifying, and addressing - that give writing its creative powers. In the second part of the book, we use contemporary case studies and interviews to illustrate how shifting our focus from the media to the mode of communication and focusing on the mechanisms of writing allows us to go beyond current debates about the capabilities of various communication media and to understand better today's communicative practices. This book is an attempt to unveil the powers of writing as well as to highlight the implications for organizations of the potential loss of these powers in today's world where writing-based distributed collaborations, interpersonal relationships, and online communities are key sources of innovation and support for individuals and organizations.

This book provides a step-by-step guide to achieve best practice communication within schools. Communication is a critical component in building strong partnerships with parents, attracting and retaining the best teachers, building and protecting a school's reputation and, ultimately, in ensuring that students can be at their best. Aligned to the National Standards of Excellence for Headteachers (2015), as well as Ofsted and the Independent Schools Inspectorate requirements, it provides an 'inside out' approach to create and communicate a compelling vision, building leadership communication skills and supporting the day-to-day management of communication in schools. Full of practical strategies, audit tools and planning materials to help develop your communication approach, this guide covers key topics such as: attracting and retaining the best teachers; improving the effectiveness of leadership and management; building the reputation of the school; working with parents; and knowing what to do in a crisis. How to Build Communication Success in Your School is essential reading for headteachers, school leaders and all those interested in education management and leadership.

As organizations continue to discover the power of storytelling to shape, transform and transfer knowledge, the need for complex resources to harness that power and meet business goals increases. At the forefront of this challenge are knowledge management practitioners, change management leaders, and organizational development professionals who need information to obtain a practical advantage to implement sustainable storytelling initiatives. Knowledge Management and the Practice of Storytelling: The Competencies and Skills Needed for a Successful Implementation offers practical advice and guidance on the skills and competencies needed to meet those challenges. Discussing the competencies needed to use language and performance effectively to tell stories that will elicit tacit knowledge, this volume focuses on coaching strategies to help others develop storytelling skills, and provides background knowledge useful to champion and promote storytelling practices across organizational cultures and communities. Knowledge Management and the Practice of Storytelling will prove especially useful to practitioners who are charged with the development and leadership of storytelling initiatives but may lack a robust background on the practicalities of organizational storytelling. To meet those challenges, the book offers practical applications rooted in ethnographic research to find and select stories, conduct storytelling interviews, and analyse organizational communities and cultures to the meet the needs of target audiences. Most importantly, Knowledge Management and the Practice of Storytelling offers practical advice on assessment and evaluation strategies to measure the effectiveness and organizational impact of storytelling.

"After I sent my team to the Question Based Selling program, not only was the feedback from the training outstanding, but we experienced an immediate positive impact in results."-Jim Cusick, vice president of sales, SAP America, Inc. "Following the program, even our most experienced salespeople raved, saying QBS was the best sales training they have ever experienced!"-Alan D. Rohrer, director of sales, Hewlett Packard For nearly fifteen years, The Secrets of Question Based Selling has been helping great salespeople live you deliver big results. It's commonsense approach has become a classic, must-have tool that demonstrates how asking the right questions at the right time accurately identifies your customer's needs. But consumer behavior and sales techniques change as rapidly as technology-and there are countless contradictory sales training programs promising results. Knowing where you should turn to for success can be confusing. Now fully revised and updated, The Secrets of Question Based Selling provides a step-by-step, easy-to-follow program that focuses specifically on sales effectiveness-identifying the strategies and techniques that will increase your probability of success. How you sell has become more important than the product. With this hands-on guide, you will learn to: Penetrate more accounts Overcome customer skepticism Establish more credibility sooner Generate more return calls Motivate different types of buyers Develop more internal champions Close more sales...faster And much, much more

This book is the initial volume coming out of the "excellence project"--a comprehensive research effort commissioned by the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) Research Foundation. The purpose of this project was to answer two fundamental questions about public relations: What are the characteristics of an excellent communication department? How does excellent public relations make an organization more effective, and how much is that contribution worth economically? The research team began its work with a thorough review of the literature in public relations and related disciplines relevant to these questions. What started as a literature review, however, has ended in a general theory of public relations, one that integrates most of the wide range of ideas about, and practices of, communication management in organizations.

Successful negotiators do not take language for granted. Spoken and written language is the instrument of negotiation. Understanding and using its power is central to managing and influencing the process of exchanging information and discussing ideas in order to reach agreement and achieve your goals. The aims of the book are to heighten awareness of the role of language, and to suggest practical ways you can use language skills to improve the effectiveness of your contribution, your reading of the situation and your ability to manage and control the negotiation process. Specific strategies are indexed for ease of reference. Throughout, there are exercises and examples you can use to review your own practice and to experiment with new skills. "The Language of Negotiation" explains the role of culture, and the qualities and functions of language that are most influential in a negotiation. It suggests strategies and specific tactics for managing conversations, for controlling the topic or for using listening skills to read the situation. It also deals with particular problems such as gaining co-operation and agreement even in adversarial or confrontational situations. This book shoul

How do I establish a group? What is the best way to prepare a meeting? How should we arrange the seating? Help! I need to chair a meeting. What should I do? What sort of minutes should we keep? How can we deal with a diffi cult member? Can we remotivate someone who has lost interest? These are just some of the many questions dealt with in Catherine Widdicombe's Meetings that Work. A plethora of meetings and committees is one of the inescapable features of modern life. From small businesses to multinational corporations, from large charities to small voluntary organisations, from training courses to statutory services, from professional societies to church groups, from community organisations to political pressure groups, meetings are endemic. Meetings help society to move forward; they provide a vital medium for disseminating information and for decision-making. But, vital though they are, they can be deadening, rather than life-giving. Meetings that Work is a vital aid to helping make meetings of all sorts realise their full potential for development and enjoyment. Meetings that Work is a 'how-to' guide, a manual and helpmate, arranged to enable the reader to focus on what is specifically needed for a particular group or situation. Based on more than two decades of practical experience, the book is an invaluable vade mecum for all who attend or chair meetings.

One of the most important requirements of leadership is effective communication. The idea that some people are natural leaders and that others will never learn to show good leadership is now outdated. It has been replaced by the conviction that leadership and communication skills can be learnt. This second edition of Communication in Organizations continues to give clear advice and guidance on communicating in a range of different contexts in the workplace. From handling complaints and breaking bad news to negotiating deals and giving presentations, it explores the building blocks to effective communication skills, nurturing the leadership qualities required in any organization. By defining the abstract concepts of 'organization' and 'communication', it provides readers with the necessary skills to conduct any conversation on a professional manner. Illustrated with concrete examples throughout, this new edition includes a new chapter on career coaching, with exercises and ideas for role-play to enable the ideas to come alive. The three parts work seamlessly to expand the readers' conversation skill-set as they progress through the book. Communication in Organizations is an invaluable resource for students of management and business psychology, as well as those taking courses who are already in the workplace. The practical aspects compliment both introductory and advanced courses in interpersonal communication, leadership and business and professional communication.

Informal networks can be a major obstacle to the effectiveness of managers. At the same time though, they can enable and facilitate business activities and support the efficiency and effectiveness of managerial actions. Since informal ties and networks can have a bright and a dark side, it is important for international managers to understand the way they work in the respective cultural context. Informal networks are often perceived as pervasive in emerging markets such as China or Russia, to be used to instrumentalize social capital and develop a relational competitive advantage or to simply circumvent formal rules. Contrary to this perception, they often stand for sociability and social cohesion, antecedents of a strong society. To date it remains unclear whether multinational enterprises have processes in place to identify, control, and manage informal ties and networks. Informal Networks in International Business sheds light into the complex nature of informal networks and the respective context in which they operate. Leading experts provide insights into novel research themes and extend conventional research paths on informal network phenomena in the international business context. The contributions in this edited volume help international business scholars, students, and international managers in globally operating organizations alike to develop knowledge about the dynamics, complexities and ambiguities of informal networks and informal networking worldwide.

If you're aware of the tremendous improvements achieved in productivity and quality as a result of employee involvement, then you'll appreciate the great value of creating a visual factory. This book explains why conventional work areas, where fragmented information flows from "top to bottom," must be replaced by the "visual workplace," where information flows in every direction. It details how visual management can make the factory a place where workers and supervisors freely communicate so that every employee can take improvement action.

The author's year-long worldwide research resulted in an abundance of practical recommendations. The communication techniques he suggests will:

• Foster cohesion within groups of employees.
• Turn fault-based into fact based communication.
• Overcome such problems as absenteeism and high defect rates.
• Stimulate an unending flow of suggestions from employees.

A valuable resource for plant, operations, and human relations managers, this text discusses how successful companies develop meeting and communication areas, communicate work standard production controls such as kanban, and make goals and progress visible. Over 200 diagrams and photos illustrate the numerous visual techniques discussed.

DON T LET PROBLEM PEOPLE GET TO YOU! Whether it s a manager who keeps moving the goal posts, an uncooperative colleague, negative friend, or critical family member, some people are just plain hard to get along with. Often, your immediate response is to shrink or sulk, become defensive or attack. But there are smarter moves to make when dealing with difficult people. This book explains how to cope with a range of situations with difficult people and to focus on what you can change. This book will help you to: * Understand what makes difficult people tick and how best to handle them * Learn ways to confidently stand up to others and resist the urge to attack back * Develop strategies to calmly navigate emotionally-charged situations * Deal with all kinds of difficult people hostile, manipulative and the impossible * Know when to choose your battles, and when to walk away Why let someone else s bad attitude ruin your day? How to Deal With Difficult People arms you with all the tools and tactics you need to handle all kinds of people to make your life less stressful and a great deal easier.

Are you ready to make people sit up and listen when you speak? Do you want to shine in conversations, meetings, pitches or presentations? Is it time to let go of the anxiety that holds you back? Whatever you want to say and whenever you need to say it, this inspiring, motivating and engaging guide will equip you with powerful ways to free your voice, connect with your audience and communicate with confidence to make a lasting impact. Combining practical advice with proven techniques that really work, performer and communication expert Liz Peters draws on years of research and experience to help you: Overcome the life-limiting fears that stop you speaking up. Harness the transformative power of embodiment to build enduring confidence. Feel at ease and in control whenever you have to take centre stage. Master your personal presence so you can engage and inspire others. It's time to believe you're good enough. So, get ready to unleash your inner brilliance, learn to love your spotlight moments and discover how awesome it feels to own the room!

For managers, students and conference professionals this timely new book will provide a firm foundation for understanding and operating in one of the UK's fastest growing business areas. Conferencing forms a large and expanding part of the UK economy and is now attracting serious analysis as the key techniques and principles of good practice become established. This unique book, one of the first written by an expert educator and consultant in the field, considers the background and nature of the UK conference industry and looks at the management issues involved in professional and competitive conferencing. Providing clear, up to date and detailed information on every aspect of the management and organization of conferences and conference centres it will be an essential text for students on hospitality and tourism courses- from GNVQ to undergraduate level. It will also be a vital reference for practitioners in any part of the conference business who want to grasp the key elements for success in the future.

Can you control a crisis? No - but with adequate preparation you can control the reputational consequences. Reputational damage is rarely caused by the crisis itself but, instead, by what the organisation does and says under the media spotlight. This PRCA Practice Guide describes how to invest in readiness and what to do when a crisis strikes. Coverage includes contingency planning, stakeholder identification, crisis communications policy, spokesperson training, the 'Red Book', dark sites, rehearsals and simulations, locations and resources, taking the initiative, and managing the aftermath. The book also covers in detail the role of the mainstream and online media, recommending steps to neutralise hostility and shut down ill-informed comment. Including numerous real-life examples, discussion topics and advice from PR experts, journalists and editors, Crisis Communications Management is intended as an essential guide for public relations professionals, and the people who work with them during a crisis, on how to navigate the turmoil and emerge from a crisis with reputation and credibility intact.

This volume provides a thorough examination of the interplay between individuals and their environment in the development and maintenance of problem behaviors, and delineates procedures for conducting assessment, intervention, and prevention within the child's ecosystem. As individuals structure, change, and organize their environments, their environments work to do the same. Environmental or contextual and individual variables act reciprocally to shape an individual's behavior. For school-aged youth, this reality necessitates an ecological approach to assessment, intervention, and prevention. Specifically, problem behaviors are partly developed and maintained by a combination of factors present in the child's psychosocial ecosystem -- home, school, and community. Although there is an abundance of theoretical applications and research supporting this concept, the predominant trend has been to emphasize the properties of the person. As a result, one is left to assume that the genesis of difficulties in adaptation lies in internal or personal states and traits of the individual. In contrast to traditional psychology theories which focus primarily on the individual, incorporation of ecological psychology concepts allows for a more comprehensive and in-depth analysis of sources contributing to the individual's ability to adapt to their psychosocial environment. Ecological theories which drive assessment, intervention, and prevention efforts provide the necessary framework for assisting school-aged youth and their associated ecological networks to cope with and overcome the multidetermined, multifaceted concerns that arise during the school years. However, this is an often difficult and cumbersome task for educators, parents, and school systems to undertake. To this end, this volume focuses on the functional application of ecological psychology for schools within communities. Each of the 10 chapters -- written by key figures in school, family, counseling, and community psychology -- explores the use of ecological theory from a different perspective, ranging from focus on the child, the child within the classroom, the classroom teacher, and the community to considerations in working with special populations such as juvenile delinquents and in planning for developmental issues such as school-to-work-transition. The final chapter summarizes and integrates the previous chapters and provides suggestions for future directions in the field.

Effective Speaking provides the hard scientific information about audience psychology, text preparation, presentation methods, voice production, body language and persuasive advocacy which will help would-be speakers improve their performance. The emphasis throughout is on practical self-help, on methods which have been shown to work, with clear explanations of just why they are effective.

An engaging guide on how to develop and hone your professional communication and influencing skills in the digital age In a world where human interactions and behaviour are more pivotal than ever to business success, Working With Influence sets out nine easy-to-apply principles, based on robust behavioural science, for influencing people and outcomes in both physical and digital working scenarios. It provides ambitious professionals with a set of actionable principles which will help them kick-start, accelerate or transform their careers. Technology has redefined almost every job and is becoming the primary medium through which we interact with colleagues and clients - this book provides crucial insights into how you can influence others and stand out in this new digital landscape. With the hugely competitive and unpredictable nature of the job market and the unstable economy, it is more important than ever to improve your communication skills and broader qualitative skillset to ensure a prosperous career in the 21st century. This book's insightful principles are drawn from first-hand research findings and behavioural science data. Each chapter includes a wide range of relevant, applied workplace examples, as well as tools to help readers build their own action plans. Packed with practical guidance and psychological research, Working With Influence is the modern guide for anyone looking to improve their communication, networking and drive in business.

In our communication, there are three 'elements' used to express a message: verbal content, body language, and the voice. When these elements are not congruent, we often will believe the body language and the voice. For this reason, non-verbal elements are particularly important for communicating feelings and attitudes and in engaging others; in any type of leadership role these aspects are vital in order to be an effective leader. Leading with Presence provides a practical guide as to how and why Presence in everyday interaction is a vital component of impactful leadership. This book explores and teaches about non-verbal communication such as posture, gestures, and the voice to create more awareness and understanding of the signals sent, and explains how to be present and 'in the moment,' how to connect with others, to 'read the room,' to motivate and inspire, to instill trust, to exude confidence and thus strengthen your leadership. Through theory, practical tools and exercises, this book is essential reading for all business professionals in understanding the science behind body language, and exploring, practicing and understanding Leadership Presence.

Effective Speaking provides the hard scientific information about audience psychology, text preparation, presentation methods, voice production, body language and persuasive advocacy which will help would-be speakers improve their performance. The emphasis throughout is on practical self-help, on methods which have been shown to work, with clear explanations of just why they are effective.

eBook available with sample pages: 020347290X

Everything you need to know about writing for business - from working out the message you want to send, to understanding your audience. As everyone adjusts to hybrid and remote ways of working with others around the world, and we develop more ways of communicating, how you can use words to engage, inform, persuade, or sell to others is increasingly important. And writing clear, error-free content that is appropriate for its intended purpose is something that anyone can learn to do. Writing Skills for Business is packed full of quick tips and nuggets of advice on how to communicate better in your writing. From choosing the most relevant type of communication, to understanding the needs of your intended audience, and selecting the right layout and the most persuasive tone and style, this new guide will help you produce the most effective communications - whether that's internal reports, business plans, day-to-day emails and team briefings, social media posts or slideshow presentations. Practical, easy to read and jargon-free, the book contains step-by-step guidance and action points, top tips to bear in mind for the future, common mistakes and advice on how to avoid them, summaries of key points, and some resources links for those looking to improve their writing skills even further.

In today's confrontational and connected world, communication is the key strategic act. This book uses drama theory-a radical extension of game theory-to show how best to communicate so as to manage the emotionally charged confrontations occurring in any worthwhile relationship. Alongside a toolset that provides a systematic framework for analysing conflicts, drama theory explains why people need to listen to, and rely on, their feelings to help shake themselves out of fixed, unproductive positions and to find new ways of solving tough problems. This guide provides a sufficient grounding in the approach to enable you to apply it immediately for your own benefit and for the benefit of those with whom you work. A host of inspirational examples are included based upon actual situations in social and personal relations, business and organisational relations, defence and political management. These will give you an entirely fresh way of seeing how power is exercised in everyday interpersonal exchanges and a greater critical awareness of such factors as subtext and plotholes in public narratives. Using this approach you will be able to overcome the dilemmas of credibility and disbelief to build compelling messages that underpin your strategic intent. Moving beyond the vague platitudes of concepts like emotional intelligence, drama theory will also help you to avoid the pathologies that bedevil the process of managing conflicts and find ways of achieving authentic resolutions.