COURSE MANUAL

Business Communication
Fall-2019
JINDAL GLOBAL BUSINESS SCHOOL
MBA-1st Year
Academic Year: 2019-20

Dr. Deepak Maun

(Assistant Professor)
Email: dmaun@jgu.edu.in

Mobile: +91-8396907470

Office: IIHEd, T-1 South Wing, 2nd Floor

1
INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

In today’s hyperconnected world, with businesses often operating across national and regional
boundaries, a high level of communication skills and sophisticated persuasion strategies are required from
managers. Only technical competencies in your area of expertise (e.g. HRM, Marketing, Sales, Operations,
Finance etc.) will not be sufficient if you want to get into leadership positions and thrive in them. These
days, even plain managing of bosses, colleagues, subordinates, and customers demand heavy doses of
written and spoken communication. Often, the individuals you are communicating with are situated in
different geographies thus necessitating digital communication. Thus, one needs to choose their words
even more wisely, for the chances of misunderstanding are even greater than in face-to-face
communication. This makes the task of communication even more complex. This course is meant to help
students become effective communicators in business environments by exposing them to diverse
communication scenarios, providing space and time to practice certain key skills, and hone these through
reflection and feedback. There is a heavy focus on practice, but the readings linked to each session are
also chosen to provide some theoretical grounding to the actual practice.

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

This course will provide you an opportunity to get introduced to a wide range of scenarios which you
may face in your career after graduating from the university. The focus of the course will be on providing
ample opportunities to the students to try the various communication strategies and tools in the safe
environs of a classroom. It is expected that through critical analysis of your and your peers’ work during
the course, and by reflecting on these, you will be able to refine your skills at communicating in business
environment. The course attempts to provide the context, opportunities, and tools for it.

In short, the course will allow you to:

1. Develop communication perspective

2. Hone skills in communicating effectively in corporate situations
3. Enhance oral and presentation skills
4. Develop written competence
5. Raise awareness about the dynamics of communication in a business environment with special
focus on oral and written communication

TEACHING METHOD

We will have a blend of learning experiences including (i) analysis of cases, (ii) role-plays and other
exercises involving spoken and written communication followed by analysis and feedback, (iii) a
collaborative project with students at State University of New York, Oneonta, (iv) close examination of
certain texts and/or episodes from history and literature, and (vii) some exposure to theoretical insights
through reviews of articles/books on communication. The essential readings and cases are indicated
below; role-play materials and some additional readings will be supplied during the course.

The readings for the sessions will become the basis for much of the discussion. Hence, the students are
expected to come to the class after thoroughly reading the assigned documents.

2
You will be divided into study groups and a substantial part of the work for this course will be done in
your groups. Peer-assisted planning and execution followed by feedback on performance is critical in
learning communication. Intense participation is expected of everyone. We will be using Microsoft
Teams and Microsoft OneNote or Google Classroom to manage the engagement during the course.

GRADING

The evaluation for the course will be continuous and there will be no separate mid-term or end-term
examination.

Attendance 5%

Class Preparation (responses based on assigned 10%

readings and pre-class tasks)

Business presentation 20%

(10% individual + 10% group)

Document/article review 10%

Written communication 15%

Role Plays/In-Class exercises 15%

Persuasive communication and Story Telling 10%

Project with SUNY-Oneonta students 15%

(Intercultural communication)

ATTENDANCE POLICY

Attendance to all the sessions is as per the university rules (minimum 75% excluding all leaves). The
following instances will also be treated as absence unless prior permission is taken

· Attending only part of the session, either entering or leaving during the break
· Arriving in class after the session is scheduled to begin
The evaluation for the course will be continuous. Hence, if a student remains absent during a session
during which he/she has to present or take part in an activity, apart from losing attendance, the student
will also lose marks assigned to the activity.

OFFICE HOURS

The students are free to meet me at my office (address on page-1 of manual) between 11AM and 4:30
PM after prior appointment over phone/email.

3
 CLASS SCHEDULE (Each session is of 90 minute duration)
S.No. Theme Content Pedagogy # Readings
Sessions

1 Course introduction In-class 1 None

discussion;
Exercises

2 Overview of 1. Defining In-class 2 1. Body Language Essentials for Business

communication communication discussion, video, 2. Fake it till you Make it!
2. The process of Exercises
communication
3. Meta-
communication
4. Models of
communication

3 Barriers to 1. General barriers In-class 2 1. Conditions that hinder effective communication:

communication to discussions; Case http://home.snu.edu/~jsmith/library/body/v06.pdf
communication Study; Role play 2. https://hbr.org/2009/03/seven-communication-mistakes-
2. Mistakes in m.html
communication 3. The Danger of a single story: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:
The danger of a single story

4 Culture and 1. Six dimensions In-class 4 1. https://www.hofstede-insights.com/models/national-

communication of National discussion; COIL culture/
Cultures Academy 2. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
2. Biases that blind collaborative 3. Invisible rules: Men, women, and teams
us tasks 4. Ashforth, B. E. and Johnson S. A. (2001). "Which Hat to
3. Gender issues Wear? The Relative Salience of Multiple Identities in
Organizational Contexts." Social Identity Process in

4
 Organizational Contexts, Philadelphia: Psychology Press,
31-48.

5 Analyzing arguments Argumentation and In-class 2 1. The problem with facts:

logical fallacies discussion; in- https://www.ft.com/content/eef2e2f8-0383-11e7-ace0-
class exercises 1ce02ef0def9
Role of assumptions 2. Courting faith and reason:
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/courting-faith-
Reading critically and-reason/article17993932.ece
3. Logical fallacies list:
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Logic_Fallacies_Li
st.pdf

6 Written business Forms of written In-class exercises 4 To be shared later

communication communication:
email, chat, letters,
resume, reports etc.

Mediums for
written
communication:
digital, physical

Effective and
persuasive
communication

7 Spoken business Nonverbal In-class 4

communication communication discussion; role 1. Cesario, J., & Higgins, E. T. (2008). Making message
plays; videos recipients “feel right” how nonverbal cues can increase
Persuading through persuasion. Psychological science, 19(5), 415-420.
stories

5
 Communication in 2. The art of storytelling: Malcolm Gladwell: The unheard
interpersonal Active listening and story of David and Goliath
settings feedback 3. Guber, Peter (2007, December). The four truths of the
storyteller. HBR.
Difficult 4. Harry Beckwith J.D. (2011). The secret: How the world's
communication best-paid persuaders do it. From Psychology Today:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/unthinking/2
Communicating to 01106/the-secret-how-the-worlds-best-paid-persuaders-
teams do-it
5. Active listening: Julian Treasure: 5 ways to listen better
6. Lawrence, H.V. and Wiswell, A.K. (1995) "Feedback is a
Two-Way Street" Training and Development, 49, 7, 49-52.
7. Delivering difficult messages the right way:
https://www.quickbase.com/blog/delivering-difficult-
messages-the-right-way
8. Robbins, S. How to communicate layoffs
9. A better way to deliver bad news:
https://hbr.org/2002/09/a-better-way-to-deliver-bad-news

8 Making effective 1. Presentations Videos; In-class 4 1. Muli, Vincent (2001), "Weaving In Stories Makes A
business using presentations; Presentation Memorable" Presentations, 2001, Vol. 15,
presentations PowerPoint (or video recording, Issue 9, 74-75
similar tools) replay and 2. Morgan, N. (2001) "The Kinesthetic Speaker." Harvard
2. Storytelling to analysis Business Review, (April 2001), 113-120.
convince 3. Leeds, D. (2003). Power Language : Turning Everyday
Words Into Persuasion. In Kristen Mohn (Ed.), PowerSpeak:
Engage, Inspire, and Stimulate Your Audience. U.S.A.:
Career Press.
4. Anderson, K. (n.d.). Speak English As Though It Tastes
Good. Say it Better E-Zine. Retrieved November 22, 2004,
from
http://www.sayitbetter.com/articles/sib_speak_english_tst
.html

6
9 Selling yourself: Job Videos; In-class 3 1. Eggert, Max (1992) The Perfect Interview. Great Britain:
Interviews interviews; video Arrow Business Books, 1992.
recording, replay
and analysis 2. Penrose, J.M, Rasberry, R.W. and Myers, R. J. (2001) "Job
Search Strategies." Advanced Business Communication.
United States: South Western College Publishing, Thomson
Learning, 371- 428

10 Politics of Case Study; Role 2 To be shared later

communication Play

11 Tools for business In-Class demo and 1 Trello; Asana; MS Teams; Zoom Meetings; MS OneNote;
communication exercises Evernote; Google Docs; AnyDesk; Grammarly

12 Course debriefing Instructor-led 1 None

and review discussions

7
8