BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

ASSIGNMENT ON CONVERSATIONAL
ENGLISH
AND
GROUP DYNAMICS

SUBMITTED TO – SUBMITTED BY-

Dr. Juhi Upmanyu AIJAZ ANEES
Enrollment no.
:A1802009077
SEC E
MBA-IB

CONVERSATIONAL ENGLISH :
A conversation is communication between two or more people. Conversations are the
ideal form of communication in some respects, since they allow people with different
views on a topic to learn from each other. A speech, on the other hand, is an oral
presentation by one person directed at a group. For a successful conversation, the partners
must achieve a workable balance of contributions. A successful conversation includes
mutually interesting connections between the speakers or things that the speakers know.
For this to happen, those engaging in conversation must find a topic on which they both
can relate to in some sense. Those engaging in conversation naturally tend to relate the
other speaker's statements to themselves. They may insert aspects of their lives into their
replies, to relate to the other person's opinions or points of conversation.

Conversation is indispensable for the successful accomplishment of almost all activities

between people, especially the coordination of work, the formation of friendship and for
learning.

Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and

organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational
interaction

The Art of Conversation in Brief

1. Don't talk too long without pausing for a reaction. More than a minute is usually
too long. Forty seconds is ideal.

2. Never contradict or flatly disagree with the other person. It's an implied insult.

3. Don't be too forceful or emphatic in stating your opinions until you learn the other
person's attitude.

4. Give the other person intellectual freedom and cooperation, and claim them for
yourself.

The art of converstion :

 The ability to talk well can be cultivated.

 Interest you must have if your conversation is to be

successful.

 Interest can lie primarily in the subject or the

person, the latter being by far the surer ingredient for success.

 To chatter is easy. To talk resultfully with the

hostile, suspicious, indifferent or even friendly is an art.
  To really become a good conversationalist over the
long term it is necessary to acquire the habit of
conscientiously stocking your mind with facts and
information and then forming opinions on the basis of that
knowledge.

 A monologue is not a conversation.

 Silence plays an important part in effective

conversation just as it does in music.

 Masters of the art of conversation rarely give

advice, and then, usually, only when requested. It is given
tentatively and without seeming to impose their wishes.

 The secret of giving advice successfully is to mix it

up with something that implies a real consciousness of the
adviser's own defects, and as much as possible of an
acknowledgment of the other party's merits.

 To plant a suggestion is a real test of conversational

skill.

Types of conversation
Management is getting results through other people. And the principle means by
which you achieve that is conversation. Whatever systems or procedures you
have in place, at the heart of your managerial role is conversation. Your ability to
hold productive conversations will determine how well you:

• communicate objectives;
• gain commitment;
• resolve problems; and
• review progress.

All managerial conversations seek a result. The result may be a clearer view of a
problem, a choice between alternatives, a decision to take a particular course of
action. You may even be holding a conversation to decide whether you need a
result! It’s in your conversations that you define what those results are, help your
team to attain them and give feedback on their performance.
 It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that management is a conversation.
If you want to be better at managing people, the first place to start is with
improving your managerial conversations.

A conversation is a means of creating shared understanding. This idea is well

encapsulated in the increasingly fashionable word dialogue. In dialogue, we
construct a new, shared meaning through the conversation (the word is from the
Greek, ‘meaning through’). This is what all conversations should aim for: a
shared understanding that comes into being as a result of holding the
conversation.

Giving your conversations a clear structure

One way to develop your conversations as a manager is to give them a clear

structure. This four-stage model builds on the natural structures of all
conversation to create a powerful framework within which you can manage more
effectively.

In this model, we think of a managerial conversation as being made up of four

conversations, for:

• relationship;
• possibility;
• opportunity ; and
• action.

These four conversations may form part of a single, larger conversation; they
may also take place separately, at different stages of a process or project.

A conversation for relationship

We hold a conversation for relationship to create or develop the relationship we

need to achieve our objective. It is an exploration.

A conversation for relationship: key

questions

Who are we?

How do we relate to the matter in hand?
What links us?
How do we see things?
What do you see that I can't see?
What do I see that you don't see?
In what ways do we see things similarly, or
differently?
How can we understand each other?
Where do we stand?
Can we stand together?
Conversations for relationship are tentative and sometimes awkward. We often
rush them because they can be embarrassing. Think of those tricky
conversations we hold with strangers at parties: they are good examples of
conversations for relationship. A managerial conversation for relationship should
move beyond the “What do you do? Where do you live?” questions. We are
defining our relationship to each other, and to the matter in hand.

A conversation for possibility

A conversation for possibility continues the exploration: it develops first-stage

thinking. It asks what we might be looking at.

A conversation for possibility is not about whether to do something, or what to do.

It seeks to find new ways of looking at the problem.

There are a number of ways of doing this.

• Look at it from a new angle.

• Ask for different interpretations of what’s happening.
• Try to distinguish what you’re looking at from what you think about it.
• Ask how other people might see it.
• Break the problem into parts.
• Isolate one part of the problem and look at it in detail.
• Connect the problem into a wider network of ideas.
• Ask what the problem is like. What does it look like, or feel like?

Conversations for possibility are potentially a source of creativity: brainstorming

is a good example. But they can also be uncomfortable: exploring different points
of view may A
create conflict.
conversation for possibility: key
questions

What’s the problem?

What are we trying to do?
What’s the real problem?
What are we really trying to do?
Is this a problem?
How could we look at this from a different
angle?
Can we interpret this differently?
How could we do this?
What does it look like from another
person’s point of view?
What makes this different from last time?
Have we ever done anything like this
before?
Manage this conversation with care. Make it clear that this is not decision time.
Encourage the other person to give you ideas, and assure them that you won’t
hold them to account for them. Take care not to judge or criticise. Do challenge
or probe what the other person says. In particular, manage the emotional content
of this conversation with care. Acknowledge people’s feelings and look for the
evidence that supports them.

A conversation for opportunity

A conversation for opportunity takes us into second-stage thinking. This is

fundamentally a conversation about planning. Many of our good ideas never
become reality because we don’t map out paths of opportunity. A conversation
for opportunity is designed to construct such a path. We are choosing what to do.
We assess what we would need to make action possible: resources, support and
skills. This conversation is more focused than a conversation for possibility: in
choosing from among a number of possibilities, we are finding a sense of
common purpose.

A conversation for opportunity: key

questions

Where can we act?

What could we do?
Which possibilities do we build on?
Which possibilities are feasible?
What target do we set ourselves?
Where are the potential obstacles?

The bridge from possibility to opportunity is measurement. This is where we

begin to set targets, milestones, obstacles, measures of success. How will we be
able to judge when we have achieved an objective?

Recall your original objective. Has it changed? Conversations for opportunity can
become more exciting by placing yourselves in a future where you have achieved
your objective. What does such a future look like and feel like? What is
happening in this future? How can you plan your way towards it? Usually we plan
by starting from where we are and extrapolate current actions towards a desired
objective. By 'backward planning' from an imagined future, we can find new
opportunities for action.
A conversation for action (‘part’)

This is where you agree what to do, who will do it and when it will happen.
Translating opportunity into action needs more than agreement; you need to
generate a promise, a commitment to act.

Managers often remark that getting action is one of the hardest aspects of
managing people. “Have you noticed,” one senior director said to me recently,
“how people seem never to do what they’ve agreed to do?” Following up on
agreed actions can become a major time-waster. A conversation for action is the
first step in pre-empting the problem. It’s vital that the promise resulting from a
conversation for action is recorded.

A conversation for action: key stages

A conversation for action is a dynamic between asking and

promising. It takes a specific form.

• You ask the other person to do something by a certain

time. Make it clear that this is a request, not an order.
Orders may get immediate results, but they rarely generate
commitment.

• The other person has four possible answers to this

request.
- They can accept.
- They can decline.
- They may commit to accepting or declining at a later
date. (“I’ll let you know by…”)
- They can make a counter-offer. (“I can’t do that, but I
can do…”)

• The conversation results in a promise. “I will do x for you by

time y.”

This four-stage model of conversation will serve you well in the wide range of
conversations you will hold as a manager. Some of your conversations will
include all four stages; some will concentrate on one more than another.
A final warning

These conversations will only be truly effective if you hold them in order. The success of
each conversation depends on the success of the conversation before it. If you fail to
resolve a conversation, it will continue underneath the next in code. Unresolved aspects
of a conversation for relationship, for instance, can become conflicts of possibility,
hidden agendas or ‘personality clashes’. Possibilities left unexplored become lost
opportunities. And promises to act that have no real commitment behind them will create
problems later.

Classification of conversation

Subject

The majority of conversations can be divided into four categories according to their
major subject content:

• Conversations about subjective ideas, which often serve to extend understanding

and awareness.
• Conversations about objective facts, which may serve to consolidate a widely-
held view.
• Conversations about other people (usually absent), which may be either critical,
competitive, or supportive. This includes gossip.
• Conversations about oneself, which sometimes indicate attention-seeking
behaviour.

In the real world, few conversations fall exclusively into one category. Nevertheless, the
proportional distribution of any given conversation between the categories can offer
useful psychological insights into the mind set of the participants.

Function

Each type of conversation has its own cluster of purposes and expectations attached.

• Functional conversation is designed to convey information in order to help

achieve an individual or group goal.
• Small talk is a type of conversation where the topic is less important than the
social purpose of achieving bonding between people or managing personal
distance.
• Banter is non-serious conversation, usually between friends, which may rely on
humour or in-jokes at the expense of those taking part. The purpose of banter may
at first appear to be an offensive affront to the other person's face. However,
people engaging in such a conversation are often signaling that they are
comfortable enough in each others' company to be able to say such things without
 causing offense. Banter is particularly difficult for those on the autism spectrum
and those with semantic pragmatic disorder.

Spontaneity

In most conversations, the responses are a spontaneous reaction to what has previously
been said. In entertainment talk shows, however, the topics of conversation are often pre-
scripted. Talk shows such as William F. Buckley's Firing Line or the Dick Cavett Show
can be considered as exercises in conversation.

Men and women

A study completed in July 2007 by Matthias Mehl of the University of Arizona shows
that contrary to popular belief, there is little difference in the number of words used by
men and women in conversation.[1] The study showed that on average each of the sexes
uses about 16,000 words per day.

Conversation between strangers

There are certain situations, typically encountered while traveling, which result in
strangers sharing what ordinarily be a intimate social space such as sitting together on a
bus or airplane. In such situations strangers are likely to share intimate personal
information they would not ordinarily share with strangers. A special case emerges when
one of the travelers is a mental health professional and the other party shares details of
their personal life in the apparent hope of receiving help or advice.

Literature on Conversation

Authors who have written extensively on conversation and attempted to analyze its nature
include:

• Milton Wright wrote The Art of Conversation, a comprehensive treatment of the

subject, in 1936. The book deals with conversation both for its own sake, and for
political, sales, or religious ends. Milton portrays conversation as an art or
creation that people can play with and give life to.
• Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler, and Ron McMillan have written two
New York Times bestselling books on conversation. The first one, Crucial
Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, McGraw-Hill, 2002,
teaches skills for handling disagreement and high-stakes issues at work and at
home. The second book, Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken
Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior, McGraw-Hill, 2005, teaches
important skills for dealing with accountability issues.
• Charles Blattberg has written two books defending an approach to politics that
emphasizes conversation, in contrast to negotiation, as the preferred means of
resolving conflict. His From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics: Putting Practice First,
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-829688-6, is a
 work of political philosophy; and his Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for
Canada, Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-
7735-2596-3, applies that philosophy to the Canadian case.
• Paul Drew & John Heritage - Talk at Work, a study of how conversation changes
in social and workplace situations.
• Neil Postman - Amusing Ourselves to Death (Conversation is not the book's
specific focus, but discourse in general gets good treatment here)
• Deborah Tannen
o The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words
o Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends,
o Gender and Discourse
o I Only Say This Because I Love You
o Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work
o That's Not What I Meant!
o You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
• Daniel Menaker - A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation (published
2010)
• Stephen Miller - Conversation: A History of a Declining Art: provides an
extensive history of conversation which dates back to the ancient Greeks with
Socrates, and moving forward, to coffeehouses around the world, as well as the
modern forces of the electronic age, talk shows, etc.
 DYANMICS OF GROUP DISCUSSION
In order to put up a decent performance in a Group Discussion, knowledge about the
personality traits that the examiner looks for is desirable. So the following points
should be kept in mind before the D-day.

1. Teamwork & Team Player: Teamwork is the ability to work together towards a
common vision, is the ability to direct individual accomplishments towards
organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain
uncommon results.

Examiners lay great emphasis on this parameter because it is essential for managers
to be team players. The reason: Managers always work in teams. At the beginning of
his career, a manager works as a team member and later as a team leader. Lacking
this skill will definitely hamper your chances of getting through the GD.

2. Logic & Clarity of Thought: Your Logic plays an important role while
expressing your opinions or ideas in a Group Discussion.

For example, an opinion like "Increase in the number of IIMs will help more students
to get quality pedagogy" can be better stated by demonstrating your logical ability by
saying: "Increase in the number of IIMs, by providing quality education to more
students, will definitely encounter brain drain besides which our nation will take the
pride of creating professionals required by the top class companies". You can also
counter statements like quality of education will deteriorate by saying "The hike in
the fees will definitely meet the costs to attract good faculty, create good
infrastructure and upgrade technology".

3. Leadership: "The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects the
wind to change but a leader adjusts his sails". Let me be more clear on this.

The following are the situations that can arise in a Group Discussion:
• A Group Discussion where participants are unable to establish a proper rapport
and do not speak much.
• A Group Discussion where participants get emotionally charged and the Group
Discussion gets chaotic.
Here a leader is the one who acts correctly and makes the Discussion where
participants discuss the topic assertively by touching on all its nuances and try to
reach the objective.
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. Hence merely
doing the moderator job doesn't mean you possess leadership qualities. Here are the
qualities of a great leader:

• A leader, no matter how hard-fought the issue, never gets personal. He never says
or executes anything that may come back to haunt him on another issue.
• A leader does his homework. He is very well aware of the fact that he can't lead
without knowing what he is talking about.
• A leader uses his abilities and power to persuade, not to intimidate.
• Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument,
debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand."
So we should not only to contribute to the Group Discussion with the ideas and
opinions, but also try to steer the conversation towards a goal.

4. Assertiveness: There are many definitions and ideas on what assertiveness

means. Enjoying your rights, expressing your feelings, asking for what you want,
stating your views - with integrity, honesty, directness, respect for others is the
definition that is relevant to you and your circumstances in the Group Discussion.

As an assertive person, we must be able to handle the following situations in a Group

Discussion.
• An aggressive person doesn't listen to your views/needs, so you need to make
them listen.
• An unassertive person doesn't express his views, so you need to encourage them
to express their views.
• A passive-aggressive person avoids any real dialogue, so you need to engage
them in the discussion.
A person's leadership skills are often gauged by his Assertiveness. As we can see in
the adjacent image, a leader is one who strikes a balance in this quality. Possessing
either a low or a high assertiveness is considered to be a negative personality trait. So
we should remember to put forth your point to the group in a very emphatic, positive
and confident manner.
Participants often mistake assertiveness for aggressiveness. The basic difference
between being assertive and being aggressive is how our words and behavior affect
the rights and well being of others. Aggressiveness is all about enforcing your point
without paying attention to the opinion of the other person, which may hamper your
team's targets and goals. An aggressive person can also demonstrate negative body
language, whereas an assertive person displays positive body language.

5. Think Outside The Box: Thinking outside the box means to think creatively,
unimpeded by orthodox or conventional constraints.
Thinking outside the box requires different attributes that include:
• Willingness to take new perspectives.
• Openness to do different things and to do things differently.
• Focusing on the value of finding new ideas and acting on them.
• Striving to create value in new ways.
• Listening to others.
• Supporting and respecting others when they come up with new ideas.
Out-of-the box thinking requires an openness to new ways of seeing the world and a
willingness to explore. Out-of-the box thinkers know that new ideas need nurturing
and support. They also know that having an idea is good but acting on it is more
important.
In a Group Discussion an idea or a perspective which provides a scope for entirely
new dimensional discussion is always highly appreciated. If you are able to come up
with an innovative idea and put it across convincingly, such that it is discussed for
quite sometime by the group, you can take it for granted that you have done quite a
decent job in that discussion.

6. Flexibility: "Who says golf can't be played with Apples?" If this is our attitude
then we are the one for the game. Absence of this quality makes you a friend to no
person in the Group Discussion. Besides emphasizing on your idea you must be
open to all the other possible ideas as well. In brief you should consider all the
possible dimensions of the issue.

Never we should ever start our Group Discussion with a stance or a conclusion.
Say the topic of a Group Discussion is, 'Should Dravid retire from Cricket?'
Some participants tend to get emotionally attached to the topic and take a stand either
in favour or against the topic, by saying 'Yes, he should', or, 'No, he should not'. One
should always avoid this because by taking a stance, you have already given your
decision without discussing the topic at hand or listening to the views of your team
members.

7. Initiative: I am very much aware of the fact that there is nothing more difficult to
carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to
initiate a Group Discussion, especially when our team is absolutely conscious of
what we are saying. This is a high-risk high-return strategy. But if our mind can
visualize the outcome of our idea then we can start the action called "Initiation".

Bear in mind that we have to initiate a group discussion only if we are well versed
with the topic of the Group Discussion. There's no point in fumbling or giving up on
our initialized idea as quickly as someone makes a statement contradicting our
opinion. If we initialize a Group Discussion and fails to survive on our own idea at
regular intervals, then we are in serious trouble. As the saying goes, "CONTENT IS
KING", you must be proficient in the topic of the Group Discussion.
The act of "Initiation" creates the first impression of our abilities.
8. Persuasiveness: We should act like a shepherd who always tries to persuade the
sheep that their interests and his own are the same. We must possess the ability to
analyze and persuade others to see the problem not only from your point of view
but also should be able to persuade them to analyze it from multiple perspectives,
of course without contradicting straight away their ideas and opinions. It is
obvious that when we have nothing interesting or important to say you are not
meant to persuade your team members. Remember that what you're doing is
putting into professional play the way that you relate to other team members, the
way that you analyze, the way that you would convince your team members to do
what you want, which has a lot to do with listening, with humility and a sense of
yourself.

The best way to persuade others is with your ears by listening to them.

9. Communication Ability: This is the key skill in order to exhibit all the qualities
that we discussed till now. Communication skills doesn't mean public speaking,
which according to me is an art of diluting two-minute idea with two-hour
vocabulary. You have to understand that the key factor here is listening. In a
group discussions it is greed to do all the talking but not want to listen at all. In
fact seldom it happens that a bad listener is good at communication skills. Good
communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed
sentences and paragraphs. Try to use simple and lucid language to explain your
ideas and I am sure you will be accepted by everyone in the group. In order to
communicate effectively, one must realize that we are all different in the way we
perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication
with others.

Sometimes, in a Group Discussion we may come across some participants who use
their Holy Vocabulary Skills in order to show-off their knowledge (not in the topic
but in the language) forgetting the fact that everyone in the Group Discussion has
already done a decent job regarding this aspect in the written exam. So you need not
worry about them as they are already accumulating points, of course negative points.
As Plato said, Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools, to say
something. So find out what you are before the facilitator finds it out for you….

10. Conceptualization: Conceptualization is the use of particulars that has

come into the discussion to bring to light within the mind a generalizable idea.
The act of conceptualization is the act of thinking quickly about the ideas
exchanged and seeing beyond existing ideas and applying them to summarize the
group discussion.
At the end of the discussion, you could probably summarize in a few sentences that
presents the overall perspective. You may not be able to do it in every group
discussion, but you must have the ability to do this when the situation demands.