Writing for Business Success/Understanding your audience/Self-understanding as a core skill
Read Chapter 3 Introduction and 3.1 in Business Communication for Success. The central concept in these readings is that knowing your audience involves understanding others’ perspectives to assess how they may understand your messages and frames of reference. By attending to contexts, and sincerely trying to understand others’ worldviews, we can often find common ground to communicate more effectively. However, we need to know ourselves first to productively explore ways to know others. Knowing ourselves involves critical reflection on the values, beliefs, attitudes that shape our self-concepts, and how self-fulfilling prophecies can influence our decisions. This provides the base for authentic communication, which is a theme in many perspectives presented in this course.
Recommended: Try the Introductory exercises that invite you to do a personal inventory and reflect on your beliefs about an in-group and an out-group in your life. Feel free to do the other perception puzzles just for fun! Do the first three exercises in Chapter 3.1 that ask you to reflect on your self-concept in terms of your business communication practice and personal beliefs. Try also doing the in-group and family interviews on shared values and characteristics suggested in Exercises 4 and 5.
