Business and Communication

One morning, you awake to news agencies reporting a major fire threatening your office building. You recall your organization recently practiced its quarterly disaster preparedness exercise, and you are fully aware of what to do in this situation. You know what to do, who to contact, and the location of the alternate office to use in case of an emergency. You are concerned but confident you have a plan in place. You know your role as a key member of the organization's crisis communication team (CMT). You help management by preparing a news release and updating the company's website with factual information on the who, what, when, and where details of the event. You use social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, and traditional media, such as radio and TV, to inform internal stakeholder groups (such as senior leadership, employees, and investors) and external stakeholder groups (such as customers, clients, local officials, and the general public) with an appropriate key message. During times of crisis, the public relations specialist helps management communicate sound, safe, and responsible actions to protect and defend the organization from harm or damage.

Crisis communication is one of the many specialized areas or functions of public relations. This course will specifically focus on using crisis communication to protect and defend a company or organization facing a problem or challenge threatening to harm its brand or reputation. As a sudden and unexpected serious event, a crisis can fall into four categories: acts of God, mechanical problems, human error, and management decision or indecision. On any given day, there can be any number of crises - pandemics, natural disasters, grounded airplanes, stranded cruise ship passengers, or senior government officials or CEOs who are fired or asked to resign following inappropriate behavior, to name a few examples. If you want to learn to become a professional public relations specialist, it is important to have a basic understanding of the important role public relations has in helping guide a company or organization through a crisis or serious event.

This course is designed for practical applications of crisis communication principles. It explains what communication problems look like, how to deal with them, and how to anticipate crises as part of conducting an effective public relations program. It will also explain the role of a crisis communication team and teach you how to write a crisis communication plan. Most importantly, it will emphasize the value and importance of using social media in a crisis communication plan and in marketing. Through cases covered in the course and perhaps your own research or experience, you will gain an appreciation and understanding of the necessity of a well-thought-out crisis communication management system. The overall goal of this course is to help develop your skills and abilities as part of a crisis management team to help develop a credible and tested communication plan to respond effectively to a crisis.

This short course will help you better understand how information impacts all facets of your life, whether personal, professional, or educational. Information is central to life, especially in a knowledge economy driven by technology. Understanding how to effectively find, evaluate, and use information is key to success. This course will discuss how information is produced, organized, located, and used ethically and legally, both online and in print. This process starts with understanding the research process that informs your information-seeking behavior. Developing an effective question to drive your research will help you develop an effective search strategy using appropriate search tools. Once relevant information is found, you will evaluate it to ensure it meets your information needs. Knowing what type of information is needed is key in this step. Finally, when using information, you must consider issues of ownership and the importance of attribution to be an ethical user of any source. Information literacy skills are even more necessary now with the rise of misinformation online.

Effective communication plays a pivotal role in your daily life, whether chatting with strangers at the grocery store, connecting with loved ones at home, or collaborating with colleagues at work. This professional development course unravels the intricacies of interpersonal communication and its power in everyday scenarios. It explores the dynamics of interpersonal communication in both formal and informal settings, including the art of conflict management. Be it with family and friends or colleagues in the workplace, conflicts are inevitable, but this course equips you with the insights and skills to navigate and mitigate tensions through the application of human communication principles.

This course examines organizational communication, focusing on practical uses. Throughout the course, you'll delve into fundamental communication principles and essential organizational communication elements. This knowledge equips you to cultivate productive workplace connections and apply effective strategies. Additionally, you'll explore challenges individuals face in professional environments and practical solutions to promote inclusivity.

This course examines communication practices in the professional sales occupation and will help you enhance your success in many facets of the business profession. It describes the sales field and discusses the communication skills needed to support your professional sales practice.

We begin by exploring various relationships in professional sales, the kinds of work salespeople do, and the skills you need to communicate effectively in business. We explore the critical role ethics plays in being an effective salesperson and business leader. Finally, we discuss communication skills in development, public speaking, and working as part of a sales team.

The more complex an organization and its operations, the more active a role management plays. Successful management imposes a degree of order and discipline so that work can be accomplished efficiently, regardless of the size of the organization, how many countries it operates in, or how much of its work is performed virtually.

In this course, you will explore various theories of management throughout history. Learn about early management principles, including Frederick Winslow Taylor's scientific management theory, widely practiced in the industrial age of the 20th century, and the shift to more contemporary, 21st-century approaches to management, which tend to be better-suited to knowledge-based industries. Finally, you will examine management from a global perspective.

Throughout this course, we define managers as people who work with and through other people to accomplish the goals of an organization. One important managerial function we have not yet touched upon is motivation, or the ability to persuade and inspire others to commit to an organization and its goals. A good leader must be a good manager if they wish to get a lot accomplished. To get work done, managers must often foster collaboration between employees so that individuals with different skills from different parts of a company can successfully contribute to projects. The concept of collaboration has evolved into the practice of creating teams comprising specific individuals with complementary skills who gather around a common purpose. This purpose might include accomplishing a specific task, addressing a particular problem, revising an internal company process, etc.

The term team is used so frequently today that the meaning of this concept is often diluted. Still, contemporary companies and organizations rely on the efforts of different kinds of teams. Often, an organization will pull together teams with members scattered over multiple locations – even multiple countries – to bring together the skills and competencies needed to address a significant task. One of the key roles of any manager is to establish a team's goals and purposes and select appropriate team members. From there, the team will more or less independently work to accomplish its purpose under the supervision of a leader, who must organize and manage the team effectively.

What does a successful team look like? Would you be surprised to know that the best teams actually experience conflicts? In fact, conflict can be a productive force capable of generating new ideas and multiple options for consideration. The key is to avoid letting professional conflict spill over into personal relationships, a difficult task without careful study and practice. In this unit, you will look at the different stages of group development to learn how to create a successful team and avoid the common pitfalls of working with a team.

"Business – real business – isn't about money. It's about people. You have to know and understand people."

The late André Meyer was a financier who collaborated with corporations in countries around the world. He served as an advisor to leaders of state and worked as the head of the investment-banking firm Lazard Frères. Despite the fact that his career was entirely focused on raising capital and profits, Meyer saw people, including the employees of a company, as the most important aspect of business success. Meyer's belief still resonates in today's business world. Indeed, knowing how to implement effective and strategic human resource management is a crucial skill for any manager.

Human resource management (HRM) exists in many forms. We often think about Human Resources as the company department that handles paychecks and benefits, or the office an employee visits when they encounter a problem, such as harassment or discrimination. However, HRM oversees many more responsibilities than these traditional tasks. Perhaps the most important change in the practice of HRM has occurred in the recruiting of top-quality employees for a firm. Historically, HR staff, rather than company managers, have recruited and sifted through applications to find candidates to interview for positions at a company. But HR department staff often lack the knowledge necessary to effectively screen for many newer, more technical positions – a situation in which a manager's expertise and input greatly benefit the hiring process.

In the 21st century, as companies work harder to attract and recruit talent, modern HRM is developing a more strategic nature. For example, a top HR executive today will most likely report directly to the CEO and play an integral role in executing a company's strategy. To stay competitive, today's managers must also work in conjunction with HR to be able to quickly and reliably identify the skill sets and personal characteristics that are needed to increase productivity in a company's present and future workforce.

The essential function of a manager is to make decisions. Decision-making is about making choices between alternatives to reach a goal or objective. In our personal lives, decision-making can involve determining many things, such as where we live, what foods we eat, and who our friends are. In business, decision-making can revolve around the products and services that a company offers, the markets it serves, the people it hires, and so on.

In this unit, we will look at the decision-making process, paying close attention to the basic decision types, tools, methods, and insights to help you quickly learn how it involves both logic and emotion. When you complete the course, you will have practical tools to quickly determine the type of decision you are trying to make, the available tools and methods you may use, and the way to effectively engage your teams in the process.

In this course, we discuss the benefits of functional conflict in fostering creative thinking, problem-solving techniques, and innovation, and identify appropriate workplace strategies for discouraging dysfunctional conflict, which is often based on misunderstanding, clashing personalities, negative stereotypes, and bias. We explore different conflict resolution methods, including the formal methods of negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and litigation, as well as other informal remedies. Next, we examine organizational structure and employee interdependence, and offer practical guidance on how leaders can leverage the attributes of different employees to work together toward a common goal.

Finally, we present some best practice models for resolving conflict and the elements needed to create a thoughtful, inclusive conflict resolution policy. We aim to help leaders avoid negative ramifications that result from hostile work environments, discrimination, and harassment.