20.8 Positive, Routine Messages
Learning Objective
- Define positive, routine messages and know their purpose. Helpful hints for the creation of effective messages include using positive, rather than negative phrases.
Positive, routine messages are messages meant to build a sense of goodwill with the purpose to foster, maintain, and solidify relationships (Communicating Routine… n.d). Goodwill is the positive emotion or feeling created to encourage people to maintain a good, working business relationship. Therefore, your goal in creating positive routine messages is to communicate good news, provide requested feedback, share relative and helpful information, etc. all while leaving your audience with a good impression of you (“Writing Routine…” n.d.). Not only are you fostering your business relationships, you are building your ethos.
Research shows that when a person feels they are treated fairly, positive results are cultivated, supporting the conclusion stated earlier… with the purpose of fostering, maintaining, and solidifying relationships. In business communication, employees who are treated positively increase reliable and decisive output (Westerman & Westerman, 2013). Providing positive messages or feedback will help promote an elated feeling of just treatment and goodwill.
There are various types of positive routine messages, of which each will most times leave the recipient open to change and become more apt to accept decisions, or simply make him or her feel good. On the other hand, if an employee, for instance, presents an insightful idea or suggestion to his or her supervisor, the employee will likely receive praise. However, if the idea or suggestion is disliked, the employee may become discouraged and less willing to make future suggestions or allow his or her voice to be heard again. A relationship of goodwill built amongst business colleagues, supervisor and employee, or business person to vendor is critical to the productivity and success of a business. It is the quality of those relationships that keep an organization effective and profitable.
Positive, Routine Message Examples & Helpful Hints
| Use Positive Wording
“Effective business writers choose positive wording to communicate their messages, even in negative situations. Positive wording creates an optimistic, encouraging, and often more informative message. For example, consider the sentences [displayed here]. The sentences on the left are expressed as negative ideas. Note how, in each example, subtle changes in wording focus on the positive expression of the same ideas. (Managing the communication…n.d., pg. 49)” |
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Negative
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Positive
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Though there are various schools of thought on the best way to individualize each one of the aforementioned message types, if you follow a few simple rules you will properly design your positive message to avoid errors, make your message easy to understand, and ensure your tone and expression is suited for your audience. This will also build your ethos to your audience. Remember, the message’s content should convey logic while building intentional, emotional appeal to your intended audience, as previously discussed using the rhetorical triangle.
A.C.E.
Analyze
Set the Stage
Analyze the purpose of your message. Do you want to inform, persuade, request, report, or propose? Why are you communicating and what outcome do you expect? Be specific with your content. What medium or message genre will you use to deliver your message?
Compose
Use What You Learned When Analyzing
Determine your content and how you will organize and include the content into your message. Now draft and format your message.
Evaluate
Review the Message
Have you included the necessary content suited for the purpose? Does the word style fit the purpose? Does your format and approach communicate a professional image?
Positive routine messages build goodwill. These messages are crucial in creating good business relationships and maintaining established business relationships. Incorporating positivity into your routine messages will not only accomplish the task at hand it will build on the goodwill already created, or begin to foster better business relationships putting sincere goodwill to use.
Challenge
Sometimes we get so caught up in our daily routine of checking emails, responding to requests, taking phone calls, placing orders, and checking off those boxes on our “to-do” list that, before we know it our day is almost finished. Think about those types of days. Do you make a point to send a message of goodwill – a positive message to foster your working relationships?
You have been challenged to gift someone each workday for one week for purposes of forming goodwill and promote superb working relationships with colleagues, business partners, and/or staff. A simple thank you message or a word of congratulations on a job well done will make an individual feel good. Investing a mere 15 minutes each day to make someone feel good is building goodwill.
Key Takeaway
- Positive wording creates an optimistic, encouraging, and often more informative message.
Exercises
- Create a message that purports goodwill. Have you applied the A.C.E. steps when doing so? Analyze the purpose of your message. Determine your content. Does the word style fit the purpose?
References
Communicating routine messages and building goodwill. n.d. In class handout.
Info Science Today.org No author, no date http://www.infosciencetoday.org/communication-technology/forms-of-business-communication.html
Managing the communication process: Analyzing, Composing, Evaluating. (2015). MyBCommLab.com. Retrieved from http://www.pearsoncanada.ca/media/highered-showcase/multi-product-showcase/schwom-ch02.pdf
Westerman, C. Y. K., & Westerman, D. K. (2013). What’s fair? public and private delivery of project feedback. Journal of Business Communication, 50(2), 190-207. doi:10.1177/0021943612474991
Writing routine and positive messages. n.d. In class handout.
