Communication literally means the activity of conveying information. Effective written & oral business messages should be adapted to the purpose & receiver of each message.

The basic business communication principles also known as the seven ‘C’ qualities provide guidelines for choosing content & style of presentation.

The seven ‘Cs’ of effective communication are:

1. Completeness- Complete message should contain all facts the reader or listener needs for the reaction one desires. One can make the messages complete by answering all questions asked, giving something extra whenever desirable & checking for the five W’s and one H i.e., who, what, when, where, why & how as well as any other essential.

2. Conciseness- A concise message includes all necessary ideas & facts in the fewest possible words. The message should include only facts relevant to its purpose. The concise message helps emphasize important points and saves costly time for both sender & receiver.

3. Consideration- Considerate means one is genuinely thoughtful of one’s message recipients & considers their probable reactions to his messages.

Consideration involves the golden rule- showing to others the same fairness & honesty we expect ourselves.

4. Concreteness- Good concrete writing & speaking includes specific facts & figures along with examples. To help make messages vivid & specific one can use comparisons and figurative language.

5. Clarity- Make the message clear by using words those are familiar to the receiver. Aim for unity and coherence in your sentences & paragraphs. Have an average sentence length of around 17-20 words & average paragraph length of 4-5 lines in letters & 8-9 lines in reports. To make figures stand out clearly one may find tabulating to be useful. Also give the reader helpful examples with appropriate easy to read heading or other visual aids whenever complicated material is to be explained.

6. Courtesy- Courteous communication is sincerely tactful, thoughtful, & appreciative. In both written & oral message, courtesy requires omitting expressions that irritate, belittle or have questionable humour. The courteous person apologizes good- naturedly and reverts as promptly as possible.

7. Correctness- Correctness in business communication requires correct language level & accurate facts, figures, word choices, grammar, spelling & punctuation. Necessary also is non-discrimination towards people because of their gender, race, ethnic origin or physical characteristics.

Communication, whether written or oral, has to be carried out effectively, as communication that is not effectively conveyed amounts to no communication at all.

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