Business Communication. Sharpen your communication skills.

In this reflection-intensive business writing course, we look at what can make or break the structure, logic and persuasive content of business documents that guide high-level outcomes.

We begin by looking at structures and techniques to help you plan more precisely, write more persuasively, and simplify complexity in your business communications. These are critical skillsets for senior professionals who make highly technical content relatable to other decision-makers.

The course moves on to reveal templates and other guidance useful for producing strategic business documents. These include presentations, proposals, business cases, and grant and award submissions. With these principles in mind, we work in groups to draft a sample business case or presentation, based either on the textbook sample or your own workplace scenario. We conclude with a session on self-editing, particularly sentence grammar and jargon-busting.

Throughout the day, you can enjoy candid discussions on real-life situations, and apply timeless techniques to make your writing simpler and clearer.

The course is aimed at professionals moving into a leadership phase, who need to address more subtle business nuances and stakeholder needs in their writing. It can be taken independently or in conjunction with the Business Writing Course: Essentials, a more hands-on course aimed at improving everyday efficiencies and interpersonal communications.

Aims

This course aims to give you the tools to present logical yet sophisticated arguments, and to support your proposals with a range of evidence. It aims to provide you with clear frameworks to critically review your own work and that of your team.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should have greater confidence and skill in writing business documents that must persuade a demanding and highly informed reader. You should be able to:

• plan longer documents based on a clear framework of points
• propose a persuasive and logical argument in writing
• understand the structures best suited to different business communications
• simplify complex concepts with a writing tone that’s businesslike but not over-formal
• review written work following a four-step process.

Content

This course involves reading a number of long-format texts, analysing them for effectiveness, and using the suggested tools to improve them.

Toolkit

We begin with a 30-minute refresh of some core techniques covered in the Business Writing Course: Essentials, to ensure everyone starts from the same level of understanding.

Persuasion essentials

We look at the essentials of persuasive business writing and techniques that support logic. You will analyse several writing samples, then apply the principles to your own writing.

Structure essentials

Here we explore the grouping and summarising techniques needed to draw key points from multiple sources, such as data sets, anecdotal evidence and technical literature.

Putting it all together

We now apply the morning’s learnings to your preferred writing format, whether a proposal, presentation or business profile. We also look at the subtle differences in tone that characterise each genre.

Grammar and style

We look at some common grammatical mistakes, and how to fix these at a sentence and clause level.

Review process

Essential steps to take when reviewing your own or someone else’s text.

Intended audience

Aimed at senior professionals and team leaders who deal with a range of stakeholders, often with the aim to influence a business outcome. It is also useful for professionals who need to guide their team members’ writing.

Participants hail from various backgrounds, but generally have a good grasp of clear and correct grammar writing style. They can explain the nuances of terms unique to their sector, or why the active voice is generally preferable to passive.

Their challenge is in how to communicate the complexities of their sector or proposal without overwhelming the reader, questions that this course seeks to address.

Prerequisites

You do not need to attend Business Writing Course: Essentials first, but you should understand some principles of good writing to get the most out of this course. If you already start your writing with a message statement, have a system for organising information, understand sentence grammar, and know why active verbs are generally better than passive, you will be able to follow the workshop content quite comfortably.

Delivery modes

• Face-to-face, presenter-taught training
• Online training via the platform Zoom

Delivery style

You will learn through a variety of methods including open discussions, group exercises and individual response to mini quizzes.

Materials

A course workbook containing instructions, and best practice examples and exercises is provided electronically.

Recommended reading

Australian Government 2002, Style Manual, John Wiley & Sons, Australia.

James, N 2007, Writing at Work: how to write clearly, effectively and professionally, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW.

Seely, J 2005, Oxford Guide to Effective Writing and Speaking, Oxford University Press.

Strunk, W & White, E B 1918, The Elements of Style, Harcourt, USA.