Strategic
and clear communication is critical to advancing your goals, ideas, and
career. Contrary to popular belief, effective communication is a
learned behavior one can improve at any point in life. Skilled
communicators are highly strategic and organized in their approach. They
keep their desired outcomes in mind, use situation-appropriate
communication styles, understand their audiences, and develop targeted
messages.
For this assignment, you will identify a topic that
you would like to elicit buy-in from leadership, colleagues, clients, or
other professional entities. You will then develop a strategic
communication plan to assess and to guide your communication approach.
Lastly, you will utilize your communication plan to draft a persuasive
email that informs and requests attendance to a formal presentation on
your topic. Keep in mind, assignment 1 and 2 are linked. You will
deliver a professional presentation in week 7 based on this assignment
and your strategic communication plan.
Part 1: Identify your
topic If you have a professional persuasive presentation pending, if you
have delivered one you would like to improve, or if you have a
presentation topic you want to deliver please consider using it for the
course assignment. Historically, students have delivered their course
presentations with great success. Below are topic suggestions:
•
Do you deserve a raise? • Would you be a great fit for the new position
that just opened? • Do you see an amazing growth opportunity that you
would like to investigate and/or lead a team in pursuing? • Does your
project require additional funding or staff? Part 2: Strategic
Communication Plan: 1-3 pages (may be formally written, or in outline,
or chart form) Next, assess your audience and your communication
approach to develop a targeted communication strategy to achieve your
communication objective. Consider the following questions to guide the
development of your strategic communication plan, persuasive email, and
professional presentation: • Define your desired outcome(s). • Assess
your audience. o Who will you be addressing? Who are the “key
influencers”? o What do they know and expect? o What do they feel? o
What will persuade them? (Apply both Munter and Cialdini) o Consider
their possible DiSC styles and the impact of these styles. o What, if
any, opposition do you expect and how will you address it? • Identify an
appropriate communication style to use.
