Assignment # 1

Styles of
Communication
Subject: Organizational Communication
Name: Muhammad Hashim Memon
Registration # 15523-15011
Program: EMBA
Specialization: Project Management

STYLES OF COMMUNICATION
Once you have defined communication objective, choose the appropriate style to
accomplish that objective. The following model, adapted from organizational
theorists Tannenbaum and Schmidt, displays the range of communication styles
used at various times in virtually any job. The two dimensions to consider how
much you want to involve your audience. The more you control, the less you
involve; the more you involve, the less you control.

There are four Communication Styles

1.
2.
3.
4.

Tell Style
Sell Style
Confer Style
Join Style

1. Tell Style
In the tell style, you are informing, instructing or explaining your audience; you
want your audience to understand or learn by giving the answers of their
questions.
For Example:
An Army officer is teaching the war strategies to his student officers. so he must
have enough knowledge about the war strategies that clear the concepts to the
other officers effectively because the trainees doesnt have any experience with
the war strategy so they cannot share their experience or ideas, the only thing
they can ask questions about the subject which usually takes 5-10 % of
communication so the teacher must have enough knowledge about the subject.
2. Sell Style
In the sell style, you are persuading or advocating: you want your audience to
perform an action or to change their thinking or behavior.
For Example:
Let say an officer of planning and development section of a Department wants to launch a
new project at a site. He will first prepare a PC-1 and after the approval of the
Head of department, the PC-1 would be sent to the Planning Commission along
with the member of the board from that department. Now the officer will deliver
the presentation regarding his proposal, mentioning all the objectives of that
project and proves that, this project will go in the favor of the Government and
the public as well. Here his convincing power will affect his communication if he
succeeds to sell his ideas he will get his project approved by the Commission so
now the planning Commission will approve the project PC-1 in respect of his
presentation. This was an effective example of sell style of communication.

3. Confer Style
Confer style is appropriate when you are trying to consult or interact with your
audience to gather the information and you want to learn the answer from them
as you dont know the answer. It is sometimes called the inquiry style,
For Example:
A common example to confer is the gathering of a social group where some of the
members of that group are working for the betterment of a specific society and
there is a monthly or weekly meeting of that group to exchange their ideas and
experiences gained from that society. The members are the communicators and
the audience as well and gain the answers of their desired questions about that
society from one anothers ideas and experiences. Such type of meeting is usually
called Conference or Workshop where different Ideas and experiences are exhausted.
Communicator will now ask the members about their experiences and ideas about that
society in that way so that he would get enough knowledge regarding his desired objective.
4. Join Style
In Join Style, you are collaborating with your audience to come up with the
content (such as brainstorming session).
For Example:
Take an example of a student of PhD, who has given the task to research on the
relevant topic. Now he do have that much knowledge or he do not have any
knowledge about the given topic, he would be gi ve n a lo ng s p a n o f t i me
to be do ne with his research so that he could gather enough
information about the research topic. So the student would start
research on his task and would go into the field and try to get information
about the objective, he would concern each and every source from
where could he get the information and collects the information about the
subject. After researching he has a lot of information that he could create
his own theory on that objective which shows, how effective and
creative this style of communication is.

Your communication style should vary with each situation you encounter.
Generally, uses tell/sell styles when:
1. You have sufficient information,
2. You can understand that information without help from others, and
3. You are concerned with a quick, logical, orderly decision.
Generally, use consult/ join styles when:
1. You need more information,
2. You need critical evaluation from other, and
3. You are concerned with implementation of the decision