MOUNT KENYA UNIVERSITY

UNIT CODE: BUCU 001

UNIT TITLE: COMMUNICATION SKILLS

NAME: HASSAN ABIKAR LATHAN

ADM NO: BBM/2020/68803

QUESTION 1

Discuss any three principles of communication. Illustrate your points (15 marks)

Solution

Communication is a very important virtual in any form of speaking or listening.

Communication is the key component in any business or organization that thrives the business to

either be successful or fail (Isaac, 2016).

The following are the key principles of communication:

a. Listen

A good communication is derived by good listening skills. A person who listens well in

any communication and understand what is being discussed, grasps everything and

understands the good morals of communication. Listening to your audience or taking

their views is also a good virtue of good listening skills. A good speaker is a person who

listens to his or her audience and grasp about their views, what they want and how they

want the problem solved.

Decision makes have the skills of listening to a problem, understanding it and coming

with a good conclusion about that problem. An organization that makes good goals and

objectives, have a good communication between the employer and employee and this

way improves the employee morale to strive towards the organizational goals and

objectives.

Example, let’s evaluate by taking a case study of a rude boy who never listens to his

father’s advices, then one day he escapes home and goes to the city but he gets lost. The

moral of the story is that the boy never listened to his father. Listening is very important
 b. Be clear

This one of the main principles of effective communication. A clear person does his or

her communication in a good and clear manner. If clear communication is passed,

information is well understood and this makes many things to be solved without

contradiction.

In a presentation room, a person presenting the work is supposed to be clear with the

work or task is presenting so as to save time and also make the work easier for others.

Clarity is very important since it outlines the most important parts of communication.

To be clear also, you need to use a language that is well understood by the receiver

without confusing him or her. Same linguistic should be communicated by both the

sender and the receiver.

c. Be Persuasive

This is another great principle of communication since it shows how a person can achieve

his or her goals by being persuasive. Listen to the side of the story first then persuade

using your own understanding. A communication which is persuasive is an effective one.

Use verbal and non-verbal communications to convince the other party. Logical thinking

creates good morals in a communication.

When applying for a loan, persuasiveness is required since this makes the person giving

out the loan believe the side of the story.

QUESTION 2

Discuss any five factors that would influence the success of a meeting (15 marks)

Solution
Meetings are very essential in an organization or a company (Muhammad, 2015). Factors that

would influence the success of a meeting include:

a. Clear and concise agenda of meeting

Agenda meetings should be clear in a good and clear manner. If clear communication

is passed, information is well understood and this makes many things to be solved

without contradiction. In a presentation room, a person presenting the work is

supposed to be clear with the work or task is presenting so as to save time and also

make the work easier for others. Clarity is very important since it outlines the most

important parts of communication.

Agenda is the key to success of the meeting. If the agenda is complicated, detailed

and comprehensive, it will lose the interest of the participant which leads to

complicate the issues.

b. Check In / Participant’s list

This is a factor that determines how a meeting should be conducted, a meeting

without participants can’t happen. For a meeting to be successful it should include

participants. It is important to check participants list and sign them in.

c. Starting and Finishing Time

Make your that meeting starts and end on the specified time with smiles and

aggressive environment. Don’t run over. Time is second key to the successful

progress meeting. Time is precious and not for wasting. There is nothing more

frustrating than people turning up 15 minutes after the scheduled start time and the

meeting running over by 30 minutes. Make sure that it is clear to everyone that you

will be starting and finishing on time. 

 Good leader is the one who arranged his agenda to cover in the specified time frame.

Try to get involve the participants not to bore them.

Progress meeting of One Hour is considered as favorite, fruitful and attractive.

A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.

d. Establishment of Ground and Administrative Rules

Ground rules should be established to make fruitful and successful meeting. Strictly

follow these ground rules. For multicultural projects, meeting language should strictly

follow to get involve all the stakeholders. “I personally attended some meetings in

multicultural environment and noted that stakeholders losing their interest in the

meeting. Whey because the meeting language is not strictly followed and expatriates

are not well familiar with local language. ” It is highly recommended to adopt one

language to get involve all the stakeholders and to be on the same page.

e. Action Items

Action items shall be clearly marked and assigned to the participant. Agreed action

plan shall be distributed to the participants and continuous follow up of the action

items will make easy to monitor the project performance and result oriented meeting.

REFERENCES

Isaac, Justesen. (2016, April 28). 10 Principles of Effective Communication. Retrieved

from https://www.constant-content.com/content-writing-service/2016/04/ten-principles-of-good-

communication/

Muhammad, Azhar. (2015, January 7). 10 key factors for a successful progress

meeting. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-key-factors-successful-progress-

meeting-engr-muhammad-azhar/