Ana María Fernández-Vallejo offers the following 'Five keys to improve communication in companies'. Fernández-Vallejo holds a PhD in Classical Philology and teaches 'Communication in the business' in the Degree en attendance de Dirección - Management Assistance at the University of Navarra:

"The life of business is, in a very high proportion, communication: a business always communicates, even when it does not intend to. Let's remember that business is an organization of people and the way to connect, to connect the stakeholders of a business is none other than communication.

Communicate internally, externally, communication in all directions and, at the center of these communications, you, assistant manager. Your work is, in a very high percentage, communication. You inevitably work to transfer information from one team to another, from one department to another, from one person to another, from the inside to the outside, from top to bottom, and vice versa. Part of the success of business is in your hand: improving productivity, quality, commitment, motivation, brand reputation, sales, often depends on your communication, effective communication.

And how to communicate properly? Here are 5 simple tips:

1. Before communicating, ask yourself the following questions:

   1. Who are you communicating to? Think about what profile has: what does it know about the topic you are proposing, what level of lexis does it understand, what relationship does it have with my business:skill, provider, shareholder, angry shareholder, etc.?

   2. What do you want to communicate: the new product, the sales success, the change in management, the payment of a invoice, etc.?

   3. What do you want to achieve with your information: sell more, build loyalty, motivate your teammates, etc.?

   4. At what moment do you communicate? After a period of prosperity, after a misfortune, in a moment of anger?

2. Always make a outline of what you are going to write or speak; no improvisations. A good structure will be the beams that support, shape and give shape and entity to the body of the oral or written message; otherwise, the building runs the risk of not meeting the objectives initially set: to communicate what, in reality, you wanted to communicate.

3. Think about the right channel: oral or written. Not everything is mail or phone calls. General recommendation: negative messages, compromised messages or in anomalous situations, oral communication is preferable.

4. Before shaping and after having decided on points 2 and 3, it is advisable to be clear about the spatial or temporal extension. It is not the same to write a 2-page report , than 50; and it is not the same to have 5 minutes than 60 minutes to present our new service.

5. Don't try to impress with your knowledge or the successes of your business. Simple language, humble attitude: nothing is more repulsive than a language and a message full of exaggerations.

In short: construct a relevant, interesting, involving message. And here the maxim of Baltasar Gracián applies: 'the brief, if good, is twice as good'".