Communication Essay

Business communication is a complicated created with a number of details and nuances. One of the foremost components of business communication is communication style; Direct, Systematic, Spirited, and Considerate. In the book "Losing My Virginity," Richard Branson tells of how he built a small newspaper business into a brand name, and one of the largest, most successful enterprises in the world. This is both due to and despite his spirited communication style, which has, at times, both created and hindered his progress.

Branson started his entrepreneurial spirit in high school, where he decided, along with a friend, to start a student paper espousing and calling upon the students to advocate for themselves and begin speak out. In the book, Branson describes himself as "calling up as many people that would pick up the phone," and would finagle himself in any which way to try to get ads for the paper (44). He used his guile to secure adverts, famous journalists, and stories. Throughout the book, his life, he describes himself as "always [willing to] try something once" (78). This is the motto of a spirited person, and the motto espoused by Branson already from a very young age. This is the motto that told Branson to stick his nose where no one else has before, and the foundation of his success.

Richard Branson has become a figure that some say is larger than life. He is the CEO of one of the largest and multifaceted companies in the world, and yet, he still interacts daily with people that benefit from his many services. He is always up for a challenge, an adventure, a new idea for his company. He is the quintessential model of what a spirited CEO should be, can be, and the benefits therein.

The benefits of having "a wild try, anything once nutjob" is the polarising effect that it has on the world (78). Branson acts with the constant awareness that most, if not all if the things he does are in the public eye. WIth this understanding, many of his personal actions took on a very public element, and in a very intentional way. For example, his participation in the fastest boat trip that crossed the Atlantic, his traveling in an air balloon across the ocean, his circling the globe in a hot air balloon - these are all things his personal interests,expressions of his fun and challenge-seeking spirit, which he, as a business-minded individual chose to channel into one major advertisement for the Virgin brand. He knew he could not suppress his personality, so he chose instead to harness it, and to make it part and parcel with the definition of Virgin. Branson didn't simply start Virgin, he defined it.

In addition to being a oversized and outspoken personality, Branson also is very loyal to the people around him. He generates personal connections, and sees it as his duty to maintain and nurture these relationships. This is quite evident when analyzing his relationship with Nik Powel. Although there came a point where their business relationship was deteriorating. this was not cause, at least for Branson, to terminate the friendship. Powel, on the other hand, a more systematic-type communicator, was somewhat miffed by the interaction, and was less inclined to maintain such a grey kind of relationship. To him, the concept of maintaining the relationship in only some of its original capacities was no longer black and white, and was a situation that, considering his systematic approach, he found difficult to navigate.

In the book, he describes the different relationships, business and otherwise, that succeeded and failed over the course of his life, and for various reasons. Overall, there was one very prevalent idea: Richard Branson was and always would be loyal to the Virgin brand. For good and for bad. He had a constant need to diversify and grow, at any and all costs. To Branson, the possibility of success, of development, of generating the next big thing was so thrilling, so intoxicating, it was worth risking bankruptcy to achieve it. He was a classic offender of cutting off his nose to spite his face. He invested in chance regardless of what the hard data said outright.

The best example of this was his idea to start a Virgin airline. Branson was approached by a lawyer from America to start an airline. At that time, Virgin operated a record label, recording studio, mail order music, music stores, and had even tried their hand in film and entertainment publishing. His partners, specifically Nik Powel, was one of his earliest friends from elementary school,and had been one of his partners since High School. Upon the suggestion to enter such a venture, Powel told him unequivocally not to do it. Despite their longstanding relationship, and despite Branson's offers to the contrary, this decision serves as the impetus in terminating their friendship. Reflecting on the story on a whole, it becomes evident that this is not a unique experience. It seems that a large number of Bransons closest personal friends, those whom he brought in to the company, and those with whom he became friends during their time at Virgin, left the company as a direct result of his preoccupation with starting an airline. Virgin, what to most was an already large enough enterprise, was always too small for Branson, and his attempts to make more room simply estranged the other individuals that occupied the same space.

Another symptom of his "dream big" communication style was that he often lost sight of the details in the grand scheme of thing. ALthough arguably necessary in any number of contexts, this habit can be particularly harmful when the neglected details surround the finances of the institution. Because he was so caught up in operating the new Virgin airline, he lost focus of one of the most important underlying features of any business venture, the money to finance it. The Virgin brand had fluctuated many times in the early years from a cash house that was making money hand over fist to almost bankrupt. Many of the times that they were close to being bankrupt