Interpersonal And E-Communication For Professional Business

Communication

Discuss about the Interpersonal and E-Communication for Professional Business.

Communication is important when it comes to achieving the goals of any business. With easy flow of information among the staff and between the managers and employees then the set visions can be reached with less struggle. Augment human capabilities are well facilitated through contemporary telecommunication (Wood, p. 22). The scale and rhythm of our lives have been affected by such issues which have now become essential to the global economy that we all depend on. Just like any other business running an educational institution requires one to embrace contemporary issues related to communication among staff, students and parents.  When one has effective communication skills then their businesses are made to flourish in many ways. It often provides room for opportunities which influence trends, perceptions and conversations. It also ensures close ties with important stakeholders in the business like teachers, parents, support staff and students (McLean, p. 10). Effective communication ensures faster problem solving and proper decision making which is based on reliable information. It increases steadier work flow as well as productivity. It also ensures employees engage well with their work thus leading to improved job satisfaction and lowers the turnover of employees.

Communication: There is need to extend our personal capabilities to various stakeholders when running a school business. Technical means are used to augment and also extend the natural capabilities of writing, speaking, drawing as well as counting so as to provide a diversity that is rich in all ways of communicating (Fulk and Boyd, p. 408). This results to an impressive number of mass communication facilities and intercommunication. A school business is well run on telecommunication capabilities among all the stakeholders. Therefore, there is need to understand the application of television, telephone, facsimile and electronic mails as means of communicating.

The distribution and exchange of information is what is termed as communication. In a school business this is crucial because there is a lot of information that needs to be shared between the school management, students and parents/guardians (Habermas, p. 100). Communication in such a setup could be one way for example if it’s an announcement or two ways where we have interactive exchange where the information is transmitted in one way at a particular time. It could also be simultaneous where data is exchanged at once in two directions between machines. This has been evident in a school set up where teachers may be required to submit in students’ results online to a common exam control centre thus simultaneous communication (Gray and Robertson pg 26-28). This kind of communication has its own merits and demerits. For instance such a system may be compromised by some staff that could hack into the system and tamper with students’ results. But on a larger picture it’s quite convenient and ensures faster transactions and efficient running of the institution. A lot of information can be shared among departments in a school without having to set up a physical meeting which could be time and resource consuming (Fulk and Boyd, p. 436).

Telecommunication

Telecommunication: This form of communication facilitates distance exchange of information. This can include different forms of communication like the use of newspapers, telephone and letters. However, it has customarily been associated with electronic communication only which includes communication via radio, television, telephone and data exchange (Kalla, p. 308). This can be done between people, people and machines as well as between machines to achieve distribution or exchange of information separated by some distance. It’s the most convenient means of passing information in a school business. However, it has its own limits like there is limited understanding of the information for instance if an advert has been placed in a newspaper some parents may fail to understand the information therein and may require explanation from the school (McLean, p. 10). It is also not convenient to all stakeholders; not all parents are literate and therefore may not easily get to know what the communication is all about. Communication via radio, television or telephone could be quite expensive to the institution unlike calling for a one on one meeting with the stakeholders. However, that notwithstanding, telecommunication is the way of doing business in the current economy (Barry and Fulmer, p. 274). It’s the easiest way to attract more clientele by the institution, it’s also faster and the information reaches the intended recipient on time.

Telecommunication is achieved in different ways such as

This is where information flows between two sites which could involve computers or persons. If computers are involved then the intercommunication is done on demand, happening between units which are authorized for communication. For example, there could be a command to send student registration from administration offices to various faculties to facilitate processing of examination materials (Gaines-Ross, p. 9). There may be miscommunication if the person in charge of commands makes a mistake and the right information could be send to the wrong department. Also in case of power shortage data may be lost if there was no backup within the system.  In cases where people are involved this works on mutual agreement between the concerned parties and with continuous communication they format the contents of the information to meet the necessary requirements (Barry and Fulmer, p. 274).  Intercommunication services at times become congested especially during peak periods thus denying potential users some services. It therefore limits the number of people that can be served at a particular time with certain equipment.

Intercommunication

This is where information is sent from a single transmitter to a big number of recipients without needed response from those receiving the information. Such kind of communication rarely suffers limitations in capacity i.e. there is no limit on the number of sites that can get some certain services (Wood, p. 22).  This is quite convenient when running an academic institution which has got parents from different regions. Through mass communication information such as parents, teachers association meeting dates can easily be communicated. It has however a limited number of originators that can carry out operations simultaneously. For example, for the radio only a certain number of frequency is usually available while for the television a limit to the number of channels used is set by the different characteristics of the cable used in distributing the signals (Pearson and Nelson, p. 6).

Mass communication can also be achieved through use of electronic mails where some information is written and copied to different recipients. This has made communication faster and cheaper compared to the usual way of writing and posting letters (Markus, p. 517). For example to call for a staff meeting, what the principal needs to do is simply write a mail to their deputies and then copy the same to his staff. This however has its own limits in the sense that not all staff members can have access to their mails on a daily basis and some are likely to miss out on the meeting dates. Also internet use is prone to hacking and confidential information or data is likely to leak out to the wrong recipient (Burleson and Planalp, p. 223).

We often use words to represent some aspects of our environment and therefore they play some important roles in communication. The words use may be to describe an important concept or idea and therefore one should assess the audience first. All in all using language to communicate ideas should be done in the simplest way possible. For example, the kind of words used to address children in a nursery class within a school should be different from the ones used while addressing senor staff at school (Pearson and Nelson, p. 6).  It’s advisable to avoid the use of slang and jargon while communicating some official information. The ability of simplifying a concept makes it easier to communicate. However, in some cases it makes people lose track of the meaning of what one is trying to convey through summary (Pandey and Garnett, p. 47). All in all for effective communication keep it simple but official depending with the recipient or audience.

Mass Communication

Conclusion

For any profession to be successful there is need for the managers and employees to communicate effectively with one another, with those outside their organization and with people from different cultures. The need for communication is sharing information and it happens in different ways like a simple but successful transfer of information and negotiation between sender and receiver where they reach an agreed meaning. In some situations the receiver could create a different message from the one conveyed by the sender but finally they have to reach a consensus. (Cronen and Pearce, p. 68). Communication skills are essential in all the career paths that people pursue. Someone may have great ideas that can contribute to their career growth but if they cannot express them clearly then they are as good as nothing. For instance if one wants a school to grow and attract more students, then good communication is key. The person dealing with recruiting students should be convincing enough to the visiting parents as to why they should consider enrolling their children into the school. The school head should also develop good communication with their staff because they cannot run the institution minus teaching staff. To maintain all these staff then good communication is necessary. The world is full of good entrepreneurs but lacks good communicators (Pearson and Nelson, p. 6). Therefore having good communication skills should be taken as an opportunity to stand out from the high competition in the business world.

References

Pearson, J., & Nelson, P. (2000). An introduction to human communication: understanding and sharing (p. 6). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

McLean, S. (2005). The basics of interpersonal communication (p. 10). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Cronen, V., & Pearce, W. B. (1982). The coordinated management of meaning: A theory of communication. In F. E. Dance (Ed.), Human communication theory (pp. 61–89). New         York, NY: Harper & Row.

Wood, J. (1997). Communication in our lives (p. 22). Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action (Vol. 1, p. 100). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Barry, B., & Fulmer, I. S. (2004). The medium and the message: The adaptive use of communication media in dyadic influence.  Academy of Management Review,29, 272-  292. 

Burleson, B. R., & Planalp, S. (2000). Producing emotion(al) messages. Communication theory, 10, 221-250. 

Fulk, J., & Boyd, B. (1991). Emerging theories of communication in organizations. Journal of Management, 17, 407-446. 

Pandey, S. and Garnett, J. (2006). Exploring Public Sector Communication Performance: Testing a Model and Drawing Implications. Public Administration Review, 66 (1), p. 37-51. 

Markus, L. (1994). Electronic Mail as the Medium of Managerial Choice.  Organization Science, 5 (4), p. 502-527. 

Gaines-Ross, L. (2003). How To Build A Great CEO Reputation. Strategic Communication Management, 7 (5), p. 9. 

Gray, R. and Robertson, L. (2005). Effective Internal Communication Starts at the Top.Communication World (July-August), p. 26-28. 

Kalla, H. (2005). Integrated Internal Communications: A Multidisciplinary Perspective.Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 10 (4), p. 302-314.