The ability to communicate is what that separates human beings from all other creatures of this planet. But for most of the organizations, this is a very much illusive problem. Recently, I accepted an extra faculty position at a local private institute for higher learning given that their schedule of 5-week courses worked well with my schedule. My first class was to begin the first week of January 2008. I had yet to receive the textbooks, parameters for the syllabus to expectations for the students. On the Friday following Thanksgiving, I received the books with a letter indicating to check a presumed website. I tried calling to get more information, but the office was closed for the holiday. Normally, this would not be a bad thing, but the letter requested for me to return a syllabus in less than 7 days and I had not even read the textbook. On the next day, Saturday, I received a letter stating that my contract was terminated because my credentials were insufficient. Now I am really confused.
The following Monday morning I called the campus office that originally hired and spoke with the Campus Director who quickly apologized for the letter. For you see, he did not know about it either until earlier that morning when his office was bombarded with other calls from other adjunct faculty members who had received the same letter. Are you beginning to sense that this institution has suffers from poor communication? Then I called the person who sent the textbooks and asked about the website. This very nice lady was absolutely clueless about what she had failed to communicate. She agreed to send me the website with password after the fact. Never did she understand that her actions had wasted a couple days.
Poor communication causes a cascade affect within any organization. The result is a lot of unsatisfied customers and needless stress. Additionally, productivity is directed to the past and not to the current or future needs of the organization. Just think how much time this campus director to speaking with adjunct faculty members when he could have been more productive with current tasks devoted? Lesson learned. Even though we have this superior ability to communicate, we must always be vigilant that we are communicating clearly and succinctly. This is why the organization’s vision, values and mission must be firmly known, uniformly and consistently demonstrated by everyone in the organization. Otherwise chaos reigns and the organization suffers not to mention all the stress the employees have received.
The following Monday morning I called the campus office that originally hired and spoke with the Campus Director who quickly apologized for the letter. For you see, he did not know about it either until earlier that morning when his office was bombarded with other calls from other adjunct faculty members who had received the same letter. Are you beginning to sense that this institution has suffers from poor communication? Then I called the person who sent the textbooks and asked about the website. This very nice lady was absolutely clueless about what she had failed to communicate. She agreed to send me the website with password after the fact. Never did she understand that her actions had wasted a couple days.
Poor communication causes a cascade affect within any organization. The result is a lot of unsatisfied customers and needless stress. Additionally, productivity is directed to the past and not to the current or future needs of the organization. Just think how much time this campus director to speaking with adjunct faculty members when he could have been more productive with current tasks devoted? Lesson learned. Even though we have this superior ability to communicate, we must always be vigilant that we are communicating clearly and succinctly. This is why the organization’s vision, values and mission must be firmly known, uniformly and consistently demonstrated by everyone in the organization. Otherwise chaos reigns and the organization suffers not to mention all the stress the employees have received.
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