This article discusses the role of communication in the activity Manager of education. Today management plays a considerable role in the education system. According to the research most of the time the manager spends on communication. In the system of education communication plays essential role as with its help the information is trans
Today management plays a considerable role in the society. Because during several decades the human activity is accompanied by row of continuous changes in social, political, economic and other spheres of social life which in their turn demand changes in us. Their main part as the world experience shows is comprehension of science and art of management.
Management is defined as a skill to achieve aims using labour, intellect and motives of other people’s behavior, as a type of activity in managing people in organizations, and as a sphere of human knowledge which allows executing this function. I.e. the core of contemporary management means that in the one hand it originates from a person, his needs and aims, from transformation of knowledge, experience and achievements in science and technical progress into productive power and in the other hand the creative power of managing consists in using informational technologies. Contemporary managers attach a special importance to group work and cooperation treating the employees as partners and not as subordinates.
Management in contemporary science is regarded as the process because the work on achieving aims with the help of others is not a nonrecurring action but a series of interconnected ceaseless actions each of which is the process and furthermore very important for success of the organization.
According to the research the manager spends from 50 till 90 % of all time on communication. The manager does it in order to realize his roles in interpersonal relations, informational exchange and processes of making decisions, saying nothing of management functions of planning, organizing, motivating and control. And just because the exchange of information is included into the main types of management activity, communications are called connecting process and their effectiveness plays a significant role for success of people and organizations [3].
In the system of education communication plays essential role as with its help the information is transferred both from manager to subordinates and vice versa and from teachers to children. There are several types of communications in offices and in educational systems.
Communications between organization and its environment.
The activity of organizations in educational system is influenced by the factors of external environment (political, social, cultural and etc.). Communicational needs of organization depend on these factors. If there was a necessity to analyze what is really being spoken, written and read in organizations, the main attention would have to be concentrated on the questions connected with the needs of informational interaction with external environment which influences or will influence on the organization.
Information is moving around inside the organization from level to level within the frames of vertical communication. It can be transferred downwards, i.e. from top levels to lower ones. This way the subordinate levels of management are informed about current tasks, change of priorities, concrete targets, and recommendable procedures and so on.
Transference of the information from lower levels to top ones may noticeably influence on quality of education.
Besides that upward communications also fulfill the function of informing top levels about what is being done at lower levels. This way the administration finds out about current or brewing problems and suggests possible variants of correcting the state of affairs. The exchange of information upwards usually happens in the form of accounts, suggestions and explanatory notes.
In addition to the informational exchange downwards or upwards the organizations need horizontal communications. Organization consists of numerous divisions, that is why the informational exchange is necessary for co-ordination of tasks and actions. Since organization is a system of interconnected elements administration should achieve collective work of the specialized elements promoting organization in necessary direction.
For example representatives of different departments in an educational institution periodically exchange information with each other in such questions as making schedules, level of demands for undergraduates in the programs, cooperation in researching and consulting. This allows organization retaining nearness to consumer and continuing effectively satisfying his demands. This way, operative workers should give reasons of quite low expenses for realization of future innovations of project and research department so that further production was reasonable. In horizontal informational exchange usually take part committees and specialized groups.
Additional advantages of horizontal communications consist in forming equitable relations. It is proven that these relations are important constituent of contentment of employees in education system.
One of the components of communications in organization is relations between a manager and subordinates. The researches reveal that two third of this activity is fulfilled by managers and subordinates [1].
Some of numerous types of informational exchange between manager and subordinates are connected with clarification of the tasks, priorities and expected results, with providing involvement into taking decisions of the tasks in educational institutions, with discussion of the problems of work effectiveness, with achieving of admission and award aiming at motivation, with elaboration and development of subordinates’ skills, with accumulation of information about brewing or really existing problem, with announcement of subordinate about future changes, and with getting data about ideas, improvements and suggestions.
In addition to informational exchange between manager and subordinate there takes place the exchange between manager and his work group. The communications with work group in general allow manager to raise the effectiveness of the group’s actions. Since in the exchange take part all the members of the group everybody has the possibility to ponder upon new tasks and priorities of educational institution, upon the way they should work together, upon forthcoming changes and possible consequences for this and other institutions, upon recent problems, achievements and suggestions of innovative character.
Besides that sometimes the work group gathers together without managers for discussion of the problems, improvements and oncoming changes. Such equal relations may contribute to raising the contentment of the co-workers with their work.
Organization consists of formal and informal components. The channel of informal communications may be called the channel of gossip spreading. The information is transferred much faster through channels of gossips than through channels of formal communications.
The reputation of inaccurate information assigned to gossips is preserved till nowadays. Nevertheless the researches reveal that information transferred through channels of informal communication, i.e. gossips, is usually accurate but not distorted.
The informational exchange comprises different part of organization, and it correlates with effectiveness of information. It is notorious that the exchange of information in organizations is not as effective as it should be. In reality people communicate less effectively than it seems to them.
During the exchange both sides play the active role. For example if you as a manager describe the way work should be changed to someone of your subordinates it is only the beginning of exchange. To make the informational exchange effective your subordinate should convey his understanding of the task and your expectations according to the results of his activity. Informational exchange happens only in case that one side «suggests» information and another perceives it. To fulfill it exactly this way one should pay special attention to communication process.
Communication process is informational exchange between two or more people.
The main purpose of communication process is to guarantee the understanding of information which is the subject of exchange, i.e. messages. In the process of informational exchange there may be distinguished four basic elements [2]:
- Sender is a person generating ideas or accumulating information and transferring it;
- Message is just an information encoded with symbols;
- Channel is means of transferring information;
- Receiver is a person for whom the information is dedicated and who interprets it.
While exchanging the information sender and receiver go through several interconnected stages aimed at composing a message and using a channel for transferring it so that both sides understood it and followed the original idea:
- Conceiving an idea;
- Encoding and choosing a channel;
- Transferring;
- Decoding.
The informational exchange begins with enunciation of the idea or selection of the information. Sender decides which significant idea or message should be made as a subject of exchange. It is important to remember that the idea is not yet transformed into words or has not got the shape in which it will serve the exchange of information. Sender decided only what conception he wanted to make the subject of informational exchange. To fulfill the exchange effectively he needs to take into account numerous factors. For example manager who wants to exchange the information about evaluation of the results of work must understand that the idea consists in informing subordinates about the concrete information of their weak and strong sides and about the way to improve the results of their work. Thus it is necessary to realize what ideas are dedicated to transference before you send a message and assurance in adequacy and relevance of your ideas taking into account concrete situation and aim.
Before transferring an idea sender must encode it with symbols using words, intonation and gestures (body language) for it. Such encoding transforms the idea into a message.
Senders must also choose a channel compatible with the type of symbols used for encoding. To some of the well-known channels refer the transference of speech and written materials as well as electronic connection including computer network, e-mail, videotapes and videoconferences. If a channel is improper for physical transformation of symbols the transference is impossible. If a channel doesn’t correspond to the idea conceived at the first stage the informational exchange will be less effective. For example a manager wants to warn a subordinate about illicitness of his committing the violations of safety measures and does it during easy talk with cup of coffee or sending him a note on this occasion. However through these channels it won’t probably succeed to transfer the idea of seriousness of these violations as effectively as in official letter or at the conference. Similarly sending a note to the subordinate about the distinction of her achievements won’t transfer the idea of the importance of her contribution to work and it won’t be as effective as direct talk with following official letter of appreciation and with award as well.
The choice of transference means shouldn’t be limited with one channel. It is often advisable to use two or more means of communication in combination. The researches reveal that simultaneous usage of exchange mans of oral and written information is usually more effective than let it say only exchange of written information. Discussing the results of this research professor Torrens Mitchell points out the main conclusion of this work – the combination of oral and written message does the informational exchange more effective in most of the cases.
At the third stage sender uses the channel for delivering the message (encoded idea or complex of ideas) to receiver. The question is about physical transference of the message which many people take by mistake for the very process of communication. At the same time the transference is one of the primary stages which are necessary to go through to inform somebody of the idea.
When the sender has transferred the message the receiver decodes it. Decoding is translation of sender’s symbols into receiver’s thoughts. If the symbols chosen by the sender have equal meaning for receiver, the last will know what the sender meant when couching his idea. If the reaction to the idea is not necessary the process of informational exchange should be over. However for a number of reasons the receiver may attach a bit different meaning to a message than the sender had. From manager’s point of view the informational exchange should be considered effective if the receiver demonstrates the understanding of the idea producing an action which was expected by the sender [2].
In case of feedback, sender and receiver exchange communicative roles. Former receiver becomes sender and goes through all stages of the process of informational exchange to transfer his response to former sender who now plays the role of receiver.
Feedback may promote to increase the effectiveness of exchange of administrative information. According to row of researches two-way informational exchange (in case of possibility of feedback) in comparison to one-way exchange (feedback is absent) though it proceeds slower. Nevertheless it relieves stresses more effectively, it is more accurate and ir raises the confidence in correctness of message interpretation.
Feedback noticeably raises the chances for effective informational exchange allowing both sides to suppress the noise. In the language of theory of informational transference the noise is called everything that distorts the meaning. The resources of noise that may create the blocks on the way of informational exchange vary from language (in verbal or non-verbal form) to differences in perception because of which the meaning in the processes of encoding and decoding may change and to the differences in organizational status between manager and subordinates who may obstruct the correct transference of the information.
Definite noises always occur that is why at every stage in the process of informational exchange happens some distortion of the meaning. High level of noise will lead to noticeable loss of meaning and may completely block the attempt to establish the informational exchange. From the manager’s position this should determine the decrease of degree in achieving the aims according to transferred information.
All available informational systems in organization are the result of realization of accepted informational politics. Real creation of organization in educational system oriented to effective work with information occur only when politics in the sphere of informational technologies is considered by administration as natural element of activity and life of organization and is consciously ruled in appropriate way.
Thus, information for work of any educational institution is no less important than making decision, motivation or planning. The correctness of action at every administrational stage depends on the correctness of information, its adequacy and completeness. This means that for providing effective activity of organization the manager should take care of getting accurate data on base of which all the future work will be fulfilled.
The work is submitted to the International Scientific Conference «Introduction of new educational technologies and principles of the organization of educational process», Indonesia, December, 08-15, 2013, came to the editorial office оn 28.11.2013.
Библиографическая ссылка
Sankhayeva A.N., Karatayeva I.P. Importance of information in management of educational system // Международный журнал экспериментального образования. – 2014. – № 2. – С. 23-26;URL: https://expeducation.ru/ru/article/view?id=4611 (дата обращения: 21.11.2024).