Effective Communication:
Communication is an important aspect of our daily activities and in all institutions. Without communication, there can never be any mutual understanding between the parties involved. For communication to be successful, it needs to be effective and ensure that the parties involved receive the necessary feedback. In a higher learning institution, college students need to have effective communication with the Academic Advising officer to make sure that any issues they might have is addressed. The types of communication involved between these parties needs to be effective because the parties might have conflicting issues. Therefore, to be able to create effective communication between students and Academic Advising Officers well-established strategies must be observed.
Identifying the media channels to use between the student and the Academic Advising officer is one of the most important strategies for enhancing effecting communication. Deciding on the media to use helps to avoid confusion or disorganization so when a student is faced with an issue, he/she knows the right channels to use. Such media channels can involve, writing letters to the officer or sending the class representatives to represent them to the Academic Advising officer (Ord et al. 2010). Establishing a timetable is another strategy that can help create effective communication. In the timetable, the college students and the Academic Advising officer can be in a position to understand the right time to address their issues. As a result, the timetable will save a lot of time and will make sure that a specific time is set aside to engage the students and the advising officer.
Learning to listen is also a strategy that the students and the academic advising officer need to uphold. The communicating parties need to learn to listen to each other to be able to capture the key issue that each person is presenting. According to Laskin (2010), without paying attention to listening, it ends up building thought leadership in which one party considers itself superior to the other which is not healthy at all. Therefore, when the college students and the academic advisors learn to listen to each other, then they will end up having effective communication.
Students and the academic advising officers can also adopt the strategy of being flexible to each other to enhance effective communication. In this strategy, the two parties should be open to each other’s points of view without being quick to judge or despise. According to Berkhof et al. (2011), in this way, each party will be in a position to feel that they have a platform to air their views and concerns and in the process be able to bring about diverse ideas. Furthermore, performing situation analysis is also another strategy that can help in creating effective communication between the college students and the academic advising officer. With the situation analysis, the communicating parties need to have a stand concerning the kind of information to present; otherwise, they might present information that might be entirely out of topic.
In the process of enhancing effective communication, the college and academic advising officer should ensure that the communication objectives have been well established. Before the two parties engage in any communication, they should have the objectives of why they are engaging in the communication. Communication cannot be effective if there is no clear reason as to why they are engaging in conversations. In conclusion, for communication to be effective the parties should make sure that they understand all the strategies they need to uphold; otherwise, the communication will end up being null and void.
References
Berkhof, M., van Rijssen, H. J., Schellart, A. J., Anema, J. R., & van der Beek, A. J. (2011). Effective training strategies for teaching communication skills to physicians: an overview of systematic reviews. Patient education and counseling, 84(2), 152-162.
Laskin, A. (2010). Managing investor relations: Strategies for effective communication. Business Expert Press.
Ord, T. J., Charles, G. K., & Hofer, R. K. (2010). The evolution of alternative adaptive strategies for effective communication in noisy environments. The American Naturalist, 177(1), 54-64.
