Presentation and Analysis of a challenge in organizational communication – The challenge is the organization of a fund raising event within the borders of an educational organization – Presentation of the reflections and thoughts drawn upon the challenge described as far as issues on organizational communication are concerned
[The author’s name]
Abstract
This paper will present you with a challenge as brought up within the borders of the educational community of a private educational organization. The presentation and analysis of the challenge aims at presenting you with all possible issues which can be explored in the field of the organizational communication. The challenge of this paper is the organization of a fund raising event in the school in which I am working as the teacher of drama. The fund raising event has been decided on behalf of the school committee at a very short notice and it has to be organized and perfectly performed within a very limited period of time. The challenging traits of this event lie in two main facts. The first fact causing the challenging nature of the event is that it has to be organized at a very short notice. The second challenging trait is that it requires the active participation of all classes, of students, educators and volunteer parents. Since this challenge is the organization of an event which requires foremost the properly performed communication between all those involved in the operation of our educational organization, it is clear that the paper will present you with a challenge in organizational communication. All aspects involved in this challenge as experienced on behalf of me as one of the coordinators of the event will be presented. Reflections and thoughts on all arising issues concerning challenges within the field of organizational communication will be drawn and analyzed as well.
Key Words: Organizational communication, challenge, active participation, pathetic attitude, collaboration, conflicts, misinterpretations
Presentation and Analysis of a challenge in organizational communication – The challenge is the organization of a fund raising event within the borders of an educational organization – Presentation of the reflections and thoughts drawn upon the challenge described as far as issues on organizational communication are concerned
The challenge you will be presented with took place last year in October, just a few weeks before the Halloween celebrations. The Educational organization within which I have been working for the last 4 years is a well-reputed private institution consisting of all educational levels, form first class of primary school till the senior class of High school. All educational levels are characterized by well bonded relationships and a high level of well-established organization and co-operation.
The socio-cultural level of students could be characterized high in terms of the financial and educational background of their families whereas the socio-cultural environment of the area within which this educational organization has been operating during the last decade is also characterized by a prosperity in terms of the quality of life of its citizens. This has resulted in the school keeping a high level of performance on behalf of its students in exam scores as well as in the final exams and university entrance rates. The high quality of the educational work performed within this educational organization has resulted in building up confidence, well-meant ambitions and high quality of cooperation between all those involved in the educational procedure.
The specific challenge came about as a result of an innovative idea proposed by the new teacher of Music and Dance who was hired last year. According to the organizational policy the Halloween celebrations were solely organized by Secondary and High school with the primary school students not be allowed to participate. It was a tradition deriving in the commonly shared belief that younger students seemed to have more problems and fears in celebrating this festival rather than enjoyment. Yet the Music and Dance teacher came to the weekly board meeting just two weeks before the programmed date of the festival and announced the rest of the primary school teachers with his proposal of organizing a separate more friendly Halloween celebration for the primary school students. He explained that his idea derived from his feeling his students of all primary classes but especially of the older ones to be really sad that they had never been asked on whether they would like to participate in such a festival or not. He highlighted the need for making students feeling comfortable and once more he emphasized on the need to make all students feel free to enjoy. Besides as he last said it was not supposed to be obligatory, it would be organized in a purely volunteering basis.
The proposal was received with enthusiasm since primary school teachers seemed to have always felt bad that this tradition had once been established and never questioned before. Probably they felt as they seemed that it was time some things changed. But once the decision was taken, it was then that the great challenge arose.
There was no time for the festival to be organized and the most important there was not any money. How could money for the organization of a nice festival be raised within such short notice?
So then everybody of the board meeting – fourteen teachers in total including the manager – started looking at each other feeling peculiar, sad and unable to do anything so as to achieve their goal. Then the Literature teacher stood up and proposed that a theatrical performance was organized for the forthcoming weekend so that the money from the tickets could be used for the organization of the festival which was supposed to be a surprise for the students. And then the greatest challenge of all came. Everybody stared at me. Suddenly I felt like the fish out of water. How was I supposed to perform a play with my theatrical team in such short notice? I only had one week in front of me.
The first thing which really stroke me was that everybody else was thrilled with the fever of the challenge, full of enthusiasm and anticipation for the Halloween festival. There were only two people who seemed to worry about the theatrical performance. I myself as the drama teacher and the teacher of Music and Dance since he was supposed to help me with the chorography of the performance.
This was the first direct difference visible to me. And then in the days that followed a whole series of not so funny events took place just to prove that organizational communication is not something so easy after all even if the greatest foundations exist.
What seemed to be a piece of cake to the others was a mountain of stress to me and the Music teacher who took it for granted that since no time existed, then no chorography would exist in our play. My theatrical team broke into laughter since they were given the chance to play the short paly of three acts which was the result of our writing project in the previous summer vacation. I on the other hand thought that this would be too risky. The story consisted of three acts where sarcasm was the main theatrical device of performers who played their role of criticizing what they had not liked in the last before summer excursion of the school. I was not so sure whether the rest of the teachers and parents would like to witness such thoughts. This was a writing process I had asked them to do in summer as a way of getting to know unknown parts of themselves and explore things about them. It was certainly not asked aiming at being put on stage at one point.
The chorography never came and the Dance teacher, the one who started it all never showed up in the everyday rehearsals. The other teachers kept on doing their work while waiting for the day of the festival to come and adopting while hidden behind the walls of their classes the false identity of the teacher who first had the idea of introducing the festival as a new rule of the primary school’s organization. When the Dance teacher heard it a number of arguments occurred behind the walls of the teachers’ office.
Parents on the other hand did not seem to receive this invitation to the theatrical performance very positively. They thought it was too tiring for their young children to get so overtired on a daily basis due to their intensive rehearsals and at the same time it seemed too weird for them to pay for a ticket for their children’s performance in school.
What had been seen as the opportunity to raise money on behalf of the teachers, was seen as stupid and unnecessary on their behalf. Moreover, things got worse wince they had not been told the real reason of fund raising. They thought that the fund raising event which traditionally took place every Christmas within the organization of the Christmas bazaar was more than enough. Yet, lots of efforts were done on behalf of the teachers and the manager ot convince them on attending the performance and paying for their tickets. Yet the intense rejection coming from them, led the manager to the decision to inform the parents on the real reason of the fund raising theatrical performance.
Nevertheless, things got even worse since communication channels failed to achieve what they hoped for. Greater rejection than acceptance was what the manager received from the parents. Most of them believed it was too silly to organize something at such short notice, to put so much burden on their kids, the ones participating in the theatrical team and perform all this noise and fuss in the name of a festival. They even questioned the function and profile of the school. Schools are supposed to operate as means of educating people, of offering them knowledge and not of leading them to hunting more and more ways of having fun. They could have fun with their families.
The challenge failed and the result was for the whole plan of the surprise to collapse. What happened instead was that students of primary school were allowed if they wanted to come to the Halloween party of the Secondary and High school. Barely anyone came. Most of them preferred to spend Halloween with their family and friends.
Conclusion
This challenge which failed in being achieved is a living proof of what organizational communication requires in order to operate accordingly and efficiently. It requires foremost plenty of time. Time is necessary in order to help people who are expected to communicate to get to know each other better. When time is not enough then an organization cannot function as a whole. In addition, there is high need for a relaxing, comfortable environment. If comfort is replaced by stress and anxiety then no communication channels can be built. Everyone stays behind, hidden behind his / her defensive mask and awaits for someone else to get the burden of the whole challenge.
Last but not least an organization cannot operate without taking into consideration the vibes and atmosphere of the environment and the world outside. If a decision of the organization depends on how others are affected or how they deal with it and what they seem to believe about it, then no decisions can be successfully applied.
References
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