[CED/CD/EAT] Fwd: Bridging the communication gap - new year's resolution

[Silvertooth, Jeffrey C - (silverto)]

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From: "Ratje, Jeffrey M - (jmratje)" <jmratje at email.arizona.edu<mailto:jmratje at email.arizona.edu>>
Date: December 14, 2017 at 3:11:11 AM MST
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Subject: Bridging the communication gap - new year's resolution

I had the privilege of speaking with the Cooperative Extension and Experiment Station business officers at their in-service training on December 13.  The topic was effective communication.  It may be a platitude to say that academia is a challenging place to effectively communicate.  Each person and group has their own definitions, perspectives, paradigms, and outcomes.  Add to this the wide disciplinary diversity we have within our college – from sociologists to engineers – and communication can be doubly challenging.  I certainly have made one (or two☺) missteps.

This article from Inside Higher Education resonated with me in light of the conversation with business officers.  It paints an instructive picture of how communication can go awry: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/28/communication-issue-college-administrators-and-faculty-during-era-financial-change#.WizAChQX5Bc.linkedin

The December 6 budget retreat, bringing together ~35 academic, Extension, research, shared governance, and business leaders, is one way we invest in shared communication.  While I believe our communication has improved through deliberate effort over the last year, it is such a critical investment that we should never neglect it.  Borrowing from the CALS’ Communication Values<https://cals.arizona.edu/sites/cals.arizona.edu/files/documents/communicationvalues.pdf>, we can:

·         be aware of and appreciate our collective situation,

·         hold one another accountable for our strategic intentions,

·         listen to understand,

·         be honest, timely, and clear,

·         be respectful to one another,

·         transmit messages throughout the organization clearly and with fidelity, and

·         seek the best intentions in one another.

Effective communication, in this framework, is a mission-critical resource to our shared success, and worthy of our investment to support its improvement.  The Greek orator Demosthenes wrote, “All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.”  Therefore, I challenge us to use our interactions as deliberate moments to improve the clarity of our communication and understanding; to keep communication as a top of mind project in our organization.

This is my suggestion for an organizational new year’s resolution.  Happy holidays!  Thank you for all you do to bring the land grant vision to Arizona.

Jeffrey Ratje
Associate Dean, Finance and Administration | Treasurer, Arizona Experiment Station
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) | The University of Arizona
PO Box 210036, Forbes Building, Rm 314C
1140 E. So. Campus Drive | Tucson, AZ  85721
Phone: (520) 621-1468 | Fax: (520) 621-8558
www.cals.arizona.edu/cbs<http://www.cals.arizona.edu/cbs>

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