Team Communication

There are a lot of different things that affect a team and their outcome. One of the most important of these is the communication that they have and how well they communicate in general. Through this I hope to show some of the difficulties that teams can have while communicating and some possible solutions for those difficulties. Also, some of the reasons why good team communication is beneficial, how it is can be accomplished, as well as how it affects the team’s performance in general.

A team is defined as a group of people that come together, either a big group or a small group, with a common purpose and goal. Team communication is important for very obvious reason as well as some that are not so obvious. The obvious reason is that it keeps everyone informed and it also gives them a sense of feeling involved. Good communication also helps to keep everyone on the same page and no one feels left behind. If the doors of communication are not left open it is very easy for a member of the team to think that their opinions or ideas are not important or valued as highly as someone else’s. When some one wants to contribute but does not feel that the environment is open enough that their ideas will be heard and respected then they tend to clam up and stay in the background. This causes the whole team to suffer because the active participants feel that they are “carrying” other members who are just sometimes too afraid to speak up. Some of the fears that might cause a member to not voice their ideas could be as simple as a fear of their ideas being rejected or made fun of. They could also feel that others have already made the decision and that their ideas aren’t wanted to so they just follow the crowd especially if their opinion differs from that of most of the other members of the team.

Team communication in this day and age can be accomplished in a few different forms. With the advances of technology, email and web posts have made it so much easier to get information and share with others. Not to mention video conferencing and instant messaging for real time conversations and feedback. Whenever possible, face to face meetings and communication can still be considered one of the best ways to communicate with others. As a society I think that we have learned to pick up on the subtle cues that people give when we are in their presence with body language. When you see something in type it is not all that easy to tell sometimes if someone is being sincere or being sarcastic. Also sometimes when you are communicating through posting or email silence can be perceived as anger or just being ignored.

There are definite benefits that are a result of a team having good communication with its members. One of the biggest is that everyone feels that they have had an active role in the final product that the team puts out.(Panse, 2008) This makes everyone feel like an integral part of the team and they feel a sense of satisfaction that they have contributed to the project. Also no one feels that they did a majority of the work while others just sat back and benefited from the work of others or took credit for something that they did not out the work in towards.

Effective team communications allows harmonious relationships to be established. (Lee, 2008) It also allows the team’s intentions to be understood, ideas to be shared, and you can even at time impress other team members. Two of the biggest keys to a successful team are listening well and making sure that everyone is comfortable enough to share their ideas freely within the group. (Lee, 2008)

How things are worded will also have an impact on the team and how they react to the situation. For example, you could say, “we have a challenge” instead of “we have a problem” to reduce stress or tension. (Lee, 2008)

Sometimes, having a sense of humor can be a great stress reliever as well a tool for communication. Humor can break the monotony if you have been dealing with the same issue for a long time with no apparent solution. (Lee, 2008)

Also a team member should never be “criticized” in front of everyone else. If something that needs to be said to someone it is usually best to do so in private. Because human relations are so delicate it is never safe to assume that something that needs to be said will always come out the right way or that it will not be perceived in a way that was not the intended message. (Lee, 2008)

According to Panse (2008) there are some definite undesired results that can come from poor communication. These can either hinder the project or cause it to not be completed correctly, if at all sometimes.

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