Team Communication
Skillset #1 – Presenting and Persuading
Team communication is essential in business and everyday life. Employers place a heavy importance on communication skills for effective job placement, performance, career advancement, and organizational success. Communication skills are one of the most required skills during the hiring process. However, people are not born with great communication skills. Although personal traits can improve communication skills such as the ability to read, write, and speak, they still need to be learned and improved.
Understanding the process of communication is important for team communication. The process of communication begins with the sender who as an idea. The idea can be influenced by mood, frame of reference, background, culture, and physical makeup, as well as the context of the situation. Once the idea is formed, the sender encodes the idea in a message. When encoding the message, the encoder must be aware of the target audiences’ culture, background, and attitudes. After the idea is encoded in a message, it is travels over a channel such as computer, phone, spoken words, letters, fax, and so on. For example, when companies send brochures to your mail, they are delivering a message to you. When the receiver receives the message, he or she decodes it. Lastly, feedback is generated by the receiver and sent back to the user through a channel.
When communicating in a team, there can be many barriers to communication. For example, bypassing is when people misunderstand each other due to a different understanding of the meanings of words that are being used. Another barrier can be differing frames of reference, which involves everything from experience, education, to culture and background. Teams today can have members from all around the world, so it is essential to consider the frame of reference. Lack of language skill can also be a problem, for example, in today’s global market teams can consist of many international individuals. For the team to function, they must be able to communicate and have enough vocabulary and grammar skills to do it well.
In team communication there will often be times that the team members need to be persuaded to perform a task or to accept an idea. Persuasion is the ability to use argument or discussion in attempting to change an individual’s beliefs or actions. However, in order to persuade an audience, persuasion must be used effectively and should be used ethically. First, establishing credibility is important. For instance, a janitor’s opinion on a surgery won’t have the same credibility as a surgeon’s. Another issue is making a reasonable request, you can’t really persuade someone to give you all his or her money for good. Tying facts to benefits can greatly improve your chances of persuading, for example, the fact is everyone who is able should exercise and the benefits of exercising include more energetic and healthy life.
Tone is also important when communicating in a team. Team members no longer accept unquestioned authority. When communicating in teams avoid sounding parental, don’t pull rant, avoid making threats, soften your words, be enthusiastic, and be positive. For example, a boss demanding his employees to do tasks without proper motivational explanation can result in either a poor performance or the quitting of employees. Since a team consists of two or more individuals grabbing attention is important or else you’ll just be ignored. In order to grab attention an opening statement is important. You can being by stating a problem, making an unexpected statement, note the listener’s benefits, compliment, or ask a stimulating question. For example, if you note a problem with an idea most of the team has accepted, begin by stating the problem of the idea to create a discussion. In my future career, I plan to use what I learned to stand out during meetings or proposals. I will improve my persuasion skills in order to convince my supervisors that the ideas I come up with are for everyone’s benefit. If I can’t persuade my supervisors or team members to accept an idea or an action, I won’t be noticed and won’t get anywhere.
Skillset #2 – Writing In team communication writing is also an important skill. Today we can communicate through all kinds of written technology from letters, emails, social websites and text messages. In business, writing should be purposeful, persuasive, economical and reader oriented. Writing should not be length or lose sight of its main point. For example, if your boss sends you an email starting with an opening statement like “how was your weekend?” it distracts from the business related main point.
Collaboration is necessary for large projects that require writing. Teams sometimes collaborate on memos, proposals, briefs, procedures, and policies but more often collaboration takes place on big documents and presentations. Collaboration can be better than working alone because there can be more ideas and division of labor. Another important part of writing in a team is writing proposals. Proposals are written offers to solve problems, offer services, or sell equipment. A typical proposal can contain how a problem can be solved, what needs to be done, who will do it, how long it will take, and how much it will cost. There are two types of proposals, informal and formal. Informal proposals contain introduction, background, proposal, staffing, budget, and authorization request. Formal proposals contain extra content such as a cover, title page, table of contents, list of figures, executive summary, introduction, body and conclusion, recommendations, appendix, and works cited. In business writing is very important and thanks to technology there are many channels all with different methods of writing. I will use what I learned in this section to avoid mistakes in writing. I don’t think writing well is noticeable but writing bad is noticeable and can harm my career.
Skillset #3 – Listening and Giving Feedback Listening and giving feedback is part of team communication. Listening is an essential part of team communication; however, listening is not easy as you may think. Many people are poor listeners and often lose concentration. We mostly forget or ignore what we listen which is a very bad issue when working. Lack of training is another reason we are bad listeners as few schools put emphasis on listening alongside of reading, speaking and writing. When listening control external and internal distractions, become actively involved, separate facts from opinions, identify important facts, avoid interrupting, ask clarifying questions, paraphrase to increase understanding, capitalize on lag time, take notes to ensure retention, and be aware of gender differences.
One of the places listening and giving feedback takes place in meetings. Although meetings are disliked by everyone, including myself, they can be useful if done right. Meetings consist of three or more people that form a group to discuss, clarify, and solve problems. Before having a meeting, we must first decide if it is necessary. A meeting should only be called if it is important, can’t wait, and requires exchange of ideas. If these conditions are not met, alternative methods such as sending memos or emails should be used. If a meeting is unnecessary, it will cost time that could be used on productivity. Thanks to technology, we can collaborate and have meetings with individuals from across the world. Some examples of these technologies include voice conferencing, videoconferencing, web conferencing, instant messaging, blogs, and wikis. Most people are already accustomed to using these tools today so they can be easily put to use for collaboration. This is especially good for employees who need to travel a lot. I often use videoconferencing and plan to use it in my future career.
Conclusion
In conclusion, working in a global market requires great team communication skills. Presenting and persuading an idea to a team effectively requires effort and skills. Good writing skills also play an important role in team communication due to an increase use of technology such as emails. Listening and feedback are essential in team communication in order discuss, exchange ideas, and be productive. Finally, a good communicator always considers the team members’ backgrounds, culture, experience, education and gender.