How groups can improve communication

2022.01.11 16:09

You must pay attention to how you offer critiques, especially those that can be perceived negatively or possibly as attacks. Like different communication channels, there are different avenues for feedback. The same goes with a piece of feedback in an open Slack channel or reply-all email. Always err on the side of caution.

Quality feedback makes the work better, and feedback sincerely given should be sincerely received. But to that end, make sure the feedback focuses on the work not the person and offers suggestions and alternatives.

This last bit is key, and often overlooked. Why overlooked? Maybe try this instead? In short, feedback is major currency in working life, and improving how you get and give feedback, and how you engage in things like feedback loops , will undoubtedly improve your overall communication.

Ever had a meeting to discuss another meeting? Of course you have. And many other boring, pointless meetings, too. There are many, many different types of meetings. Sure, some are very important. If you want to improve communication, and quick-like, look at your calendar and do some serious meeting pruning. Get rid of meetings that are merely status updates. Stop the habit of scheduling meetings as a mere show of working, when more important work could get done.

Meeting time is precious. When you find yourself in a meeting disengaged, bored, or thinking of all the ways you could be spending your time better… this is a bad meeting. More, this is a bad communications practice. Pay attention to when meetings boost alignment and motivation and creativity, and to when they become proxies for soul-sucking alien lifeforms.

The healthier the organization, the fewer unnecessary meetings. Remember this: meetings are essential to better communication. Typically, groups are defined as having between five and 20 people, though the size can vary based on your organization. The defining factor of a group at work is that they need to collaborate to accomplish a specific objective together.

Communication is the act of sending and receiving messages. In an individual setting, there is one sender of the message and one receiver of the message.

In a group dynamic, however, this changes — which can lead to complications and misunderstandings. There can be several senders of the message and several receivers of the message, and this can all happen simultaneously. If all individuals in the group do not understand the message as intended, it can lead to issues in the workplace. The purpose of group communication is to exchange information in order to make decisions, resolve confusion, build rapport and get closer to attaining the business goal.

However, group communication also has an effect on how the individuals in the group treat each other and feel about each other. This informs whether they are motivated to meet the goals of their group. Understanding how group communication works can help businesses improve their own communication processes and protocols for employees.

This can enable employees to:. The key to improving group communication within the workplace is to build processes and policies around communication best practices. By providing employees with guidelines and aspirational goals, businesses can encourage the employees to work on their own communication skills.

One of the challenges of group communication is that the group is made up of different people who may have different styles of communication.

The way people communicate affects the way they send and receive messages. If multiple different styles of communication are present in a group, there are increased chances that the message may get lost.

There are different ways to categorize communication styles. According to DiSC, communication styles can be categorized into four distinct categories:. By analyzing the different communication styles in your workplace groups, you can gain more insight into how the individuals like to communicate and what character traits they share. Group communication takes place in many different forms.

Not surprisingly, the most effective self-managing teams are found in companies where the corporate culture supports democratic decision making, and the employees are generally well-educated. No matter how groups and teams come together, there are advantages and disadvantages that must be attended to, as in the unintentional assumption of roles by gender or age rather than by experience or expertise. It may seem obvious to say so, but groups are made of humans, and humans express behaviors that are both beneficial and detrimantal to the function of their teams.

People who feel they are part of a team are often mutually supportive and report greater job satisfaction.

However, not all teams are successful. In one survey, only 14 percent of companies rated their teams as highly effective [2] , around 50 percent rated them as somewhat effective, and 15 percent rated them not effective at all.

In this module, we look at teams and how effective teams are developed. We start by looking at common behaviors that can help or hurt efforts to meet organizational goals. Teams bring together people with diverse skills to create something that no one person could do alone. A well-planned team improves motivation. Communication is higher on teams, and the diverse skill set means teams can discover new approaches.

Because teams have specific shared goals, team members usually enjoy greater autonomy, variety, task identity, task significance, and feedback. Teams often enjoy the social support for difficult tasks, improving morale and motivation.

Another benefit of teams is to improve product and service quality. Each store also has a team made up of just the leaders from each team to facilitate communication and sharing.

Each team takes responsibility for the quality of the products and service in its area. Efficiency in product development is another advantage to building teams within the traditional hierarchy. Teams can analyze and identify dependent tasks in a nonlinear process, sometimes realizing startling improvements.

Employees also benefit from participating on teams. They develop relationships to people from other areas of the business and learn more about what is happening across functional department lines cross training.

Employees with strong bonds of camaraderie are more likely to remain loyal to their team, and stay longer as a result. Social cohesion is defined as the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other to survive and prosper. In work teams, social cohesiveness means the members want to be part of the team and want to contribute to its success. Members of cohesive teams have social and emotional bonds to each other and to the overall team, which motivates higher commitment and performance.

Southwest Airlines, for instance, works hard to develop cohesiveness in its organization. As a result, everyone is willing to work toward the success of the organization. That is why it is not unusual to see people pitch in on a task even when it is not part of their job. For example, pilots may help to load luggage if it helps maintain on-time performance. The main factors influencing cohesion are size of the group, similarities among its members, and team success.

Small groups tend to be more cohesive than larger ones because people can interact with each other more. Similarity among group members contributes to team cohesiveness because people with similar backgrounds are more likely to have fewer communication barriers and share views on what constitutes appropriate behaviors. People are generally more trusting of others when they share some important background experiences.

In substance abuse recovery groups, for example, members know that everyone has had the same ailment and is dealing with similar experiences. When a team experiences success early in its development, members get reinforcement that their efforts can produce results. They are more likely to be motivated to continue to contribute. Success also creates a sense of pride that fosters feelings of belonging and mutual attraction in the team.

Creating collective efficacy is a bit of a balancing act. If goals are perceived as being too easy to reach, members may not feel they have to put in their full effort. In either case, social loafing may result. Psychologist Albert Bandura researched the relationship between efficacy and job performance and found that each affects the other. When a team achieves some success, it can build self-confidence and the belief that it can achieve more.

The resulting collective efficacy, in turn, makes it more likely that the team will be successful. But a downward spiral can occur when both performance and collective efficacy are low.

Poor performance makes team members question their ability, and the decrease in collective efficacy leads to more poor performance. The relationship between success and collective efficacy is affected by self-confidence and performance. Good planning and good leadership can both improve collective efficacy. When teams experience successes early in their development, they are more likely to build collective efficacy. Good leadership provides a clear vision for the team and articulates why the goals are important.

The leader provides guidance, feedback, and encouragement. When teams receive timely feedback, they are more likely to understand the relationship between their effort and their performance. As you work on developing good relationships, another way to foster good group dynamics is to identify strengths and weaknesses and assign group roles.

For a new team that has not worked together, assigning roles can also help surface individual strengths and weaknesses. By simply assigning roles at the beginning of the project, a team can quickly focus on specific tasks. Everyone should be responsible for brainstorming, problem solving and offering their experience and knowledge, but some roles are more generic and may or may not vary by task.

Here are four roles that no team should be without:. Think of cohesion as morale. Once everyone is working toward success, little successes occur along the way. Teams move past being solely task- or work-focused.

They become work-friends, maybe even social friends. This closeness of relationship adds to the productivity of the team as members are more likely to speak directly even as difficult issues arise. There are also many problems that hinder good group dynamics. Other common challenges include poor leadership, a lack of focus, dominant personalities, bad communication, groupthink, and social loafing. The key to combating these challenges is to be able to identify when they are taking place. The first challenge that hinders good group dynamics is poor leadership.

There are a few things an individual can do if the poor team leader is your boss or someone with authoritative power. First, be supportive. If your boss trusts you and you are supportive, you may be able to influence decisions by suggesting alternatives. When alternatives are out in the open and debated, the weak leader may see that there are stronger ideas available.

To take your teamwork to the next level, get a good communications tool. Even if your team is lucky enough to sit next to each other every day rather than working remotely or in different time zones , a good piece of software will streamline team communication. These are much more effective than clunky reply-all emails or working with numerous apps. Try out a few of the actionable tips from this article and see how you get on.