Team Communication

Team Communication

In today's work environment, it is not unusual to see people working in teams to accomplish tasks. I ask myself "what makes a good team?" Is it the number of people assigned to the team, or perhaps the skills and knowledge of each member? Or could it be the way the team is structured? While all these different things are important for a team to have in order to be considered an effective team, the one thing that will definitely make or break a team is the communication between its members. Throughout this paper, I will examine the many different aspects of teams with an emphasis on how communication can effectively allow a team to accomplish the tasks at hand.

At a very young age, we are encouraged through various methods to work as part of a team. Whether a sports team, classroom team, or after school club, we are introduced to working in teams and taught the value of being able to work together to accomplish a common goal. As we progress through the various phases of school, middle school, high school and on to college, we are introduced more and more to the importance of working as a team. By the time we reach college, there have been many opportunities for us to work as part of a team to accomplish various tasks. This is all very beneficial to the individual student because once they make it into the business world, it is imperative to have a good understanding and ability to work with others in teams.

"Teambuilding has become a very popular concept over the last few years and many companies have jumped on the teambuilding bandwagon." (Temme & Katzel, 1995) With team building also comes the very important need of communication within the team. In order to have a successful team, each member must be able to not only pull their own weight to help out the group but be able to communicate with the other members to conquer hurdles and other issues that may arise within the team. Building an effective team is not something that can be forced nor is it something that can be hurried. Teams must be created voluntarily and the willingness of each member to participate is crucial to the success of the team. The very first questions that should be asked when a team is formed are "What is the purpose of the team and what tasks should the team be able to accomplish?" "Have rules or guidelines been established for the team?" Each team member should communicate his or her feelings about the team as well as what he or she expects from each of its members. It is this type of communication from each team member that will help to define the expectations of the team as well as let everyone know what is expected. As you can imagine, every team will come across some type of differences that must be worked out among them. This is where the communication within the team will become crucial. Members of the group must listen to one another as well as respect the opinions of each other. "Members of the group should encourage each other to express different viewpoints and opinions" (Adkins, 2005). "Our communication skills must be strength not a weakness. It takes time, energy and effort, but it pays big returns by producing better results and deeply enriched relationships" (Dwyer, 2005).

In the workplace managers create teams of employees in order to accomplish large tasks. Also, in addition to team members working together in the same location, teams are spread throughout the country and sometimes across the globe. In these types of teams, communication is still crucial but it has to be accomplished in a different way. There have been many advances in technology which aid in the communication of team members who cannot be all together in the same place. Solutions such as email, instant messaging via the internet, telephone and video conferencing have all played a major part in the successful communication of teams. "The key to getting employees to communicate better and to keeping the company's progress on track is to build a quality interaction between the employee group and the management team" (Keefe, 2004). "Most companies have little trouble