Team Communication

Team Communication:

Effective Communication within a Team Meeting

As organizations traverse the age of "self-managed work teams" (Jessup, 1990) employees may be faced with being in a team where they are responsible for creating tasks, defining a policy, or developing a better process for running a segment of an organization. Most often, these teams have been predetermined by upper management and their purpose has been trickled down to an immediate supervisor who communicates to the members of his or her staff that they are now part of a self-managed working team.

As the team develops, the role of the supervisor will change to that of a coach, and he or she will serve to monitor the team's progress and assist in personnel or management issues. In the beginning, the coach may also be involved in facilitating the team meetings and defining the team goals. Eventually, the coach will remove his or herself completely and only act in a support role as the team challenges itself to be self sufficient.

In an effort for the team to form a united front and become self sufficient, the team must implore a solid flow of communication. Along with general team correspondence and the occasional instant message or voicemail, a team must effectively communicate within a team meeting, whether it be virtual, face-to-face, or both. Placing an importance on creating a safe environment will have a positive effect on the flow of communication within a team meeting. A safe environment should be established by identifying the roles of each team member, creating a set of ground rules the team meetings must follow, showing a high level of competence to gain the trust of the team members, and opening the meeting up to share ideas

Effective communication within a team meeting is an important factor to the overall success of the team. The following explores each of the above identified items which should be established in order to create a safe environment for a team meeting.

One of the most important factors when creating effective communication within a team meeting is knowing what each team member's role is. Establishing roles will allow the team to function more efficiently and will give each team member an understanding of what his or her responsibilities are during the team meeting.

Some roles a team member may choose to explore include but are not limited to, the moderator, the recorder, the goal tracker and the facilitator. Each of these roles has different tasks associated to them and requires a specific team member's characteristic to ensure that these roles are performed effectively. Finding out what roles best suit each team member should be a cooperative effort of the team. This way, the team understands each others strengths and weaknesses and can assist each other in finding his or her proper role.

Once the roles have been established, the team should make it a priority to define a set of ground rules for their meetings. Setting ground rules is both effective and crucial to the success of any team meeting. It will ensure that all team members have a full understanding of how to conduct themselves during the meeting, allowing them to be a successful part of the meeting experience. Like an agenda, a set of ground rules will assist the team with staying focused on the topics of the meeting, allow for each team member to speak in turn, and inspire the team to contribute fully to the meeting.

A ground rule to allow the team to express opposition during a meeting may be established. By inviting opposition, it will encourage the team to express their difference in opinion with the group and avoid any side conversations or negative hallway chatter outside of the meeting.

Joan Lloyd from the Washington Business Journal suggests that setting a ground rule in the team to "Disagree in private; unite in public" will decrease the need for anyone to abandon the meeting and retain the issue within the group.

In some situations, the level of emotion a team member may have for a particular topic can be difficult to avoid, especially if he or she is expressing more passion than the other team members. Agreeing to disagree may not always resolve the issue in a matter with which the team may equally welcome. Animosity might cause certain individuals to express their frustrations outside of the group with a non-team member or abandon the meeting completely.

An important ground rule that should be at the top of any meeting list is, respect the agenda. Aretha Franklin sang it best with, "R.E.S.P.E.C.T., find out what it means to me." It's important to respect the team's time and follow the published agenda. Allow yourself the proper time needed to participate in the entire meeting from start to finish. Follow