# Managing Groups and Teams/Which attributes are fundamental to team cohesion?

## Introduction

Much has been written about the most effective ways to form team
cohesion. The purpose of this chapter is to offer concrete ideas for
team leaders on how they can develop team cohesion amongst group member
in an organizational setting.

Some of the ideas are inspired by researchers such as Patrick Lencioni,
however, many of the ideas within this chapter have been compiled from
the collective experiences of its authors and other research.

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![](Team_Cohesion_Star.jpg "Team_Cohesion_Star.jpg")

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Five concrete ideas for building team cohesion will be presented
including: Appreciation, Incentive, Relevance, Performance Measurement
and Interpersonal Relationships.

A model has been created to help the reader recall these points. The
model is presented as a star with each point representing one of the
five attributes fundamental to building team cohesion.

## Appreciation

It has been said that there are only two types of people in the world
who benefit from gratitude and sincere appreciation -- men and women[^1]
Indeed, all humans have a basic need to feel appreciated, respected and
valued. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, esteem is recognized as a
fundamental human desire which must be fulfilled in order to achieve
self-actualization (Maslow's hierarchy of needs).[^2] The effective team
leader can utilize appreciation as an important tool to fill this esteem
need for individual team members and work to create and maintain a
culture of appreciation within the team to insure that a team is
cohesive.

In a 2003 study by the US Department of Labor on employment, the number
one reason given for why people decided to leave their jobs was a lack
of appreciation. Just as an underappreciated employee is more likely to
leave a job, an underappreciated team member is more likely to leave a
team. Without feeling valued as contributors within the context of the
team and its objectives, individual team members are much more apt to
feel disconnected and isolated from the team. To maintain a cohesive
team, all members need to feel some degree of appreciation for their
efforts. On a group level, a team which is not esteemed and recognized
for their contributions has little chance of remaining cohesive,
functional and successful.

To view it in a more positive way, a team is much more likely to be
unified, collaborative and ultimately successful in a culture that is
built on appreciation and recognition of the contributions of each
individual, as well as the unique contributions of the team.
Demonstrations of gratitude, acknowledgements of effort, words of
congratulations and other actions of appreciation function as the glue
which binds a successful and cohesive team together. As the French
philosopher Voltaire put it, "Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It
makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well." For a team
leader to succeed, he must take the unique contributions of each team
member and forge them into a combined team identity, and appreciation is
fundamental to this endeavor.

### Creating a Culture of Appreciation

Creating and maintaining a culture of appreciation within a team
requires a concerted focus by the team leader (and team members) on
certain behaviors and characteristics. Below we have identified 6
guidelines related to the principle of appreciation which team leaders
can use as they work on building a strong and cohesive team. Of course
this is not an exhaustive list, but it provides a strong foundation on
which a culture of appreciation can be built.

#### 1. Praise Individuals and Teams

:   Appreciation is a principle which applies to individuals within a
    team and to the team itself. For a team to be cohesive, the leader
    must concentrate on both areas. Without individual recognition, a
    team member may feel his/her individual contributions are
    irrelevant, unimportant and invisible. Without team recognition,
    cohesion is much more difficult to maintain, as the focus is
    directed away from the team's accomplishments. Finding a balance
    between team and individual appreciation is not an exact science,
    and may vary with the unique dynamics of a particular team. However,
    both individual and team praise must be present to maximize the
    potential for team cohesion.

#### 2. Praise in Private and in Public

:   Acknowledging and recognizing accomplishments should be done both in
    the private and the public spheres. Expressions of appreciation are
    reinforced when shown in multiple venues. A team's willingness to
    put in significant extra time to complete a project by the deadline
    could warrant a personal thank you to each team member by the team
    leader, as well as a team celebration lunch. Going one step further,
    the team leader could send an e-mail to select upper management
    detailing the extra effort put in by the team (make sure to Cc the
    team members). Of course the specific actions are limitless. The
    point here is to reinforce the appreciation message and, through
    public and private usage, cause it to permeate throughout the
    different strata of the individual, team and organizational culture.

#### 3. Be Specific

:   Make sure you really get to know each team member so that you can
    tailor your appreciation message to each individual as needed. Take
    time to learn about a team member's family, hobbies and interests,
    preferences, and values. This will allow you to give praise,
    recognition and appreciation that will be personally valuable to
    each team members. In recognizing or praising a team member, do not
    speak in generalities. Instead of, "great job, Amir," the team
    leader could say, "Amir, your contribution to the finance meeting
    this morning was excellent. I was particularly impressed with your
    grasp of the division's key drivers." The latter statement
    acknowledges specific attributes and provides Amir with specific
    feedback on what his unique contribution was. Similarly,
    appreciation at the Team level should be specific and should
    demonstrate the team leader's interest in and knowledge of the
    team's purpose and accomplishments.

#### 4. Be Sincere

:   As the cliché goes, flattery will get you nowhere. When people get
    the sense that words of praise or acts of acknowledgement are not
    coming from the heart, trust is quickly eroded. A team leader should
    never follow up a complement with a "but" or bring up a mistake that
    was made by the team or team member. There is a time and place for
    that, and it is not during an expression of appreciation.

#### 5. Frequency

:   When it comes to appreciation, more is more. As long as the
    appreciation is sincere and specific, it is nearly impossible to
    show appreciation too much. Whether it is a personal thank you note,
    a short recognition speech in front of the team or an e-mail to top
    management on a team's accomplishment, appreciation must become a
    cultural norm. Consistency is the key. Just one of many ways in
    which a team leader can think about frequency is to create three
    divisions: day-to-day, informal and formal.[^3] Appreciation must be
    demonstrated often for it to become a part of a team's psyche.

#### 6. Develop an Appreciation Plan

:   With the tools above, a team leader should put pen to paper, so to
    speak, and develop a written appreciation plan. This will function
    as a blueprint to creating and maintaining a culture of
    appreciation. Ideas for the structure of this plan are many and
    varied. A few examples of appreciation/recognition plans from the
    corporate world can be found in "Rewarding Teams: Lessons from the
    Trenches" by Glenn Parker, Jerry McAdams and David Zielinski.[^4]
    "The Carrot Principle", by Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick also
    provides insights into creating a detailed recognition plan[^5] and
    Whether your plan includes weekly awards, team highlights in the
    company newsletter, taking a team member out to lunch, all or none
    of the above, the plan should integrate the principles previously
    described: namely individual and team praise, private and public
    praise, being specific, being sincere and a high degree of
    frequency. A written appreciation plan will provide the impetus to
    take the above concepts and make them a reality.

### Remarkable Results

In a scene from the movie Remember the Titans, based on the true story
of a high school football team which overcame many potentially divisive
challenges and obstacles to come together and win the 1971 Virginia
State Football Championship, Coach Herman Boone takes his team to the
site of the United States Civil War battle of Gettysburg. There, with a
morning mist hanging over the once bloody battlefield, he delivers an
impassioned plea for team unity and cohesion.

"You listen...take a lesson from the dead," directed Coach Boone. "If we
don't come together, right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be
destroyed...just like they were."

"And I don't care if you like each other or not. But you will respect
each other."[^6]

Coach Boone then went about creating a culture of appreciation, by
demanding it from his staff and his team, and living it himself. The
results were remarkable.

Each team leader faces unique challenges and obstacles to in maintaining
a cohesive team. Among these challenges is creating a culture where the
basic human need of appreciation is met for each team member and the
team as a whole. When a team feels appreciated and recognized, and each
individual within that team feels likewise, the team is free to come
together as a cohesive unit and to create, collaborate and succeed.

## Incentive

As we continue to explore the contributing factors to team cohesion,
recognizing the importance of incentives is fundamental to team success.
While developing organizational success through incentives is a topic of
much attention and misunderstanding amongst business leaders,
interpreting the various factors that encourage people to perform at
high levels of personal success leads to insights of how they might
perform in a team setting. As good leaders are in constant pursuit to
improve the processes and successes of their projects through the use of
teams, proper implementation of incentives and rewards should be
emphasized and understood.

"In economics and sociology, an incentive is any factor (financial or
non-financial) that enables or motivates a particular course of
action."[^7] Types of incentives include cash bonuses, merit increases,
promotion, leadership opportunities, as well as recognition. As it
should be safe to say that everyone likes to be rewarded for their
efforts or actions, Frank LaFasto states "good effort needs to be
recognized."[^8] Whether individuals recognize them as incentives or
rewards, funneling these driving factors in a manner that increases
productivity and success can be very beneficial to the team environment.
Robert Henneman notes the importance of group recognition by stating
"group incentives have a stronger influence on productivity than
individual incentives yielding increases of 13%, but more importantly
they reinforce the concept of teamwork."[^9]

In order to ensure that incentive tools are used in the most beneficial
and influential manner for the team as a whole, the team leader needs to
properly identify and integrate the teams objective. As the team leader
"ensures that rewards and incentives are aligned with achieving the
team's goals", team members feel a sense of accomplishment through an
association to the group process.[^10] By doing so, individual team
members will achieve a higher sense of team worth through their
collaboration and contribution. By keeping rewards "fair", LaFasto
states that individual members of a team will internally channel the
feelings of a reward as if it is a "burden of proof."[^11] A method of
reward permits individual members to identify with the teams objective
and feel a sense of camaraderie through such achievement. This in turn
has an incredible sense of value that can create strong bonds of trust
and commitment to team establishment.

As managers devise methods of assuring proper channels of recognition
and incentive, it is important to note that financial and non-financial
methods can both be equally impactful. As Robert Henneman explains
"Recognition can exert a powerful impact on an employee's performance
and may influence organizations effectiveness as much as financial
incentives do."[^12] This is a strong point for managers to remember as
they strive to build their team members moral on an individual basis as
well as on the team level. Even though incentive and reward have a
financial connotation, it is important to note the impact that simple
recognition can have on a team.

One of the driving factors that contribute to the success of incentives
and rewards toward developing team cohesion is the continual impact this
has on the individual. For example, if a team is given the opportunity
to choose future projects and make certain decisions based on their
ability to achieve success and elevated results as a team, more emphasis
and importance on team interaction will be seen. Team members that are
task oriented react very responsively to opportunities or incentives
that will give them more initiative or influence on future decisions.

Because of the tremendous impact that meaningful incentives have on team
projects and goals, long-term behaviors begin to form with the team.
Eventually, teams are able to collaborate their individual "personal,
financial, and psychological rewards to their group goals."[^13] Simple
incentive programs that are relevant to the overall teams goals and
objectives create a more focused approach to how the team members
interact and respect each of their individual duties. Whether or not
each of the team members have an equitable position in the physical
process at hand, each member feels a sense of placement and share of the
team when recognition is given to the team as a whole.

One of the greatest effects of team incentives that provide evidence of
the formation of long term team cohesion is the development of
organization standards. As more and more incentives are implemented that
are in line with the individual teams objectives, there is an increase
of reward and visibility within the organization as a whole. This
creates an atmosphere of creativity and success which over time develops
into what is understood as organizational or team standards. As LaFasto
states "a reward should be a celebration of standards."[^14] Over long
periods of time, these recognized successes which have become standards
are what ultimately shape an organization's or team's culture. For
example, if a team is highly motivated to be the industry's leading
organization for a certain product and achieves that result and is
ultimately recognized for that, a lasting expectation of highly notable
success is eventually adopted. This is one of the very reasons why
incentives are very effective for not only short term projects but also
for the long-term well being of the organization or team.

Through proper alignment of team objectives and motivations, team
leaders have a tremendous opportunity to build team cohesion through the
proper and strategic use of incentives. Individual team members as well
as the team as a whole require the recognition and reward that should be
demonstrated when high levels of success are achieved and lasting
standards are devised. Whether it is a team bonus for devising a merger
deal or a trophy that is presented in front of the entire organization
to each of the winning team members, "excellent results must be
recognized" and are developed by strategically aligned incentives that
drive upward success.[^15]

## Relevance

Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of leading a team of
individuals is making each member of the team feel relevant. What does
this exactly mean? Consider the following excerpt from the 1949 World
War II movie 12 O'ClockHigh. The script picks up after General Savage
asks Lt. Jesse Bishop how he feels about the bombing run the team had
just accomplished.

:   **Lt. Bishop**: Well sir, that\'s hard. I don\'t know how I feel.
    That\'s kind of the trouble.

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:   **General Savage**: What is?

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:   **Lt. Bishop**: The whole thing sir, everything. I can\'t see what
    good we\'re doing with our bombing. All the boys getting killed.
    Just a handful of us, it\'s like we\'re some kind of guinea pigs,
    only we\'re not proving anything. You\'ve got to have confidence in
    something, then when you find something you\'ve got confidence in,
    then everything changes. It just doesn\'t make any sense. I just
    want out.

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:   **General Savage**: Do you think it will be any better in another
    group?

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:   **Lt. Bishop**: It isn\'t a question of that sir; I don\'t want to
    fly anymore. I want to transfer to another branch.

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:   **General Savage**: Doesn\'t it mean anything to you that we hit the
    target today with no losses?

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:   **Lt. Bishop**: Yes sir\....I suppose so\...in a way, but I just
    want out.

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:   **General Savage**: well, that\'s a pretty tough request from a
    medal of honor man. Sure we\'re guinea pigs Jesse, but there\'s a
    reason. If we can hang on here now, one day soon somebody\'s gonna
    look up and see a solid overcast of American bombers on their way to
    Germany to hit the Third Reich where it lives. Maybe we won\'t be
    the ones to see it, I can\'t promise you that, but I can promise you
    that they\'ll be there if only we can manage to make the grade now.

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:   **Lt. Bishop**: I\'d like to believe you sir. I just don\'t have
    confidence in anything anymore.[^16]

This exchange between General Savage and Lt. Bishop illustrates what
happens with many members of group or teams. Often, members of the team
feel much like Lt. Bishop when, even after achieving the desired result,
can't see what good they are doing. In other words, they feel that the
work they are doing is irrelevant to the overall goal and objective of
the team or organization.

In his book Three Signs of a Miserable Job, Patrick Lencioni cites this
idea of irrelevance as being one of the main signs of a miserable job.
For our purposes, we can also say that irrelevance is a main sign of a
team member feeling miserable within the group. Lencioni states that,
"everyone needs to know that their job matters, to someone. Anyone.
Without seeing a connection between the work and the satisfaction of
another person or group of people, an employee simply will not find
lasting fulfillment. Even the most cynical employees need to know that
their work matters to someone, even if it's just the boss." [^17]

Now that we've flushed out this idea of irrelevance, how do team leaders
ensure that each one of the team members feels fulfillment in the role
that they are playing within the group? This chapter has cited other
topics that lend to helping a team member feel relevant. Ideas such as
incentives and measurement can all assist in making group members feel
fulfilled, however there are a few important points that team leaders
must touch on to avoid feelings of irrelevance amongst team members.

### Focus on the Goal

Kevin Eikenberry, Chief Potential Officer of Kevin Eikenberry Group
explains, "Teams don\'t have to be aligned with the goals of the
organization. Teams can work on what they believe to be the right
things. They can work diligently on creating the results they think
matter. They can be completely committed to success from their
perspective." [^18]

Often, teams operate in this manner to the extent that although the team
is working towards goals they believe are important to the team, those
goals may be totally opposite of the strategic goals of the company. In
the end, although the team may have accomplished much, team members fail
to see how their work mattered in the grand scheme of the organization's
goals.

The result of the team not aligning its goals with what the organization
needs results in the team operating in a vacuum. Eikenberry goes on to
say, "sometimes the vacuum is caused by a far more pervasive problem -
no clear organizational goals, objectives or strategies exist to align
to. Leaders must create clear strategies and they must create a clear
line of sight throughout the organization, so people and teams can
connect their work to the important strategies of the organization."
[^19]

One would think that business leaders might have an easy time in
assisting teams to align its goals with the overall goals of the
organization, however, many times business leaders may neglect to
clarify goals to the team or simply forget to share the goals with them.
In the end, it is the responsibility of the business leaders to align
the team's goals. The question becomes, how do leaders accomplish this
task? The following illustrates some steps that Eikenberry gives as ways
to connect the team's work to organizational goals:

**Start At The Beginning:** Do not communicate the goals of the
organization until those goals are set. Changing the goal midway through
the group's work may derail the team. Once the goals are set,
communicate these goals clearly in the early stages of the team's
development. Lastly, make sure that you clearly connect the work the
team is doing to the organization goal(s).

**Generate Conversation:** The delivery method of the goal to the team
is extremely important. Do not deliver the organization's goals in an
email or a packet, but rather present the goal verbally to the team and
ask for feedback from the team and how their work will fit into these
goals.

**Get The Team's Help:** Get the team's input and give them a chance to
come up with team goals and objectives that align with the
organizational goals. This will create ownership and allow for a higher
level of agreement between team members.

**Provide a Connection:** Teams need someone from outside the team to
act as a liaison between the team and organization. This usually comes
in the way of a team sponsor who doesn't necessarily sit on the team but
provides support and keeps the team from feeling alone.

**Make Them Accountable:** Once team goals properly align with
organization goals, then it is easier to have accountability within the
team. Not only does this improve the team's results, but can also
improve overall team dynamics.[^20]

Ensuring that the team's goals align with organizational goals allows
for team members to easily connect their work back to a larger
objective. By clearly providing this connection, team member will feel
that the work that they do both as a team and as individuals make a
difference far beyond just the immediate members of the team.

### Focus on Personalities:

There really isn't just one way to resolve the issue of team member's
feelings of irrelevance or the feeling that the work they do goes
unnoticed. Perhaps, one way to solve this problem is to properly
understand the many personalities that comprise the team. There are
about a million different personality tests on the internet that can be
taken, of which the most popular is Myers-Briggs.

How does understanding the personalities of team members assist team
leaders in making members of the team feel relevant? Many of us easily
see personality traits in one another. It is fairly easy for us talk
about certain personality traits. We may hear other people tell us that
we are energetic or that we are sensitive, however, what do these types
of personality traits mean within the context of the team? More
importantly, by completely understanding team member's personalities,
team leaders can use techniques to assist them in making the team
member's work feel relevant and valued.

As mentioned, Myers-Briggs personality test is the most popular
personality test, however, one personality profile that is useful in our
context is called the SELF Quiz and can be found at
<http://www.nationalseminarstraining.com/selfquiz/indexHP.cfm>. By
answering and scoring a series of questions, team members can find out
which of the four interaction styles their personality mirrors. The test
reveals whether you are a Social, an Efficient, a Loyal, or a Factual. A
complete analysis of what each style means is provided. The test is free
and takes only minutes to complete. [^21]

Perhaps the most interesting information we can pull out of this is the
style definition for each of the four categories. For example, someone
who falls into the Social category, according to the style definition,
is motivated by opportunities and friendship. People who fall into the
Efficient category are motivated by success, control and recognition.

These kinds of insights are important for team leaders and can assist in
helping make each team member feel that their work is important and
relevant to the team and the organization. A team leader dealing with
someone belonging to the Efficient category may find that giving that
person control over certain aspects of the work may make that team
member feel all the more relevant. Likewise, the team leader may try to
ensure that someone belonging to the Social category has enough
opportunity to connect with people on the team and in the organization
in order to go beyond professional relationships and form friendly
relationships as well.

The idea of analyzing team members' personalities may be somewhat of an
unconventional method of making members feel relevant within the team.
However, understanding personalities goes far beyond just understanding
how individual personalities may affect team dynamics. Personalities
should be leveraged appropriately to ensure that the needs of each
member are met to the best of the team leader's capabilities.

### Focus on individual responsibilities:

Many times team leaders don't have the option of choosing which members
will make up the team. Regardless, each member will have individual
responsibilities within the team. Often, team leaders may give certain
responsibilities to team members according to their expertise or
strengths in particular areas. Other times, the team leader may ask a
team member to be responsible for something outside of that person's
expertise in order to gain new perspectives, ideas, or insights.

At any rate, it is important that the responsibilities given to team
members allow them to feel fulfilled. For example, a team member may not
feel comfortable performing high level quantitative analysis but will
still accept the responsibility. Days later that team member may begin
to feel frustrated and may feel that the work he/she is doing is subpar
and therefore somewhat worthless to the team.

The point here is that no team dynamic is the same. Team leaders have
the responsibility to ensure that individual responsibilities assigned
to team members allow the individual to have the success needed in order
to avoid feelings of irrelevance within the team.

Finally, there are many ways to ensure that team members feel relevant
within the team. Aligning team members' work to organization goals,
understanding how personalities play a role, and ensuring that
individual responsibilities allow for team members to feel fulfilled are
just three ways that will help team leaders create feelings of relevance
among team members.

## Performance Measurement

One element key to maintaining morale within a group is the measurement
of performance. It is not sufficient to simply measure whether or not
the main task was accomplished. There will be times that in spite of
superior effort by the group and the individuals within it, they may not
achieve their goal. If a group is marked as a failure in these cases,
team members are demoralized and are not inspired to participate in the
future. In addition, it is important to measure the performance of
individuals within the group to motivate each group member to put forth
their best effort. Individual performance measurement will also benefit
the organization as a whole in that new strengths (and weaknesses) may
be discovered as the group works together.

### Determining what to measure

To maintain morale, the factors being measured must have relevancy not
only to the individuals within the group, but also to the organization
to which the group belongs. These factors will vary from group to group
and from organization to organization. The factors may be specific to
the task at hand, e.g. an engineering group may be assigned to design a
child safety seat which meets or exceeds government standards. In some
cases the organization may also have larger goals in mind, e.g.
individuals from engineering and marketing may be assigned to accomplish
a task and one of the goals the organization has, in addition to
designing a safety seat, is also to improve communication and
cooperation between the departments within the organization.

In The Journal for Quality and Participation, Jack Zigon notes, "It is
not always obvious what results should be measured. Most teams will use
the obvious measures without asking what results they should be
producing and how they will know they\'ve done a good job. Even if you
know what to measure, it is often not clear how the measurement should
be done. Not everything can be easily measured with numbers, thus teams
give up when faced with measuring something like \"creativity\" or
\"user-friendliness.\" [^22]

### Performances that can be measured:

-   Achievement of objective -- While this is obviously important and
    still needs to be measured, unfortunately in many cases it is the
    only element measured.
-   Achievement of milestones -- Since many projects are complex and may
    take years to complete, measuring milestones not only provides
    occasional motivation for members of a group but also helps track
    the group's progress.
-   Effort of the group as a whole -- Inevitably there will be some
    tasks assigned to groups which are not completed, such as finding a
    cure for a particular disease. To encourage future participation in
    other efforts or even in the same effort, management needs to, when
    appropriate, reward the efforts of a group. In addition, monitoring
    and measuring the groups' effort will help determine the wisdom of
    utilizing certain individuals or the group as a whole for future
    projects.
-   Individual's team contribution -- Participation in team meetings,
    volunteering for projects, the number of ideas contributed and
    whether other team members believe them to a valuable part of the
    team are all areas that can be measured.[^23]
-   Individual behavior - How well the individual works with other team
    members, communicates in a constructive way, cooperates with other
    team members and participates in group discussions and decision
    making are important behaviors to measure.[^24]
-   Group behavior -- This includes running effective meetings,
    communicating well with each other, allowing opinions to be shared
    and coming to a consensus on decisions.[^25]

### Understanding from the beginning

It is important that from the beginning the team members understand the
following:

1.  Their performance will be measured
2.  Why the measurements are important
3.  Who will be measuring their performance
4.  How the measurements will be measured
5.  Which performances will be measured
6.  The potential rewards or consequences of the measurements, if any
7.  Whether any of the performances have priority over others

Having this understanding from the beginning will allow team members to
recognize what, besides accomplishing the task, is important to the
organization; in addition these measurements can help guide the team as
they work on the task.

### Periodic check-ups

If the task is going to take a considerable amount of time to
accomplish, periodic measurements should be taken and feedback shared so
that the team can have a clear understanding of their performance along
the way and can make adjustments as necessary. It will also give team
members a formal method to bring up concerns. An additional benefit is
that team members can be encouraged throughout the process and will be
reminded that how they are performing their task is a matter of on-going
interest to the organization.

### Feedback system

Jack Zigon also emphasized the importance of creating a feedback system.
The system consists of the documents and procedures used to collect and
summarize the data. He suggests the following steps to design the
feedback system:

1.  Decide what data to collect for each performance standard. The data
    should be relevant to the standard and specific enough to allow the
    team to know what was right and wrong compared with the standard.
2.  Decide which source the feedback should come from. Possibilities
    include the job itself, a team member, the team leader, or other
    people who receive the team\'s work.
3.  Decide whether all data or just a sample should be collected.
    Collect all the data if the measure is very critical and needs to be
    tracked each time it occurs, or if the accomplishment is performed
    infrequently. Sample the performance if the accomplishment is
    performed so frequently that it is not practical to collect all
    data.
4.  Determine when to collect the data. When possible, collect it
    immediately after completing the work.
5.  Determine who should collect the data. When possible the team should
    collect the data unless gathering the data disrupts the work flow
    and takes too much time or the completed work is seen only by
    another person.
6.  Determine who, other than the team, needs to receive the data.
7.  Review existing reports for possible use as feedback reports. They
    can be used if the information is relevant to the standard, is
    specific enough, is frequent enough to be of value, and is not
    cluttered with useless information.
8.  If possible, modify existing reports to meet the criteria.
9.  Create your own feedback tables or graphs where necessary.
10. Decide whether it would be of value to summarize the data. If the
    data covers a short period of time daily, for example-summarizing is
    probably appropriate.
11. Create the forms.[^26]

When group members have a clear vision of not only what they are to
accomplish but also the importance of their individual contribution and
how that will be measured, it will help unify and motivate them
throughout the experience. It also helps management recognize the
importance of the individual within the organization. A common
understanding among team members and by management of what is expected
helps facilitate the fulfillment of those expectations and aids in the
accomplishment of their goals.

## Interpersonal Relationships

Groups can be a very effective tool in solving problems and
accomplishing tasks. The combined intellects, efforts and creativeness
of a group of individuals provides a better outcome than could come from
one individual or even from the same individuals working solo on the
same tasks. The combination leads to more satisfying outcomes and
efficient work.

However groups and teams have their drawbacks. Effectively aligning the
differing views of the members of the group can lead to disagreements
and has the potential for conflict. It is therefore important to
encourage the positive aspects while eliminating the negative aspects of
a team in the workplace environment. This section looks at how to
increase the positive while mitigating the negative aspects of the
interpersonal relationships.

### What are Interpersonal Relationships?

A team, in the business context, is a group of people that have been
placed together to complete a task or solve a problem. They share a
common purpose and are interdependent on the other members of the team.
The interdependence of the members of the team creates interpersonal
relationships. An interpersonal relationship is an association between
two or more people.

### How are Interpersonal Relationships Beneficial?

One of the greatest assets that a group or team can have is good
interpersonal relationships with each other. A team that feels
comfortable working together can have an energy that creates a positive
environment and work ethic that can lift a team, making it more
effective. This positive environment can make team members work harder,
more efficiently and more productively. Teams that work well together
have been shown to be more effective. In fact, how well teams achieve
goals is directly related to how effective the team is at working
together. "Healthy team relationships are characteristic of unusually
successful teams."[^27] Conversely, interpersonal conflict is the most
destructive force to a team's success. A team that cannot work
effectively together will not work effectively at all.

There have been arguments that a team does not have to have a good
interpersonal relationship in order to be effective. But consider the
fact that a team in which the members rely on and trust each other is
not putting forth additional effort to manage conflict, hurt, and bias
or trying to guess what the "opposition" is doing. They are able to
focus their efforts more effectively. Time and energy are directed at
the common goal and not at resolving conflicts within the group dynamic.
They are all able to put forth 100% of their efforts to the project at
hand, confident in the fact that each member is doing the same, not
worrying about what the other participants may be thinking or doing.

Just imagine two different working scenarios. In the first one, those
involved in their particular project are energized and excited about
coming in to work. They enjoy the association and sense of
accomplishment from working within their group. The other group members
despise getting up in the morning knowing they have to come in to work.
They hate what they do and those that they work with.

It's pretty obvious which group is going to be more effective at
completing their project.

### Interpersonal Conflict

Whenever you put a group of individuals together there is the potential
for conflict. These interpersonal conflicts tend to arise due to
personal differences between individuals. This conflict is damaging to
the team and their environment. It degrades the effectiveness of
achieving the highest outcomes. A team is made up of individuals. Each
individual has their own thoughts, ideas, and personality. Consequently,
these don't always align, nor should they. A team made up of clones,
would destroy the whole purpose of putting a group of individuals
together in the first place. A team is not formed for the sole purpose
that "many hands make light work," but because they each have skills and
talents specific to the individual. Therefore, each member adds to the
group in a different way.

As organizations change their structures to be flatter, the team has
become the predominant entity within the company. Teams are used to
complete projects, solve problems and many other functions within the
organization. However the team structure creates an environment in which
managers rely on peer relationships to accomplish tasks. In groups where
team members have a similar objective and where there is a friendly
atmosphere, especially if they have been working in conjunction for a
while, the team will work well together and there will be fewer
conflicts. "Inevitably, though, no matter how harmonious the group or
how structured the organization, conflicts are bound to occur. Some
conflicts may feel unproductive, even destructive."[^28]

You can take a group of skilled, intelligent and competent individuals
and put them together and their success in a group will come down to
whether or not they can work together. The amount of brain power, skill
and potential to solve problems will matter little if they cannot work
in harmony. If contention, feelings of spite, betrayal, or disloyalty
arise than it will undermine the work of each individual to the point
that nothing can be accomplished. For this very reason one of the most
important tools that a team must have is a good working relationship.

Going into a group environment and believing that conflict will never
occur is naive. Team leaders and team members should be mindful that
conflict *does* and *will* arise. The goal is to effectively resolve the
conflict and get the team back to working effectively.

Team members should never ignore conflict within the group when it
surfaces. They should not just hope that it will go away or resolve
itself. They must not assume that if they don\'t bring the problem up
that the group can still function without resolving the issues at hand.
Problems that are ignored and continue to fester will just cause
ineffectiveness in the team. A problem that is ignored may also explode
at a most inconvenient time and destroy the group altogether. Conflicts,
especially interpersonal conflicts, need to be dealt with as soon as
they are discovered, in an appropriate manner, so that the team can get
back to work and effectively meet its goals.

There are generally considered two types of conflicts that arise in a
group. The first is task conflict and the second is relationship
conflict. Task conflict is described as disagreements on how to proceed,
or a disagreement on what tasks should be preformed to meet the end
goal. Relationship conflicts are personal issues that arise between
members. They revolve around personal disagreements or dislikes between
individuals in a team and rarely have much to do with the actual
project.

Task conflicts are generally beneficial. These conflicts may be
discussions on "how to improve a process, make the product better,
provide a better service, or improve client relationships."[^29] These
types of conflicts are considered productive and discussions on such
topics generally lead to the most constructive outcomes. "What usually
results from productive conflicts are better, new, or different
solutions to the concerns and issues the conflicting parties are
having." [^30]

If task conflicts are not monitored and mediated by a team leader, these
conflicts can become relationship conflicts. Care must be taken to
ensure that task conflicts remain about the issues and don't become
personal. Relationship conflicts arise from a disagreement or conflict
involving "personality, work style, or differences in beliefs or
values." [^31]

John Crawley described business conflict within a team as "a condition
between or among workers whose jobs are interdependent, who feel angry,
who perceive the other(s) as being at fault, and who act in ways that
cause a business problem."[^32] He also describes a workplace conflict
as containing each of the same following elements:

1.  They are interdependent
2.  They blame each other
3.  They are angry
4.  Their behavior is causing a business problem[^33]

Gary Topchik, in his First-Time Manager's Guide to Team Building, states
that when team members become "critical of another team member's
actions, behaviors, or appearance, this is unproductive conflict that
must be resolved very quickly. If not, the team will become
self-destructive."[^34]

### What can you do?

It is improbable that anyone will go through their life without having
to deal with conflict in one form or another. The same can be said of a
team; eventually every member of a team will face a disagreement,
differences or conflict. So the question is what to do. "The productive
resolution of conflict usually strengthens relationships, whereas
destructive confrontation, e.g., blaming, name calling, usually destroys
relationships, or at the very least, detracts from their satisfaction
and usefulness. Thus it is very important how you confront the conflict
once you have decided to do so."[^35]

In When Teams Work Best, the authors describe first the questions and
then the answers to "building and sustaining collaborative team
relationships." They begin by describing the "four underlying
characteristics of good relations" as:

1.  They are constructive
2.  They are productive
3.  They embrace mutual understanding
4.  They are constructively self-correcting[^36]

Next they offer four questions that "form the basis for assessing the
degree to which an interaction contributes to building a good
relationship."

1.  Did we have a constructive conversation?
2.  Was the conversation productive enough to make a difference?
3.  Did we understand and appreciate each other's perspective?
4.  Did we both commit to making improvements?[^37]

Which leads to what they call the CONNECT model.\
**C** Commit to the relationship\
**O** Optimize Safety\
**N** Narrow the discussion to one issue\
**N** Neutralize defensiveness\
**E** Explain and echo each perspective\
**C** Change one behavior each\
**T** Track it![^38]\
![](CONNECT_Model.jpg "CONNECT_Model.jpg"){width="1000"}[^39]

## References

[^1]:

[^2]:

[^3]:

[^4]:

[^5]:

[^6]:

[^7]:

[^8]:

[^9]:

[^10]:

[^11]:

[^12]:

[^13]:

[^14]:

[^15]:

[^16]: 12'O Clock High. 1949. Twentieth Century- Fox Film Corporation

[^17]:

[^18]:

[^19]:

[^20]:

[^21]:

[^22]:

[^23]:

[^24]:

[^25]:

[^26]:

[^27]:

[^28]:

[^29]:

[^30]:

[^31]:

[^32]:

[^33]:

[^34]:

[^35]:

[^36]:

[^37]:

[^38]:

[^39]:


# Managing Groups and Teams/Communication

## Introduction

Communication is something we humans do extraordinarily well. Some
cynics say that the primary purpose of language is to allow us to tell
lies! Hopefully, this is a misconception - for good communication
requires that the \'mental model\' being transmitted by the originator
and the experience of the person interpreting the received information
be sufficiently similar. For example, a brain surgeon explaining a
procedure to a patient would use more simple, precise, unequivocal
\'mental models\' than if she was presenting a paper to a seminar of
specialist colleagues who each enjoyed comprehensive and independent
checking, cross-checking capabilities. It is important, when
communicating, to apply an adequately \'balanced\' checking
\'protocol.\' Failure to do so is at our peril!

## Miscommunication

On January 3 2006 at approximately 11:50 pm, major news networks
reported that 12 of 13 miners trapped in the Sago Mine were alive.
Families of the victims celebrated for three hours before mine company
officials informed them that the report was wrong and 12 of the 13
miners were dead. The families would later report that a mine foreman,
who had overheard the rescue team, had contacted the families with some
initial but unverified information and the media picked the story up
from the families. Reporters then \'verified\' that information with
other families and other news sources without realizing those
\'cross-check\' sources originated from the very same, single unverified
source. They failed to \'dig down to the roots\' of their story and
relied instead on visible superficiality.

Beyond compounding the mental anguish of the families, many professional
news media outlets appeared unprofessional and the mine company
experienced a far worse public relations problem than if they had
communicated clearly and quickly using more formal protocols.
Unfortunately formal protocols involve verification, and this slower
process can seem rather like censorship or deliberate information
management to news gatherers. While most business communication issues
don't result in such dramatic public displays, \'quick and dirty\'
communications often prevent teams from functioning properly and cost
companies uncountable billions of dollars. But so too does the
over-cautious, \'need to know\' secrecy beloved of military style
organizations, who thereby miss many opportunities. The trick is to
strike a balance, and that balance will change, depending on the
sensitivity, importance and urgency of the message.

Unbalanced messages are likely to cause "communication breakdown" which
can engender conflict. Over cautious protocol can prevent important
information from reaching decision makers accurately and in time, while
listening to messages with no verification protocol - rumors - can
easily reduce the morale of team members. By understanding the causes of
communication breakdown and effective techniques for group
communication, team members can create a more productive working
environment for themselves, and increase their effectiveness when
dealing with outsiders such as customers or the wider public (or vice
versa - as occurred at the Sago Mine \'information leak\'). Effective
communication techniques maximize team productivity and creativity while
minimizing the chance of miscommunication. Just to make things even more
complicated, deliberately \'unbalancing\' messages to provoke
miscommunication can be quite creative! Unbalanced - unverified messages
are the essence of formal \'brain-storming\' events, and also occurs
routinely in gentle banter and ironic satire among colleagues. However,
it can not be over-emphasized that these \'wrong protocol\' techniques
should only be used exceptionally as they require very careful
management in a business environment!

## Communication Breakdown

Communication breakdown can be the source or the result of conflict, but
it is also important to recognize that a lack of conflict can also be a
sign of communication breakdown. Inadequate training, apathy,
misunderstandings, channel noise, differing backgrounds, or lack of
respect can all be causes of communication breakdown. The results of
communication issues include withholding information, loss of trust,
reduced cooperation, reduced productivity, reduced creativity, reduced
risk taking, personal attacks, sabotage, complaints, clique formation
and team breakup or individual resignation. The North American Blackout
of 2003 is an interesting example. One power plant failed to accurately
communicate the status of their section of the power grid, causing more
than one hundred power plants to go off line, forty million people to
lose power, and an estimated six billion dollars in losses to
businesses.It is caused by problems which occur daily which allows
people to stop their communication.

A survey of 560 MBA students with work experience from across the USA
helps to illustrate some of the problems that communication breakdown
can cause. The table labeled \"Hard Costs\" shows the number of
respondents that can recollect certain hard costs that were incurred due
to communication breakdown. The table labeled \"Soft Costs\" shows the
soft costs incurred (Gilsdorf 191-192). The soft costs may result in
losses as high as or higher than hard costs, but they are difficult to
quantify. As you can see, the effects of communication breakdown are far
from trivial. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) has
recently released an article stating that poor communication is more of
a threat to the failure of a business than competition or the economy
(\"Communication Errors Undermining Business.\").

  \# of respondents   Hard cost
  ------------------- ----------------------------
  11                  \< \$100
  34                  \$100 - \$499
  24                  \$500 - \$999
  82                  \$1,000 - \$9,999
  25                  \$10,000 - \$19,999
  35                  \$20,000 - \$49,999
  11                  \$50,000 - \$99,999
  21                  \$100,000 - \$499,999
  3                   \$500,000 - \$999,99
  11                  \$1,000,000 - \$10,000,000

  : **Hard costs**

  \# of respondents   Soft cost
  ------------------- ----------------------------------------------
  124                 Lost time
  111                 Lost employee(s)
  101                 Lowered productivity, efficiency, or quality
  82                  Bad image, word of mouth, publicity
  80                  Ill will
  79                  Grave erosion of individuals\' effectiveness
  72                  Damaged working environment of relationship
  57                  Lowered morale
  56                  Stupid risk or liability
  51                  Lowered team spirit
  46                  Lowered trust
  46                  Lost revenue
  34                  Waste of money
  25                  Lost customer(s)
  18                  Lost opportunity

  : **Soft costs**

There are many books written with psychological and linguistic
perspectives on communication breakdown. "That's Not What I Meant!" by
Deborah Tannen explains how ambiguities in our speech can cause people
to misinterpret what we intend to say. She also talks about how the
majority of what we say isn't in the actual words, but in the way they
are said. This involves pacing, volume, expression of emotion (pitch,
tone). There is a higher incidence of misinterpretation when
communicating between cultures, due to differences in the norms of "meta
messages" between cultures. Communication breakdown can also be
manifested as politeness taken too far. Tannen talks about the
"Two-edged Sword of Politeness" where, in the interest of maintaining
relations with others, important things are not said. The motive here is
to get along, but people often end up getting along worse when this is
done. When communicating, we don't always say what we mean due to what
we think others might think of us. This is known as indirectness and is
a type of self-defense mechanism. Communicating with others is far more
complicated than simply turning an idea into words, saying it, and
having it turned back into the same idea. All these complications are
places where communication breakdown can occur, frustrating those
involved.

Richard J. Mayer has a slightly different perspective on breakdown. He
came up with the hypothesis that "Virtually all communication problems
and conflicts between people, no matter how serious they appear, are due
to an accumulation of un-confronted and unresolved minor issues, each of
little or no apparent importance." (Mayer 3). He studied hundreds of
instances where communication breakdown had occurred to come up with
this idea. Many of these minor issues are caused by the communication
concepts mentioned earlier by Tannen. The new part of this perspective
is that major problems are caused by an accumulation of minor issues. He
suggests confronting these little issues every time they are
encountered. He also proposes the idea that we are more skilled at being
competitive than we are at being collaborative, which makes it difficult
to work in effective teams.

A certain amount of communication conflict within a team is good. Both
too little, as well as too much conflict is a type of communication
breakdown. Too little communication conflict most likely means either
that nobody cares very much or they are all brainwashed to think alike
(\'group-think\'). Both of these factors mean the team is not being
effective (Lemmex 2004). In an article about communication breakdown,
Larry Lauer says that communication breakdown is inevitable due to the
complex nature of human experience and thus interpretation, so the
communications need to be reiterated back and forth until both the
transmitter and all those receiving messages have a common and
verifiable understanding. He suggests some ways to spot communication
breakdown, and suggests we should look for \'activity plateaus\' after a
goal is met.

These plateaus often cause members to be more focused on their personal
matters, and communication begins to slow down. Another sign is
productivity falling off. A plateau might be due simply to members of a
group who feel that their input isn't much valued, and start to withdraw
from the group activity. Executive isolation is another sign of
communication breakdown. This is the process of a manager suffering from
\'head in the office syndrome\'. Effective communication is difficult.
During times of stress, it is tempting to avoid conflict by spending
less and less time with others, and not engaging in verifiable
communication with them about the critical issues. Finally, either too
few or too many comments, queries or complaints is likely be a sign of
communication breakdown (Lauer 1994). It is all a matter of balance
between \'foot in mouth\' and \'paralysis by analysis\'!

Communication breakdown is all around us, and is responsible for more
problems than anyone takes the time to realize. Through the use of
examples, survey results, and various perspectives on the inner workings
and diagnosis of communication breakdown, we try to develop a better
idea as to why we should want to avoid communication breakdown. The
following sections will help you communicate effectively with others so
that, together, you can plan and implement effective communication
techniques and checking protocols within your group or team.

Effective communication within a team doesn't happen by accident;
instead, it requires planning and organization, and an effective team
leader or facilitator. Planning for good communication in a meeting
setting takes even more preparation. This section will discuss how
leaders and facilitators can plan ahead for good communication.

## Planning for Communication

In modern organizations, teams may be entirely virtual and never
interact in person. This presents a unique set of communication
challenges which are outside the scope of this paper, although certain
techniques presented will work well for virtual teams.

Larson and LaFasto (1989, 55-57) consider an effective communication
system to be one of the four necessary features of team structure. The
communication system must focus on accessible information, utilize
information from credible sources, provide opportunities for informal
communication and have a way to document decisions in planning for
communication. Leaders must take care to structure the team and
interactions in such a way that these four elements are a part of the
system. For existing teams, the team will probably already have
procedures in place, whether or not conscious effort went into
developing them. As groups work together, certain norms of behavior
develop. Team leaders should be aware of this process and work to
develop an effective set of norms from the beginning. Opportunity for
informal communication needs to be deliberately coordinated, not left to
chance. To enhance the likelihood of informal communication, a team
leader will want to allow time at the beginning of the process for group
members to get to know one another and interact informally. An offsite
retreat or team activity will build personal relationships among members
and facilitate communication down the road. The facilitator should
continue to build in regular opportunities for informal discussion in
ways that work with the team culture.

Another important technique in preparing for communication is to train
group members in advance on communication techniques. A leader should
train team members about group techniques for meeting facilitation and
conflict resolution as well as individual skills such as listening,
communicating criticism and mediation. This process facilitation can
have positive effects on team accomplishment. (Wheelan 2005) Finally,
good communication requires feedback among group members. The
facilitator must build in ways for team members to provide one another
evaluative information about their behavior. (Wheelan 2005)

Once general systems are in place for good communication, the team
leader can focus on specific situations such as a team meeting. For
teams working face to face, meetings are one of the most common ways
groups communicate, so planning for effective communication at meetings
is critical. Part of planning a meeting means having the logistics in
place for success. The timing and location must be right and the
technologies must be in place for effective communication. Logistics
such as the time of day members are likely to be available to meet and
at their best, a location that will minimize interruptions and
technologies such as PowerPoint that provide visual aids are all
important foundations for a successful meeting. (Whetton and Cameron,
1995) Even more importantly, the leader must be clear on the purpose of
the meeting and make sure the right participants are involved. Then, he
or she must plan the structure. (Whetton and Cameron, 1995)

To be most effective, a facilitator must explicitly determine the most
appropriate meeting structure and procedures. Some of the basic
procedural options include: "1) an agenda-guided discussion, 2) a
problem- or item-list procedure, and 3) simplified parliamentary
procedure." (Stech/Ratliffe, 243) Extensive detail on each of these
options can be found in the book, "Effective Group Communication"
referenced at the end of the paper. For most meetings, a detailed
agenda, distributed in advance, is an effective way to help participants
prepare for the meeting. The agenda gives group members time to consider
issues to be discussed so the group does not, "waste time discussing
ill-conceived suggestions." (Whetton and Cameron, 460) The group also
needs to have a clear decision making format in place. Communication
structure options include: ordinary group discussion (the most common
default), brainstorming and nominal group technique. The appropriate
choice depends on the group task. (Whetton and Cameron, 1995) Effective
implementation of these various communication strategies will be
discussed in the next section. Beyond determining the structural format,
a leader also needs to prepare by making sure the participants fully
understand the purpose of the meeting and their role in the process. In
many cases, particularly when there is a controversial item on the
agenda, pre-meetings with specific participants are important. "...it is
advisable to discuss the matter before the meeting with key opinion
leaders. This polling of sentiment is useful for gauging how much time
should be set aside for discussing an issue and how it should be
presented to the group. In addition, if the chairperson can obtain the
support of key group members before the meeting, it is less likely that
a controversial issue will dominate the group discussion..." (Whetton
and Cameron, 461)

Facilitators and leaders must plan for good communication. In general,
investment in structure (including informal communication) and member
training can set the stage to allow team members to communicate well.
For a team meeting, more planning should be done including deciding on
the meeting purpose, participants, structure, logistics and decision
making process. Agendas and pre-meetings with individuals can help
members prepare and ensure the group meeting moves smoothly.

## Communication Tools

While planning for effective communication is key in order to achieve
specific objectives, it is equally important to utilize tried and tested
\'tools\' that can facilitate \'live\' real time communication between a
transmitter and an audience.

First, some communication is what Eric Birne called \'parent to child\'-
the issuing of clear and unequivocal orders to make sure that tasks are
completed quickly in what the authority figure thinks is the best way
possible. Other times, we act more like adults, and hold discussions
that require awareness, active listening, using names and making "I"
statements. Appropriate body language, mirroring and eye contact can all
help individuals to understand each other better. The first step in
facilitating clear team communication is to be aware of who is in the
group. Bringing the group together in a social setting allows team
members to learn each other's personalities, work situation, and
personal background. This understanding prevents issues and differences
from arising that could inhibit communication between team members. The
next technique that can improve communication is the use of active
listening skills. Active listening occurs when people really hear what
the other person is saying and both paraphrase what was said and
identify any nonverbal cues that a person may also be trying to express
through body language.

Sometimes this means more than just identifying the concrete comments or
suggestions that a person is making, but also addressing any underlying
emotional issues that are also affecting what a person is trying to say
(Thompson and Gooler, 1996). A simple way to help a person understand
that you are actively listening is to use their name a few times during
the course of a conversation. This helps a person to realize that you
are focusing your attention on what they are saying, and really hearing
their full meaning (Connolly and Syer, 1996). When you are the person
who feels misunderstood or not heard, make sure to express your feelings
through the use of "I" statements. Using "I" statements allows people to
express themselves without putting others on the defensive. For example,
instead of saying, "You are completely ignoring me," phrasing that
feeling as "I feel like I am not being heard by the group" allows others
to realize how you are feeling without starting a conflict (Connolly and
Syer, 1996). If a group is having trouble creating and communicating
divergent ideas, one way to facilitate this process is through the
Nominal Group Technique. This technique preempts conflict by allowing
individuals to generate ideas individually and have everyone share their
thoughts with the group. "The advantage of the nominal group technique
is that it maximizes information gain, ensures a democratic
representation of all members' ideas...and avoids production blocking"
(Thompson, 162). Ultimately, some conflict will arise. But through the
use of the nominal group technique and the use of "I" statements,
conflict may be productive in the generation of new ideas and not lead
to permanent rifts between team members.

Though these tools for facilitating verbal communication are essential,
the importance of understanding nonverbal cues cannot be underestimated.
"The use of space, eye contact, body orientation, head movements and
other behaviors are often used to transmit messages without the use of
words" (Thompson and Gooler, 407). Regardless of what team members
actually say, it is important to be aware of the nonverbal messages
communicated through body language. Though a person may verbally agree,
it may be clear that they are uncomfortable or dissatisfied with an idea
or solution, and that needs to be addressed for good communication to be
permanently achieved. In addition to being cognizant of others'
nonverbal cues, it is also important for team members to be aware of how
their own nonverbal behavior is perceived. Team members should be very
aware of eye contact. Maintaining eye contact with individuals who are
communicating their ideas indicates interest (Connolly and Syer, 1996).
Staring out the window or around the room is often perceived as boredom
or disrespect. Another simple nonverbal technique to facilitate good
communication is the act of mirroring. Mirroring involves mimicking
others gestures and ideas. This is especially helpful for making
outsiders feel comfortable sharing ideas. While mirroring may seem over
the top, in fact, it "is a highly effective way of stating the obvious
and raising awareness to allow change." (Connolly and Syer, 210). While
these tools can help to address the nonverbal aspects of communication,
in the end team members must be aware of how they are expressing
themselves both through what they say and what they don't say.

While these general techniques are effective for most teams, individual
team differences often arise with special needs. Though there are too
many to enumerate in this paper, we would like to address two of the
most common and difficult groupings that people encounter -- diverse
groups and groups with personality clashes. "There is a delicate balance
in teams between appreciating individual differences and requiring
unity" (Larson and LaFasto, 79). Finding the balance between creating
cohesiveness and respecting differences is difficult, but can ultimately
strengthen teams if it is leveraged properly through good communication.
In today's diverse, international work environment, people of differing
work and cultural backgrounds are often working together on teams.
Finding a way to communicate despite differences is not only necessary,
but also needed in order to find the best solutions. "The belief is that
diverse teams have a broader range of knowledge, skills, abilities, and
experiences that can enhance the group's ability to critically analyze
problems and generate more creative solutions and ideas" (Thompson and
Gooler, 397).

Common problems that occur in diverse groups include stereotyping,
language barriers, and misunderstandings. For example, in the United
States a thumbs up means okay, in Japan the same gesture means money,
and in Iran it is an obscene gesture. (Henderson, 1994). Also, people
from different cultures do not have the same shared history and stories
that they can relate to when explaining issues. "When group members do
not share common social signals, the development of group cohesiveness
may be hindered and the team may have greater difficulty establishing a
positive social climate" (Thompson and Gooler, 409). For this reason, it
is particularly important that diverse teams have shared social team
activities outside of the workplace so that they can not only get to
know each other, but also have these shared stories to refer to when
trying to communicate particular points. During team meetings, team
members must take the time to pause and make sure that everyone is
grasping the issues and solutions being discussed (Henderson, 1994). If
the team rushes ahead without everyone on board, conflict will probably
ensue at a later time. A degree of formality is also helpful in diverse
team meetings. Using proper titles (and always pronouncing names
correctly, of course) and avoiding slang may help people understand each
other and not be inadvertently offended. In diverse teams, keeping an
open mind and really hearing what other team members are trying to say
must be made a priority in every meeting (Henderson, 1994). In general,
in diverse groups it is better to use the Nominal Group Technique than
devil's advocate, which can cause the group to turn on one member, or
simply create unproductive conflict that does not lead to the best
solution. However, despite the extra effort that must be put into
communication in diverse groups, the benefits often make the work worth
it when highly effective, innovative solutions to problems are
generated.

Another factor that plays a role in team communication is the differing
personalities between team members. In fact, Weblin goes so far as to
say that "personality may be described as the sum pattern of a person's
way of communicating -- the total impression he makes on others" (quoted
in Huseman, 1977: p. 417). Because of their varying personalities,
members of teams receive, process, and act on information and situations
differently. Differences can be helpful by bringing fresh perspectives
and skill sets to the team, but can also create conflict if
communication styles differ or are misunderstood. If team members
understand their own personality tendencies as well as those of their
teammates, the communication between members and therefore effectiveness
of the team will improve drastically. It will also allow the team to
emphasize and appreciate each member's strengths. As Ruderman
hypothesizes, "the level of team personality diversity will be
positively and significantly related to team productivity, especially on
problem solving teams" (1996, p. 79).

## Personality Types

One of the most prevalently used personality assessment tools is the
Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This technique can prove to be a
powerful tool in learning about your own personality as well as those of
your teammates. Unfortunately, it is not especially \'scientific\' and
some less secure personalities may place too much faith in their
\'type\' so that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The assessment
relies on a long and recursive series of questions, none of which have
an \'obviously correct\' answer, but all are rather ambiguous in nature.

This MBTI tool is just one of many which seeks to analyze and measure a
person's predisposed preferences about the world and other people. MBTI
identifies people as points along four axes. These four dimensions thus
produce 16 broad possible personality types and a range of \'shades\'
within each category. The first dimension refers to how a person prefers
to be energized. An extrovert (E) mainly gains energy from interaction
with others while an introvert generally (I) prefers being alone. The
second dimension deals with how a person prefers to take in information
from the external world. A sensing (S) person likes distinct facts and
details while an intuitive (N) person prefers to see the big picture.
The third dimension relates to how people usually make decisions. A
thinking (T) person generally utilizes \'cold\' logical thinking for
their decisions while a feeling (F) person tends to make judgments based
on personal and subjective values. The final dimension deals with an
individual's preference for their relationship with the external world.
A perceptive (P) person with the perceives situations in an emotional,
flexible and spontaneous way. A more judgmental (J) person prefers to
live in planned and organized situations that is susceptible to analysis
and synthesis (Bradley 1997: p. 341; Dent 2004: p. 67)

Understanding differing personality types in general can help the group
communication and functional process. "The ideal team should be highly
diversified in the talents and knowledge each member contributes, while
maintaining open, non-threatening communication" (Bradley 1997: p. 338).
Extroverts tend to open the lines of between group members, while
introverts provide internal reflection of group discussions. Both are
important functions of group communication. The sensing-intuition
dimension can produce the greatest divisions in teams but both are
absolutely necessary" (Lyman 1995: p. 58). Sensing types take in and
bring up pertinent, concrete, and precise facts, and recognize the
practical realities of the situation. On the other hand, intuitive types
take in data as a whole, focusing on associations and relationships and
seeing new possibilities and ideas. Thinking types present a logical
analysis of the decision-making situation and therefore communicate in
this way, while feeling individuals offer insights into how feelings of
other group members might affect the situation.

Feelers may view thinkers as insensitive while thinkers might view
feelers as touchy feely if each does not appreciate the others
perspective. The planned and orderly approach of the judging type will
typically help keep the team on schedule, while perceivers help

## Conclusion

Utilizing a variety of these tools and techniques to facilitate
effective communication is crucial in order to maximize team
effectiveness. When communication structures and protocols ares not in
place, the communication breakdown is more probable than not. Fairly
simple misunderstandings, if not detected, can impair, sometimes even
devastate the productivity of a team. On the other hand, some
misunderstandings can actually lead to creative leaps of the
imagination, especially if the checks and balances we call \'protocol\'
are working properly. Careful planning for meetings with simple tools
like the minutes of previous transactions and and not too flexible
agendas can help in advance. During the encounter, attention to verbal
and non-verbal communication, and understanding different participants'
backgrounds and communication styles can all help teams capture the
productivity improvements associated with effective team operation.
Ultimately, the increased productivity that results from developing a
range of \'communications protocols\' for different situations,
circumstances and audiences is likely to be well worth the effort. The
essence is in finding the right balance between spontaneity and
carefully edited messages likely to be appropriate in each foreseeable
situation.

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