Fortifying Effective Team Communication: Two Valuable Techniques

"It is teamwork that remains the competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare."
                                                                                    —— Patrick Lencioni

In my work, I strive to strengthen and fortify effective team communication. I agree with points made by Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable.

Lencioni believes that because teams are made up of imperfect human beings, they have a tendency to perform in dysfunctional ways. However, he also supports techniques for modifying human behaviors in ways that help individuals perform as a strong and powerful team.

How many times have you led or attended a team meeting where action items were discussed?

You walk away from the meeting thinking, "Okay, that was a good meeting, and we all agreed to handling ’x, y and z’ as action items." Then, "sure as shootin’," you reconvene with the team and no one remembers the action items or they thought someone else was handling them!

If you want effective team communication and effective team meetings, I have two valuable techniques to share from Lencioni’s book that have helped me:

1. End-of-meeting team closer: Whether meeting by phone or in person, ask each meeting attendee to confirm their action item(s). They should also confirm the due date for any action item(s); and what to expect when items are delivered. For team members who have no action item, they should confirm that status. This process allows for clarification and further discussion if the action items are not understood by the team. This strategy gives clarity around communication, and it works very well as teams move forward without wasting time.
2. Cascading communication: This is a really useful technique for sharing meeting information with people who are not in the meeting room but who need to know what was discussed, accomplished, or decided. For example, the management team may have made a decision about its operations that will affect the entire organization. Using the "cascading communication" process, the meeting participants identify the message(s) they are going to share with others—within the next 24 to 48 hours.

However, how many times have we heard varying or completely different messages? For example, my manager might share information with me—then, I walk down the hall and talk with Joe. His manager, Roy, was in the same meeting but Joe ends up hearing something different than I heard.

With "cascading communication," you want to eliminate different messages going out to other affected employees. This process helps keep everyone "on the same page." Receivers of the message are also allowed opportunities to ask questions to make sure there is really clarity. By keeping communication uniform throughout the organization, you can minimize or hopefully eliminate misunderstandings, rumors and message misinterpretations.

The key to improving effective team communication, which ultimately has the power to increase your competitive advantage, is putting these two valuable methods into practice—day after day, meeting after meeting.

As Lencioni says, "Success comes only for those groups that overcome the all-too-human behavioral tendencies that corrupt teams and breed dysfunctional politics within them." I know it is possible because I’ve seen these techniques work for me and my teams.

I agree with the author Patrick Lencioni: "It is teamwork that remains the competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare."