Steps to Implementing Effective Team Communication

All business owners and managers want to have effective team communication at their company, but many don’t know how to do it or what, exactly, is needed.

Here are two examples of organizations I’ve worked with. 

Example 1: The leadership team for a non-profit advocacy group held weekly meetings where the focus of communication was giving status reports. Sadly, this turned into each manager reporting, “How great my department is,” and “What a wonderful job I’m doing as the leader of this department.” Basically, it became a bragging session as opposed to a productive team meeting. 

I facilitated improvement discussions with the leadership team to help them first, identify the key initiatives they needed to focus on that supported the organization’s mission, and second, the types of information that were key to achieving those initiatives.

The team decided to change their meeting agenda and change the topics and the items that would be communicated within that meeting. For them, effective team communication was about focusing on problems that had to be solved as an organization in order for them to continue to move forward on their mission. 

Example 2: The challenge for a research team supporting federal government contractors in the Washington, D.C. area was getting everyone’s views heard. Some people tended to hold passionately to their own approach and were resistant to the different points of view being shared by other team members. Others held back, concerned that their ideas or thoughts would be shot down. The team’s meetings often broke down into very emotional arguments and personal attacks. 

In working with this team I asked them to define, “What does effective team communication look like?” They determined that everybody’s viewpoints had to be heard and also understood because one person’s perspective of another’s viewpoint could be very different than what that person actually intended. We explored the importance of focusing on the facts and not the personal biases they might have or the assumptions they might make about each other’s viewpoints.

To support effective team communication, they created a set of ground rules that they would follow at all team meetings. 

Steps to Effective Team Communication
Here are steps you can take to have more effective team communication: 

1. Define the Team’s Purpose—For each team involved you need to ask, What is this team expected to accomplish? What goals do they need to focus on? How does the team support the organization’s goals? One of the tools that I found helpful is a purpose statement that explains why the team exists and how it operates.
   
2. Figure Out the Resources and Information Needed—What kinds of information does the team need in order to achieve its purpose? Who needs to gather each piece of the information? Who’s going to be responsible for sharing and disseminating that information? How will it be shared? Some teams prefer to use technology, such as internal blogs and electronic bulletin boards. Other teams find that face-to-face contact or meeting on-site works better for them to make sure nothing is misinterpreted. You need to figure out what works best for your team and apply it.
    
3. Establish Ground Rules—This sounds basic, but the simple things can really get in the way of effective team communication. So within ground rules, it’s important to figure out: 

For example, one team decided that a meeting agenda would be sent out 24 hours before all meetings so everyone could come prepared. This really helped increase their team’s efficiency because information was communicated in a timely way.

All business owners and managers want to have effective team communication at their company.