Mark Shutock

Keep Your Team Flying with Training

Top 10 Tips for Successful Team Communication

In my previous Insights in this series, I discussed the common barriers to successful team communication, as well as offered up steps companies can take to improve communication at their organizations.

I’d like to finish this series with my top 10 tips for successful communication:

1. Create a Safe Environment—This means that you don’t punish people for disagreeing with you or any other team members. It also means ideas communicated within the group must never be ridiculed. Communication needs to be open—and in order for team members to feel comfortable sharing their ideas, thoughts, suggestions, etc., they need to know that what they say won’t come back to bite them.
   
   
2. Mange Formal Meetings—If a team meeting is called, it needs to be as effective as possible. Set an agenda ahead of time so all participants know what’s going to be discussed and come to the meeting prepared. Appoint a facilitator to run the meeting and to keep people on track and prevent them from going off on a tangent. Publish or e-mail meeting minutes after the meeting is over, this way people know what agreements were made, what was discussed, etc.
   
   Also, it’s a good idea to set some meeting ground rules ahead of time, such as “We’re going to share openly, we’re going to document everything afterwards and we’re going to allow disagreements to occur if they are presented appropriately.”
   
   
3. Encourage Vulnerability—In order to effectively communicate, people must trust one another. And this trust comes from understanding that vulnerability is OK.
   
   Team members need to know that it’s OK to say, “I don’t know” or to just not know something. Team members need to know they won’t be punished for making a mistake, as long as they are open and upfront about it.
   
   If people knew it was OK to be vulnerable, they would be willing to take more risks when there are risks to take. Also, they would know, if they did make a mistake or fail in some way, that they would be encouraged to seek assistance of other team members.
   
   
4. Allow Disagreements to Take Place—Sometimes in groups there’s a lot of “group think,” which I’d describe as each member going along with the group’s ideas even if they disagree , sacrificing  independent thinking in order to achieve group cohesiveness.  Highly cohesive groups are particularly susceptible because their cohesiveness implies an unspoken understanding and the ability to work together without explanations.   In order to maximize the quality of ideas and decision making, groups should allow and even encourage conflicting ideas.
   
   
5. Use Effective Interpersonal Skills—Damage to team member’s interpersonal relationships can affect future communications. That’s why team members need to consider the personal needs of their colleagues before speaking and acting to ensure the self-esteem of each person stays intact. Team members should encourage all members to share their ideas and concerns, and should respond with empathy even if they disagree. Finally, conflict among team should be addressed quickly and tactfully.
   
   
6. Ask for Feedback and Expectations from Your Company’s Leadership—The team should be encouraged, individually and collectively, to gather information about expectations and priorities, and to ask for individual and team performance feedback regularly. In a lot of cases, managers are busy, which is why people need to be proactive about seeking goals, expectations, priorities and performance feedback.
   
   
7. Avoid Jargon—When you use jargon, communication problems can occur. Jargon - a language used by people who work in a particular area – can create a barrier to communication with those not familiar with the language.  When acronyms, short-titles and trade-specific or company-specific terminology are used, those who don’t know the meaning are often afraid to ask. When this happens, the person walks away without really understanding what was just communicated to him/her.
   
   My recommendation is to make sure all ideas are presented in plain language so everyone understands, and explain terms which might be misunderstood.
   
   
8.  Fine-Tune Written Communications—Written communications are particularly susceptible to misunderstanding due to the lack of interaction and the inability to observe nonverbal communication or tone of voice; therefore, it’s really important to make sure E-mail and other written messages are clearly expressed.
   
   Many E-mails I’ve received are not well-organized, requiring several readings or even a call to the author asking for an explanation. One way to avoid typing an incoherent stream of consciousness is to draft an outline prior to writing to allow your thoughts to flow in a logical, well-organized manner.
   
   Also, after the document is prepared, be sure to proofread your work and if possible, have someone else review it before you send. Poorly written documents with misspellings and grammatical errors can be challenging to read and can adversely affect your credibility.
   
   
9. Confirm Understanding—After a face-to-face meeting, be sure to summarize your main points and confirm that everyone understands before they walk away. This will help ensure everyone is on the same page and that there’s a common understanding of the next steps.
   
   You can summarize either verbally after the meeting is over or you can send out a written communication that documents all the details. Doing this will also help you resolve any disagreements that pop up before they turn into conflicts.
   
   
10. Use Effective Listening Skills—In face-to-face communications and group meetings, listening is often a problem. All involved parties are talking, but no one is really listening.
    
    
    In school, we are exposed to only three of the four communication methods:

    How to read;

    • How to write; and
    • How to speak publicly.

    But effective listening skills aren’t often addressed.
    
    Here are some active listening recommendations:

    • Maintain eye contact.
    • Take notes.
    • Make listening noises, such as saying, “I understand” or “I see.”
    • Repeating what was just said back to the person who said it.
    • Listening “between the lines” to discover hidden meanings (things that are being said without actually being said).
    • Listening for facts and feelings.

By utilizing these 10 tips, you will have much more successful team communication.

 

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