The Role of Effective Communication in a Team

A key component and objective of the assigned group presentation and related activities was to ensure effective communication. Kaywortha and Leidnerb (2000) state that effective communication is crucial to the success of group functioning. In order to structure this reflective essay in a straight forward manner, I will reflect on the rules of the group, the problems experienced and why they occurred, the strengths and weaknesses of the groups communication skills, what I would do differently in retrospect and my contributions to the group. Group rules or group norms are simply social standards of behaviour actioned by individuals in order to maintain interactions between group members and establish guidelines for what is to be considered acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

Team norms that are discussed in an open and honest manner will be most effective. This open communication is effective in creating a positive communication climate (CC). Contextually, the CC is the essence of the personal relationships that exist between group members. According to Buckley (2018) recognition, acknowledgement and endorsement may lead to a confirming or a disconfirming CC. My group did this well, by establishing group norms reflective of a confirming CC. According to Lumsden and Lumsden (2004), a group of people have the ability to become a team when there is a mutual goal, distributed leadership, diverse member contributions and individuals are supportive of one another. We achieved this by a clear understanding that mutual respect, mutual goals, shared leadership and contributions were crucial and necessary. Reaching a consensus on crucial decisions, constructive feedback and cultivating mutual respect were all implicit norms that I as an individual and the group laid out as group rules to establish a working and confirming CC. Generally, these rules were talked about in our first meeting and agreed upon by all members. However, some were implemented through precedent, such as a team member asking for another opinion and presenting questions like “do we all agree on this video?”. Regardless of well thought and set out group rules, problems were still encountered that acted as barriers to effective communication. Using Tuckman’s Stages of Development, I aim to reflect on these problems.

The forming stage, the stage where the group orients itself and identifies the interpersonal and task behaviours (Buckley, 2018) was where we encountered our first problem. A key component of this stage is decision making in order to have a clear group objectives and set goals. We struggled to make a decision on when to meet as a group, these meetings were needed for the group to function and succeed. This struggle was mainly due to our individual schedules. The second issue was experienced during the storming stage, there was resistance from some group members to take on the harder parts of the workload related to the group task. During the norming and performing stages of the project we experienced issues of group members not being confident in voicing or sharing their opinions. This did impact the productivity of the project and I felt that I was making many decisions alone and without the support of the group at times. However, this was necessary due to the assignment deadline. The final issue was related to a language barrier with one group member. This impacted each stage of the groups development and also made verbal communication difficult at times. The ability for the group to become a team was fulfilled, regardless of the before mentioned problems.

To become a team, we first set out goals that we all agreed on, one of these was to produce a group presentation of a high standard, the second to all complete work in a timely manner. The setting of these goals did inspire unity for the group. Members opinions were always important, respected and considered valuable which lead to diversity and creativity. This freedom of opinion lead to a fair and agreeable distribution of the work load. Also, it was extremely helpful in members working on components of the assignment that were in line with their strengths. We all agreed that working on things we were interested in was far easier and produced a higher standard of work. Group meetings and the formation of a Facebook group established the platform for our group to transpire into a team. This communication tool aided in interconnecting individual efforts and also allowed feedback channels to operate at any stage of the process and at any stage of our weekly personal timetables. The second strength of this form of communication supported by technology was its ability to overcome the before mentioned language barrier. This inspired interconnected efforts and support for all members, in turn this created a sense of shared responsibility.

Further, our group fulfilled the four components of satisfying interpersonal relationships (IRs) and subsequently this only strengthened our CC. Buckley (2018) describes four features of satisfying IRs; commitment, investment, self-disclosure and trust. Commitment was shown by responding to posts in the Facebook group and also attending the weekly face-to-face meetings. Investment and trust was demonstrated by each member of the team completing the weekly workload on time. Self-disclosure was displayed by individuals being honest and open regarding their strengths and weaknesses in regards to academic activities, public speaking and ability to work in groups. Thanks to this self-disclosure our team was situated in the open domain of the Johari Window model. This placement only strengthened the functioning of our group despite any challenges that we encountered. Weaknesses were however encountered. As previously mentioned getting people to share their opinions at times proved difficult and while we were able to minimise its negative effects on the group’s ability, it did have a moderately strong negative influence on the CC. As presentation day occurred after the mid-semester break it proved difficult to get all group members together to rehearse. Group members often had assignments due for other courses or exams to prepare for. However, individuals were often not clear in explaining this. In terms of relational dialectics, this unclear closedness and openness unfortunately led to interpersonal conflict. This interpersonal conflict meant we only did one full run through of the group presentation, and this was on the day of the presentation. This subsequently lead to new issues of trust. As mentioned, trust is a crucial element of satisfying IRs. These trust issues in my opinion did effect the final outcome of the group presentation and further led to a breakdown in the CC as well as the level of satisfaction received from the interpersonal relationships within the group.

Finally, I would like to reflect on what I personally could have done differently. I would have handled the dialectical tension in a different manner. I believe naturalisation as described by Baxter (1990) would have been best implemented. This would have ensured that each person’s needs were met to an extent regardless of their openness or closedness. This compromise would have led more mutual support. Those who really did not have an opinion could have remained silent but those who wanted to share an opinion could have. This may have strengthened trust and inspired confidence in the direction of the group. Further, this would have strengthened my own trust and confidence in my opinions and trust. Social media could have been used in a different format. Asynchronous channels could have been used minimally. Group calls and/or FaceTime could have been enacted and have been more effective. Critical thinking can be at times inspired by social media. This critical thinking could have diminished individual’s confidence to express their opinions on important decisions. However, it would in my opinion be inappropriate to not use social media. Alternatively, social norms for social media could have been beneficial to the communication that took place on these platforms. “Telepresence” refers to how much of one’s interaction and efforts are conducted online. This would aim to encourage and establish the sharing of opinions via social media. I would think it appropriate to implement the formation of such norms in the forming stage.

To better overcome the issue of practising the presentation I would have suggested to the group that we moved the completion deadline forward a week and therefore had more time to rehearse and review. This would have required me to completely accept a leadership role within the group. Subsequently, the group would have benefited from me being more self-disclosing about my presentation experience. Further, this experience also would have aided in the group in trusting me to lead them. As someone whom often makes presentations I could have better assisted the group by leading them and helping them through the tasks that were ahead, coaching them on public speaking and being more open with my constructive feedback.

Through this reflection I have demonstrated the challenges, the weaknesses and the strengths that our group possessed. A highly functioning communication climate and overall positive experiences led to the group, and me as an individual becoming more competent in every aspect of human communication in the context of a group.