Attributes to Enhance Team Effectiveness

Question:

Discuss about the Teamwork, Communication and Ethics for Business.

Teamwork is extremely important in present day workplaces as it helps to work in coordination with colleagues and seniors within a team to achieve common goal at a faster pace. It provides the company as well as the staff to develop the ability to become more familiar with each other and also to learn about working together. It not only helps in supporting each other but also helps in assimilation of ideas that bring creativity and innovations on the work floor (Weller, Boyd and Cumin 2014). It helps in fostering creativity and learning along with development of complementary strengths. It has been also helpful in preventing any conflicts between the team members by building string bonds between them. Besides, helping in development of conflict resolution skills, it also helps in the development of a wider sense of ownership among the team members creating a supportive environment (Manley and Martin 2016). Effective communication is often important in order to develop teamwork and to world successful results. For effective communication, important ethics also need to be followed. This following assignment will mainly help in establishing the interconnected relationship between effective teamwork, team performance, team communication and ethics in communication. This will in turn be helpful in understanding how each of the terms related with team work and organizational success.

Often individuals in an organization need to align their interest together and work in coordination with other members in order to achieve common. This is called teamwork. Dochy et al. (2014) are of the opinion that when colleagues work together, it helps in higher productivity and improvement in morale and overall quality product or service. If there is any conflict between the staffers, it can lead to potential negative impacts like inhibition of effective teamwork, delaying of projects, cost overrun situations along with decrease in effectiveness o the work. One of the most important attribute for effective teamwork is group dynamic. All the team members should understand and comply with the organizational objectives including short terms as well as long term strategies (Stephens et al. 2016). This would make sure that all the members are working to meet common goals while performing their everyday tasks. This results in maintaining strong team dynamics and helps in achieving company’s goals. Another important attribute that enhances team effectiveness is mutual accountability where team members make promises to each other along with that of leadership (Salas and Rosen 2013). It is very important to develop a culture of responsibility, obligation and support from each other and also by effective leadership to foster accountability. Team performance can be enhanced by individuals being responsible about own work and duties and tracking individual as well a group progress. The team should help the struggling individual by providing support and should also create positive pressure to deliver results without disappointing each other. The third attribute which enhances team performance and maintain the team environment is giving each other the power to make decisions. Lowe and Mcinnes (2015) are of the opinion that transparency helps in inviting more creative suggestions in the team creating a more collaborative environment. Here, everyone feels respected as they believe that their suggestions are considered important which make them enthusiastic towards team work. This increases team performance. Collaborative leaderships also increase team effectiveness by building proper relationships among the team embers helping them to succeed individually and accomplishing the mutual objectives. Proper motivation can be given to team members by allowing them to take decisions to bring out radical changes. Another important aspect for increasing team performance is utilizing the individual strengths of the members to achieve bigger goal. In any workplace, different individuals come with his their own set of skills, talents as well as strengths. It is very important for all teams to utilize the unique skills of each individual by proper planning for the benefit of the entire group to maintain profit in the overall effectiveness of the business. An open minded attribute should be possessed by all team members in order to maintain team communication. Effective feedback giving and receiving skills are also found to be extremely important to develop the quality of the work of each individual and also maintain an environment of transparency among the team without inviting team conflicts (Russ et al. 2013). This had been stated by researchers to break the ice among team members and prevent them from having negative feelings about each other. Moreover, the team members should also be aware of the cultural preferences and inhibitions of their team members an do not indulge in any activities that harm the cultural traditions and feelings of their fellow members. When all these are maintained effectively, a proper team work can be ensured which will result in higher team effectiveness and team performance.

Issues that can Arise from Ineffective Communication

Although teamwork acts as an important tool for meeting the organization goals and developing business skills and function, it can also create several issues. It can result in development of tensions and anxiety among employees that may act as barriers in achieving goals. Effective communication in teams can help in eliminating the stress and negative feelings among team members making them enthusiastic and perform beyond their capabilities (Sacks et al. 2015). For development of effective communication, team members should first develop an open mind, a clear understanding of the organizational goal and also developing the habit of active listening. Active listening is one of the most important aspects of effective communication which involves proper note taking, asking of relevant questions and then repeating what the speaker had said to verify it. Effective communication makes the team members succeed in their projects because it enhances open mindedness giving scopes to individual in asking questions rather than making assumption about each other (Gausvik et al. 2015). This helps in building trust and harmony in the working environment. Another important aspect of effective communication which enhances team effectiveness is marinating a two way feedback. It is very important for every team member to learn the ways by which detailed and constructive feedback should be given for increasing team communication. Care should be taken so that the skills of offering feedback can coach the team members rather than creating extra boundaries for them. A two way feedback is stated by the researchers to enable team members to self evaluate and develop skills and features (Martin et al. 2015). Effective communication is also helpful in prevention of many issues that may arise from unclear instruction and miscommunications. Effective communication actually helps in clarifying the roles and responsibilities of every team members that reduces the chance of improper role clarity of members. When there are fewer misconceptions, the chances of failure of projects reduce. Effective communication helps in clarifying conception, expectation and also behaviour of each different role of members (Merry, Weller and Mitchell 2014). Meeting together socially and engaging in both formal and informal communication gives team members a chance of relaxing together without the boundaries of the work environment and helps to know each other better. This assures better relationship building and effective results in teamwork. Moreover, ensuring intercultural communication skills are also important to overcome language barriers in a multicultural environment. Proper knowledge about other cultures is extremely important in effective communication as it helps in portraying certain customs and body language that is respectful to the individuals of other cultures. Having culturally competent communication skill are indeed very necessary in maintaining effective communication in global companies. Offering effective training about proper communication skills and building good team spirits through effective communication can help in reaching the organizational objectives at a faster pace (Mater and Ibrahim 2015).

Importance of Open-Mindedness and Active Listening in Effective Communication

Ethical communication in teamwork mainly refers to the moral aspect of interaction with a team to ensure proper teamwork. This mainly helps in enhancing of the human worth and dignity by fostering the main values of human worth and human dignity. These can be achieved only when the team members have the right values gathering by proper fostering of the truthfulness, fairness, personal integrity, responsibility and also respect for self and the others (Carlson et al. 2017). The main attribute requiring for maintain ethical communication in teamwork is development the feeling of caring and self responsibility not only for oneself but also for the other group members. Many researchers over the years have provided many important attributes that they state to be helping in development of ethical communication in team performance. Truthfulness, accuracy, reason as well as honesty are very important for maintaining the integrity in the communication which ensures effective relationship development and trust on each other. Another important principle for communication ethics in workplace in teamwork is the endorsing of the freedom of expression, diversity of the perspectives as well as tolerance to dissent for achieving the informed as well as responsible decision making which is fundamental to proper teamwork to succeed in team efficiency. Another important ethics that every team members should maintain while working as a team is to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to them or before creating any assumption about them and their working skills. It is very important for the individuals to have complete access to different communication resources as well as different opportunities which are indeed necessary to fulfill human potential and also to contribute to the well being of the team and the team members for effective communication (Thistlethwhaite 2015). As an individual of team, he should try his best to condemn and disapprove any communication that degrades not only team members but also humanity through distortion, intimidation, hatred, coercion, intolerance or violence. One of the most important ethical principles that every human being should surely practice while working in a team is committing to oneself about the courageous expression of personal convictions in order to maintain fairness and justice. One of the most important ethics that should also be maintained in order to maintain team performance and team effectiveness is advocating successfully by sharing information as well as opinions and feelings when facing significant choices. At the same time, the individuals should ensure that they are respecting the privacy and confidentiality of the other members (Mater et al. 2015). Researchers are of the opinion that unethical communication threatens the quality of all types of communications. It in turn hampers the well being of all the individuals of the team members as well as the organization where all are working. It is very important for all team members to accept the responsibility for the short term as well as the long term consequences for not only the own communication but also expect the same from others.

Maintenance of Two-Way Feedback

From the entire discussion above, it is seen teamwork is extremely important for achieving a common goal of an organization. While working in a team, it is extremely important for members to maintain an effective communication and maintenance of transparency and open mindedness. Accountability and sharing common set of goals are extremely important for maintaining proper teamwork. One of the most important aspects of team effectiveness is effective communication; it reduces the chances of misunderstanding and also helps in marinating role clarities. Proper communication can be achieved by active listening techniques and also by development of two way communication methods. Giving and receiving of feedbacks also ensure that proper communication is maintained. Intercultural communication skills are also necessary for maintaining global teamwork. Also maintaining of communication ethics during team work also ensures higher team performance. Maintaining truth and dignity as well as responsibility and social justice are essential for communication. Proper information sharing, opinions and also feelings are necessary as ethical communication strategies. Disapproving any communication climates that enhance the distortion, intolerance, coercion and hatred are indeed very important to maintain ethical communication. These are indeed important to be maintained in workplace so that no ethical conflict arises during communication in workplace. Team performance and team effectiveness can only be ensured through the above mentioned strategies and techniques which will help in achieving not only the goals of the team but also help in aligning with the mission and vision of the organization successfully.

References:

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