If you have read my recent articles about effective team development and the group forming stages, you know already that for the team to be successful certain behaviours are necessary. A good set of rules and good communication is imperative for balanced group work.
To achieve the best possible results not only certain technical skills and tools are required, but also some soft personal skills to support that behaviour.
Let us talk about some of the skills that are required for an effective workgroup:
Listening
It is important to listen to others. Listening is just as important as making a contribution. Other people may have very helpful ideas to contribute, but you will never know if you don't listen. It can be however very difficult to listen to others if many people talk at the same time. Ideally, the leader of the group should stop this from happening. But it can be difficult, especially if there is a lot of strong-minded people in a group.
Listening is not just about being quiet if someone is talking. It's about thinking about what the person is saying. Too often a person stops talking so that the other person can talk, but then just go on to say, what they wanted to say anyway. Ignoring the contribution of the other team member. This is not "effective listening".
I probably would need to dedicate its own article to listening, but the most important tip from this blog would be to try and focus on what the other person is actually saying, and not thinking about what you are going to say next while someone is talking.
There is a number of positive outcomes from being a good listener:
The satisfaction of social needs - by demonstrating your listening skills there is a greater level of motivation as well as well-being within the team.
Information transfer - we learn a great deal from listening to the other person. The information could include facts or even contacts you need to achieve your goals. You may get better ideas on what is important to someone and find out what is likely to upset them.
Developing ideas - this is an important part of discovering your limiting assumptions about the person or the topic.
Task planning and management - by listening to you can ensure, that you understand the task as well as negotiate resources or deadlines as you might just discover some information you needed for completing your tasks.
In other to achieve all of the above, participants need to be good listeners. In order to achieve that and be a good listener try the below:
Suspend judgment - keep n open mind while you are listening. If you have already developed a judgment about the situation, it will likely restrict your learning and getting an agreement.
Concentrate on the speaker - try to focus on the speaker and what they are saying. Think about what feelings are being expressed.
Watch their body language - is the body language and gestures positive or negative?
Show your interest - eye contact, smile and open body posture helps. Don't cross your arms or legs. Nod in the expression of the agreement from time to time. Paraphrasing is often also very helpful here. "So, what you are saying is..." or "It sounds as if..." are very comporting and demonstration of your active listening. Such reflections are useful for the speaker too, because sometimes they may not realise what they are saying or its implications.
Avoid interruptions - when you are truly interested you will only interrupt because of the excitement. Negative interruptions are rude and can be damaging to communications and results.
Seek clarification - if you are not sure what someone else is saying or you feel you may not understand the point, simply ask for clarification. Use questions as "Do you mean...", "How does this fit with..." or "I don't quite understand why...". This will really help to clarify things.
Recognise feelings - Feelings are an important component in communications. It is important to show the other person that you understand how they feel.
Allow silence - if the speaker is trying to say something difficult, or they are using talking as a way of developing their thoughts, they may need time to think. We often may feel uncomfortable with silence in a conversation, but it is important not to rush in. Instead, show in your body language, that you are comfortable with the silence and allow the other person the time they need.
Encourage and prompt - If a person is finding things difficult and the pause doesn't really resolve their problem, you may ask a gentle question: "That's really interesting, what happened next?", or "How did you feel about that?", or "So what options, do you think you have?".
Avoid expressing your own opinions and judgement - expressing your judgements stops others from giving their opinions. If someone feels that you are making negative judgements they will stop talking. On the other side, by being full of prise is not good either. Agreeing to everything the other person says, makes them less likely to question their perspective. But, helping someone to see things differently maybe a positive outcome.
Be wary of suggesting solutions - if the conversation is a joint problem-solving situation, there will be a time when a solution would be helpful. Even then, it is possible to start looking for a solution too soon, before the problem is fully understood. If you are trying to help someone else solve their problem, suggested solutions, even if asked for may get "Yes, but..." response. This will then follow with a list of reasons, which this solution is inaccurate or inappropriate. It is more useful to help the other person to find their own solution. This will be the one they will accept and more likely to implement.
Show that you value the speaker - a good exchange can increase the self-esteem of those involved. Your active listening will already show the speaker, that you value them. But you can further help their self-esteem and build a positive relationship. This can be done by showing your appreciation of their input. So at the end of talking-listening exchange, it is useful to tell the speaker that you value their input. Perhaps saying what in particular you have found useful about talking and listening with them, or what you have enjoyed.
Speaking clearly
This is not just about speaking at the right pitch and with the correct tone, it is also about clear being message you are trying to communicate. I was one of those people who start their message with a lot of needless information and still want to consider myself work in progress, however, I have a clear understanding by now, that using jargon or deviating from a point is much less effective.
When speaking, it is important to use language that everyone can use and be concise. You should also never deliberately use technical jargon that no one will understand. So, try to avoid that one when working with others on an important task or project.
The simple act of talking to another person is one in which a huge range of skills can be observed. When talking two types of people come to mind. One, who mumbles that the ends of the words are totally inaudible. We frequently have to guess or ask the person to repeat the sentence. The second is so fast that we cannot keep up. Conversation with any of these is exhausting. Therefore it is worth checking how you speak.
We also need to ensure that we speak clear content. If your message is muddled, there is a little change in communicating anything effectively.
Use appropriate body language
By now, you probably know that it is wrong to give negative responses or to get angry and aggressive within a group. The words we say are not the only way we communicate. There is also some inappropriate body language that we use sometimes, such as:
- folding our arms or taking an aggressive stance,
- scrawling and generally looking angry,
Of course, there are times when we need to be assertive and stand for our point but is never considered good manners to be aggressive towards other team members.
Giving and receiving feedback constructively
Feedback is essential for learning and motivation. Fellow team members will give you feedback as a team member. The trainer will give you feedback as a teacher.
One point we need to be aware of is that we typically find it very hard to accept criticism - a common response is to deny or explain away any problems. More insecure people feel the stronger will be the tendency. Many people in the UK also find it extremely difficult to give feedback as well as finding it challenging to prise.
Constructive feedback should be a positive thing, but it highly depends on how it is given. Someone may contribute to an idea that is really not workable. Bad manners of giving feedback to someone like this would be:
- Be aggressive and ridicule the idea,
- Encourage others to ridicule the idea,
- Be dismissive,
- Ignore the idea.
So, how should we be giving feedback? I have listed a few useful principles below.
Avoid appearing superior - each party should have something to learn. You do not need to be "better" then the person you offering feedback. You merely offer a different perspective.
Focus on good points as well as bad - it is often suggested, that there should be two things to praise for every point made suggesting a need for improvement. This makes the whole exchange much more positive and reduces the tendency to refuse suggestions because of insecurities. Additionally, people are not necessarily aware of some of their strengths and it is important in trying to change their behaviour that they do not lose this.
Focus on the behaviour, not the person - Focusing on the behaviour makes the feedback less personal and therefore less threatening. Do not say "You are bad at...", "Your comments are wrong..."
Be as specific as possible - Say things like "Did you realise that you interrupted Robin 15 times?", or "Were you aware, that each time someone interrupted you, you stopped talking and then after the next 10 minutes made no contributions?". If you are focusing on behaviour, not the person, you will almost inevitably find that you are being more specific, but give as much information as you can if you want to be as helpful as possible.
In receiving feedback, you are exercising your skills for your own benefit. To benefit from feedback you need to do the following.
Listen carefully - listen to what is being said, rather than immediately trying to think of excuses. Watch out for any responses you make starting from "Yes, but...". Try to learn from the feedback, rather than justifying your way of operating.
Be appreciative - remember, that the person giving the feedback may be finding it very difficult and that they are doing it for your benefit.
Seek clarification - seeking clarification is necessary if you are unsure about what is being said. Do it in a positive, and non-confrontational way. Say "That's interesting. But I am not sure that you mean..."
Use several sources - observing and giving feedback is subjective activity. There may be different opinions. No one person is necessarily right or wrong. But if several are saying the same thing, than what they are saying is worth taking seriously. Try to find another source of information to support.
Accept your imperfections - no one is perfect, so there is no need for you to pretend to yourself that you are. Such pretending can take a lot of effort, makes it harder for others to work with you and eventually may cost you their respect. By being open about your areas of uncertainty, or low skill levels, seeking feedback and then taking it seriously you can become so much better.
Be cautious - observing and giving feedback is highly subjective and requires considerable skill. If you do it without sensitivity, you may hurt or even damage the recipient. So, you need to be careful about how you do it. Being aggressive or defensive doesn't help.
Resolving team problems
Although we all want teams to work effectively, there are times when problems can occur.
Let us look closer at some of those issues and how they can be resolved:
1. Domineering team member
Within a group, there is always someone who speaks more than others. There is rarely a team where all members talk equally. This is no problem in itself as we have different roles to be fulfilled within a group and everyone has different ways of communicating. The problem will only appear when the person does not let others contribute. In this situation, the person simply needs to be asked to talk less.
One way of achieving this is to ask a question a particular member of a team. And if the domineering individual starts to answer, politely say that someone else has been asked the question.
Another way is to ask the domineering person to do a specific task and try to narrow their involvement.
It is important however to determine why the problem has occurred. It is because the team member is rather difficult or because the other members just not contributing and this individual has a lot to offer? The solution could be to get the other team members to contribute more, which will lessen the domineering person contributions.
2. Disruptive team member
Nature of the disruptions can be very different. It could be that the team member:
- Cracking jokes, which distract from the discussion,
- Telling stories and anecdotes, which results in a discussion losing focus,
- Talking about their own experience and moving the discussion away from the topic only talking about themselves,
- Trying to create sub-groups,
- Talking, when others are talking
It is the responsibility of the leader to stop this from happening.
3. The team is not meeting targets
In this situation, it is important to stop and think about why is this happening. Perhaps the task is too difficult for the group or group does not work effectively. Or perhaps, because the group does not have the required resources to complete the tasks.
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