In her last guest blog, Cara told us a humorous story of toddler entrepreneurship.  In this second blog, she uses her experience to outline four key elements of great team communication.  Got any to add to her list?

The core of standard teamwork is most simply defined as people working together. Good teamwork is about people working well together for a particular goal. Great teamwork is about working individually and collectively in the most effective, empowered ways possible for a shared vision to triumph: a vision that is both collectively and individually owned by every single team member.

Which definition of teamwork (standard, good, or great) fits your current team or company?

Over the years, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to observe how teamwork helped to accomplish or to destroy an organization’s goals. In my own experience, poor teamwork has been one of the greatest contributing factors for the failure of a company’s objectives.

One of the single biggest factors leading to poor teamwork (on every team I’ve ever been on) was a breakdown in clear communication, which promptly led to a lack of clear understanding, which then morphed directly into the unfortunate guesswork that inevitably follows any lack of clarity. This resulted, of course, in an outcome that ranged from mediocre to disastrous.

Not exactly what a company or team wants to be known for, right?

What are some ways that lack of clarity in communication can be avoided? I think there are several points that can make an immediate difference in how effectively an organization or team communicates:

1) Use language that is clearly descriptive of actions or statements, not motivations. This one seems like a no-brainer, but it’s surprising how often it gets thrown to the side when people offend each other, their tempers flare, and they start fighting in earnest to protect their turf. Use language that clearly identifies the action (“Bobby did X, Y, and Z”) and accurately describes a statement (“Susan said A, B, and C”). Try to avoid highly subjective judgments as to exactly what other team members meant by their actions or statements (“She mocked me!” “He was trying to insult me!”) Not only is it possible that the mocking or insulting occurred only in your own perception, but once you’ve inaccurately or unfairly accused others of internal motivations they quite possibly didn’t have, you’ll destroy trust and turn a (possibly) simple misunderstanding into something exponentially worse. This can get ugly very quickly, and no one wins.

2) Use silence as a tool for careful listening, not as a psychological punishment to keep other team members in line. Silence is a rich gift when used for reflecting, listening, and understanding one another. However, it can be a psychological weapon if you use it to imply that you don’t agree with someone else or that somebody else’s input does not deserve the dignity of spoken or acted response. Silence can be every bit as abusive as the wrong words spoken at the wrong time, but the damage is considerably harder to define and rectify than more obviously abusive words or actions because of the very nature of silence itself (often defined as the absence of words or actions). Be careful also that silence doesn’t become a frequent, unhealthy habit for unhappy or disenfranchised team members to hide behind. It’s far healthier in the long run to lay out team members’ grievances on the table (using language ground rules covered in #1) and suffer through some short-term discomfort as opposed to trying to accomplish goals in the joyless, brittle, and bristling silence of unresolved team tension that zaps creativity and synergy, speaking far more eloquently than any words can.

3) Define and explain all known assumptions underlying every goal, along with expectations about how the team will accomplish those goals. This, too, seems self-evident, but I have continued to be amazed at how much this doesn’t happen, often to the disadvantage of new team members in particular. Much can be taken for granted or assumed regarding the basic set of guidelines that each team member (ostensibly) carries in their head as they strive to reach the team’s goals. Unless your team is striving toward the particular goal of mind-reading, any lack of clarity about underlying assumptions or required objectives usually results in wasted time, unwanted outcomes, team members who feel their contributions weren’t understood or appreciated, and a general unwillingness on the part of some or all team members to stick their neck out again for the team, creatively or otherwise.

And finally,

4) Be generous. Be free with sincere praise for fellow team members, unstintingly share relevant and valuable information with your colleagues, and be quick to see that other team members get all the credit due them. A culture of generosity—a generosity that is courteous, kind, truthful, and courageous—cannot help but beget and nurture great ideas and the freedom to chase them down. By its very nature, generosity cannot help but come back to you again and again. Yes, in the short term, generosity may seem to offer you nothing but stampede markings from the general rush of discourteous, ungenerous team members and companies as they compete to run all over you. In the long run, however, it is generosity that will nurture your team’s talents, encourage and strengthen their areas of weakness, and free them to be, do, dream, and create the unique entity that comprises your company or organization.

And that’s what I call great teamwork.

Cara grew up as one of eight children. Born in the northern Midwest, she’s had a wide range of work experiences – from teaching English in the Czech Republic to performing various musical styles onstage to working in start-up tech companies – and lots in-between. A chocolate and coffee lover, she is married to Benjamin, adores her beagle/pug rescue dog Pugsley and currently resides in Washington, D.C., where she works as a freelance writer and a teacher.

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