Chapter 3 - Business Communications

Typically, leaders become less directive and more consultative as the team progresses through the stages:

1. Forming (months 1 and 2). In the forming stage, team members focus on gaining acceptance and avoiding conflict. In some ways, this stage is a honeymoon period in which team members get to know one another. 2. Storming (months 2 and 3). In the storming stage, team members open up with their competing ideas about how the team should approach work. This stage is typically the least productive, since team members are attempting to make sense of uncertain roles, goals, and accountabilities. 3. Norming (months 4 and 5). In the norming stage, the team arrives at a work plan, including the roles, goals, and accountabilities. 4. Performing (months 6 and 7). In the performing stage, teams operate efficiently toward accomplishing their goals. They have evolved to a level where they can transform disagreement and conflict into consensus for future action.

facilitator

A person that acts from a neutral position to get each person to participate in the conversation and ensure that each agenda item is properly discussed. Facilitators should acknowledge, check for understanding, paraphrase and summarize, not judge, ask for elaboration, and get everyone involved.

divergence

Involves considering as many solutions as possible. During the divergence stage, working independently can increase the number of ideas and solutions generated. One effective practice is to give each person on the team the basic problem and the criteria by which the solution will be evaluated. After team members generate ideas independently, they meet to discuss each person's ideas. Debate about the ideas is healthy at this stage.

What percentage of their high-performing teams' conversations are primarily social?

Of every 100 comments team members in high-performing groups make, 60 to 70 directly relate to work, another 15 to 20 statements are considered supportive, and 10 to 15 are primarily social.

convergence

involves evaluating the proposed ideas and solutions and narrowing them to a small set of feasible solutions to address the problem. This part of problem solving is highly collaborative and generally involves refining the best ideas with contributions from all team members

acquired diversity

involves traits you acquire through experience, such as customer service experience, retail experience, or engineering experience

coordination meetings

primarily focus on discussing roles, goals, and accountabilities

forming

the first stage of team development, in which team members meet each other, form initial impressions, and begin to establish team norms. In the forming stage, team members focus on gaining acceptance and avoiding conflict. In some ways, this stage is a honeymoon period in which team members get to know one another.

groupthink

the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Groupthink is when groups verbally or nonverbally agree to ideas without gathering enough information and exhaustively evaluating their options. Groupthink often leads to poor decision making.

complacency

when a group has experienced quite a few successes and begins to assume it will automatically make good decisions.

collective rationalization

when group members convince themselves a solution is the best one even when faced with conflicting information

cascades

when the initial ideas in a discussion excessively influence the ultimate decisions