Lecture Business and administrative communication: Chapter 8 - Kitty O. Locker, Donna S. Kienzler

Chapter 8 - Working and writing in teams. In this chapter, students will be able to understand: Different kinds of productive and nonproductive roles in teams, group decision-making strategies, characteristics of successful teams, techniques for resolving conflict, techniques for making meetings effective, technologies to use in teamwork, techniques for collaborative writing.

Chapter 8

Working and Writing in Teams

problem, data, solutions

processes

cooperation, team loyalty

Team Interactions, continued…

 Begin to define task

 Develop social

cohesiveness

 Set up and clarify

procedures

 Adopt ground rules

 Use interpersonal

communication to

resolve tensions

 Analyze problem

well before seeking

solutions

Formation Coordination

 Longest phase

 Most comments informational

 Conflict as team debates alternate solutions

 Interpersonal and procedural

comments help team stay on track

 Consider many solutions

Formalization

Consensus state

Team implements decisions, which determines its success

Team seeks to forget earlier conflicts

Positive Actions in Teams

Negative Actions in Teams

leadership:

 Informational—create, assess ideas and text

 Interpersonal—check feelings, resolve conflict, monitor process

 Procedural—set agenda, keep members

informed, check on assignments

Decision­Making: Problem Solving

 Team brainstorms ideas

 Ideas recorded on large pages

 Pages posted on wall

 Each member affixes colored adhesive dots

by ideas

High Low

Dots show highest and lowest priorities

Feedback Strategies

 Generate and heed as much feedback as

possible

 Seek external—supervisors, suppliers,

clients, customers

 Seek internal—within in the team

Successful Student Teams

Peer Pressure and Groupthink

 Groupthink—tendency for teams to

value agreement so highly they punish

dissent

 Search for alternatives

 Test assumptions

 Protect rights of individuals to disagree

team, what they expect from team

differences

The pre senting

problem

may not be rea

l problem

Conflict Resolution

disagree

information

meet

 Look at things from others’ viewpoint I

statements are effective

Effective Meeting Guidelines

 Make purpose explicit

 Distribute an agenda

 Allow time for discussion

 Save time with an omnibus motion

 Pay attention to people and process as well as

tasks

 Summarize group’s consensus after each point

 Summarize all decisions at end of meeting

 Skype, FaceTime, Google+

 GoToMeeting

 Online calendars

 Project management

Collaborative Writing

single document

 Team formation process

 Conflict resolution

 Steps in writing process

 Make analysis explicit; know where you agree and disagree

 Plan organization, format, and style before anyone writes

 Consider work styles and other commitments

 Decide how you will give feedback

 Build leeway into deadlines

 Decide who will write what

 Decide how to share drafts

 Label and date drafts

 If quality is crucial, have best writer compose after others

gather data

Collaborative Writing, continued…

 Evaluate content, discuss revisions as team

 Evaluate organization, discuss revisions

 Recognize that different people favor different writing styles

 When satisfied with content, have best writer make all changes

to writing style

 One person checks mechanics, format, and style for

correctness, consistency

 Use a spell checker

 Proofread document also

Making the Team Process Work