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Essay / The Role of Effective Communication in a Team
A key element and objective of the assigned group presentation and related activities was to ensure effective communication. Kaywortha and Leidnerb (2000) assert that effective communication is crucial to successful group functioning. In order to structure this reflective essay in a simple way, I will reflect on the rules of the group, the problems encountered and why they occurred, the strengths and weaknesses of the group's communication skills, what I would do differently in retrospect and my experience. contributions to the group. Group rules or group norms are simply social norms of behavior implemented by individuals in order to maintain interactions among group members and to establish guidelines for what should be considered acceptable behavior and unacceptable. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Team norms discussed openly and honestly will be most effective. This open communication is effective in creating a positive communication climate (CC). Contextually, CC is the essence of the personal relationships that exist between group members. According to Buckley (2018), recognition, acknowledgment and approval can lead to confirming or disconfirming CC. My group did this well, establishing group norms reflecting confirming CC. According to Lumsden and Lumsden (2004), a group of people has the ability to form a team when there is a common goal, shared leadership, diverse contributions from members, and individuals supporting each other. We achieved this through a clear understanding that mutual respect, mutual goals, shared leadership and contributions were crucial and necessary. Reaching consensus on crucial decisions, providing constructive feedback, and cultivating mutual respect were all implicit norms that I, as an individual and group, set as group rules for establishing a functional and affirming CC. Generally, these rules were discussed at our first meeting and agreed to by all members. However, some were implemented through precedent, such as a team member asking for another opinion and asking questions like "are we all in agreement on this video?" Despite well-thought-out and established group rules, problems persisted and posed barriers to effective communication. Using Tuckman's stages of development, I aim to think through these issues. The training stage, the stage where the group orients itself and identifies interpersonal and task-related behaviors (Buckley, 2018), is where we encountered our first problem. A key part of this stage is decision making to have clear group objectives and set goals. We had difficulty deciding when to meet as a group, these meetings were necessary for the functioning and success of the group. This struggle was mainly due to our individual schedules. The second problem was encountered during the storming phase: some group members resisted taking on the more difficult parts of the workload associated with the group task. During the standardization and execution stages of the project, we encountered issues with group members not being comfortable expressing or sharing their opinions. This impacted the productivity of the project and I felt like I was making many decisions alone and sometimes without support from the group. However, this was necessary due to the deadlineof mission. The last problem was related to a language barrier with a group member. This impacted every stage of the group's development and also made verbal communication difficult at times. The group's ability to become a team was realized, regardless of the problems mentioned above. To become a team, we firstly set goals that we all agreed on, one of which was to produce a high standard group presentation, the second was to complete all work within the time limit. Defining these goals has inspired group unity. Members' opinions have always been important, respected and considered valuable, leading to diversity and creativity. This freedom of opinion leads to a fair and pleasant distribution of the workload. Additionally, it was extremely helpful to have members work on elements of the mission that matched their strengths. We all agreed that working on things that interested us was much easier and produced higher quality work. Group meetings and the formation of a Facebook group established the platform for our group to grow into a team. This communication tool helped connect individual efforts and also allowed feedback channels to operate at any stage of the process and at any stage of our weekly personal schedules. The second strength of this technology-supported form of communication was its ability to overcome the language barrier discussed above. This inspired interconnected efforts and support for all members, which in turn created a sense of shared responsibility. Additionally, our group fulfilled all four components of satisfactory interpersonal relations (IR) and subsequently this only strengthened our CC. Buckley (2018) describes four characteristics of IR satisfaction; commitment, investment, self-disclosure and trust. Engagement was demonstrated by responding to Facebook group posts and also attending weekly face-to-face meetings. Investment and confidence was demonstrated by each team member who completed the weekly workload on time. Self-disclosure was demonstrated by individuals who were honest and open about their strengths and weaknesses as they related to academic pursuits, public speaking, and the ability to work in groups. With this revelation, our team has positioned itself in the open domain of the Johari Window model. This internship has only strengthened the functioning of our group despite the difficulties we encountered. However, weaknesses were encountered. As mentioned previously, getting people to share their opinions sometimes proved difficult and although we were able to minimize its negative effects on group capacity, it had a moderately strong negative influence on CC. As the presentation day took place after the mid-term break, it proved difficult to get all the group members together to rehearse. Group members often had homework to prepare for other classes or exams. However, individuals often did not explain this clearly. In terms of relational dialectics, this blurred closing and opening has unfortunately led to interpersonal conflicts. This interpersonal conflict meant that we only had to do one full round of the group presentation, and that was on the actual day of the presentation. This subsequently leads to further trust issues. As mentioned, trust is a crucial element in satisfying IRs. In my opinion, these trust issues affected the.