The Role Of Teamwork In Modern Workplace: Communication And Ethical Communication Effects On Team Effectiveness And Performance

Importance of teamwork in modern workplace

Question:

Analyse the Ethical Implications of the Use of various Communication Systems, Conflict resolution and Modalities in Diverse, Contemporary Workplaces ILO2.

Thesis statement- In this essay the role of teamwork in modern workplace and the effect of communication and ethical communication on team effectiveness and team performance is studied.

Teamwork plays an important role in the modern workplace. University students experience teamwork as a part of their assignment. This fosters flexibility and university students learn to collaborate with team members which prepare them to take responsibility of teams in future of the modern workplace.  The job advertisements clearly reflect the ability to work effectively within a team as an important criterion for teamwork. Organizational team work is a complex process. Some teams perform better than other teams and some individuals are better at working with others.  Skills, abilities and characteristics like extraversion, emotional intelligence, conscientiousness, flexibility, ability to communicate effective, mutual trust and respect and empathy generally increase team performance(Galegher, Kraut and Egido 2014).Individuals who possess these qualities also work better within a team.   Team members can leverage the strengths of individual members of the team and minimize the weakness of individual members which increases the team performance.  Tasks can be divided according to the competence of team members in an effective team. Thus teamwork helps in achieving organizational goals and objectives. In modern day global business scenario, there are prevalence of virtual teams and diverse teams. Organizations have to adopt strategies to manage this type of teams. In this essay the literature is studied to understand the complex process of teamwork, team performance and team effectiveness. The role of communication in building effective teams is reviewed from literature. Ethical communication is linked with team effectiveness and teamwork in this essay (Bovee, Thill and Raina 2016). 

Effective teams are comprised of team members who have the skills, knowledge and abilities to accomplish team goals. In effective teams, goals are realistic and reasonable and tasks are optimally divided among team members. Individual members of an effective team take responsibility of the task allotted and contribute substantially towards team goal (Katzenbach and Smith 2015).Team members acknowledge the accomplishments and achievements of each other. An effective team receives support from team leaders and the organization and transformational leadership plays a vital role in effective teams. Effective teams follow an open communication model with free flow of information among all members of the team (Körner et al. 2015). There are several models for an effective team. Tuckman’s stages model is a well-known model for team effectiveness. It is a five-staged model comprising of stages like forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. In the forming stage, the ground rules of a team are established. The team members are introduced to each other at this stage and they discover ways to know each other. The second stage of formation of team is the storming stage. In this stage, plans are formulated by team members along with co-ordination from team leaders. The goals and objectives of the team are established at this stage and an agenda is set to accomplish the goals. The third stage of team formation is the norming stage. At this stage, the team members become cohesive and learn to resolve conflicts. The team members take the responsibility of individual goals which will lead to the accomplishment of the objectives of the team. In the fourth stage of team formation, that is, the performing stage, team members coordinate and collaborate with each other to accomplish the objectives that were set in the storming stage of team formation. In the adjourning stage, the members of the team part ways to move on to other projects.  The adjourning stage is applicable for temporary teams of an organization which are formed to handle a critical task or to complete a specific project (Berlin, Carlström and Sandberg 2012).Research has provided attributes that are essential for successful teamwork. These attributes are commitment to shared goals and success of a team, interdependence on team members so that goals can be accomplished together, interpersonal skills like honesty and trustworthiness, an open communication model with transparency and constructive feedback, commitment to leadership, accountability and processes of a team and appropriate composition of a team((Berlin, Carlström and Sandberg 2012). Crupy and Hogan’s rocket model was developed after conducting research on several organizational teams. There are eight components of the model like context, norms, mission, talent, morale, power, buy-in and results which increase team performance.  Context helps to reach consensus among team members in challenging situation, mission is the team goals, talent is related to roles and responsibility of team members, norms are the code of conduct, buy-in focuses of engagement of team members, power focuses on authority within teams, morale together with other components guide team member to achieve desired performance and results. An open communication improves team work as discussed (Belbin 2012). 

Attributes of effective teams

Communication plays a vital role in team effectiveness and teamwork. However, verbal communication sometimes creates misunderstandings among team members. Thus effective teams often rely on written communication which provides record, better transparency and clarity.  In effective teams, communication plays a role of paramount importance to resolve conflicts among team members. Communication among members of a team results in free flow of ideas within the team and thus teams which communicate effectively can foster creativity and innovation among team members. There are appropriate methods for communication which are adopted by members of an effective team (Broadbent 2013).  These methods of communication include face-to-face communications, group meeting, letter, memos, e-mail. An effective team clearly identifies barriers to communication among team members and develops ways to overcome these barriers to increase productivity among team members. The barriers to communication within a team can be due to issues related to culture and diversity, physical distractions, conflicts among team members, lack of understanding and physical barriers among members of a team as it is clearly reflected in virtual teams where team members are physically dispersed. In an effective team, the team members use effective verbal communication skills and written communication is clear, concise and professional.  Listening skills are of paramount importance in effective teams. Team members of a highly productive team uses appropriate listening techniques like encouraging, clarifying, paraphrasing, reflecting, summarizing and validating. The team members should adopt empathy while listening to each other (Cooke et. al 2013).  Non-verbal communication also plays a vital role in effective teams. Use of proper gesture is of paramount importance in certain teams like cross-cultural teams.  Communication helps to motivate team members and create shared identity among members of an effective team. Effective communication build trust among members of a team and team members can share their ambitions and goals among each other and celebrate their accomplishments of goals by communicating effectively. Thus communication increases the productivity of the team. It is essential to skillfully handle the thoughts, emotions and feelings of members of a team for building an effective team. An open communication model increases the emotional intelligence of team members and they are able to empathize with each other to handle crisis in an effective way. Team members work together on a project and have common goals and thus conflict arises among team members due to difference of opinion (Walumbwa, Morrison and Christensen 2012).  Constructive conflicts are important to team members because it helps in free flow of ideas and lead to brainstorming. Communication plays a vital role in resolving conflicts among team members of an effective team. In a highly productive team, there is an open communication model and managers of the team communicate effectively with team members. An effective team receives clear flow of information about goals and objectives because mangers communicate effectively with team members. However, there is little research on communication styles in effective team.  Though research shows evidence that team members of effective teams communicate with external environment to gather information about customers, competitors and market.

Models for effective teams

Ethics and ethical communication can be linked with team work, team productivity and effectiveness of a team. Organizational ethics are clearly communicated among members of a team and team members of an effective team abide by a set of ethical values .Ethics like integrity, trust, honesty, justice, respect, responsibility, reasonableness are important to guide the team members during ethical dilemma. The members of an effective team abide by organizational ethics like implementing best quality in organizational process to create value for customers, respecting diversity among team members and creating strategies to fit the values, visions and goals of an organization. The members of an effective team follow a code of ethics. Unethical behavior from team members is detrimental for the reputation of an organization, thus effective teams are made aware about the organizational ethics from the beginning of team formation. Effective teams receive training on ethical programs from managers and team leaders.  Mangers of an effective team abide by ethical code of conduct and thus act as role models for members of a team. The members of an effective team emulate the ethical behaviors of their managers and thus the code of conduct becomes more credible for members of the team (Ghorbanhosseini 2013).Members of an effective team are rewarded for following the ethical code of conduct so that they can act as a source of inspiration and can set example for rest of the employees of an organization. Research shows that business organizations get involved in several ethical issues because the present business scenario is competitive and volatile. One of such ethical issues is stereotyping and discrimination which is prevalent among team members of a diverse team in a global organizational setting. Biases and judgments are developed towards members of a team who belong to different culture and ethnicity which is unethical and results in decrease in productivity among team members. Ethical communication plays a vital role to manage a diverse team and to handle both surface level and deep level diversity among team members (Ferri 2014). Ethical communication leads to equality and fair judgment among members of an effective team. It is reflected from literature that organizations get involved in ethical issues like poor focus on quality in organizational and business process. Ethical communication plays a vital role to resolve this type of ethical issue because the standards, expectations and objectives about the quality are clearly communicated to members of an effective team before the commencement of a project. Organizational teams get involved in ethical issues like customer dissatisfaction due to inadequate market research about the expectations and buying behavior of customers (Tjosvold and Tjosvold 2015).Ethical communication can play an important role to handle a customer-related crisis and by adopting a clear ethical communication model, members of an effective team can develop an informative communication model for customers (Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger 2013). Also ethical communication plays vital role to handle issues like unfair judgment because of ambiguity in understanding roles and responsibilities among team members. Members of an effective team communicate ethically among each other and thus have clear idea about individual roles (Tubbs 2012).

Role of communication in improving teamwork and resolving conflicts

It can be concluded that there are various models for team effectiveness. There is evidence from the models of team effectiveness that team work and cohesion among team members increases the productivity of a team. The models of team effectiveness reflect that organizational support plays a pivotal role in effective teams. It is revealed from literature that communication can be linked with team effectiveness and productivity of a team. A clear communication approach can build cohesion among team members and help in building trust among members of an effective team. Both verbal and non-verbal communication is important in effective teams and direct communication like face-to-face communication is more effective than indirect mode of communication. Communication can also be linked with ethics. Members of an effective team follow a code of ethics. Ethical communication play vital role in resolving issues related to discrimination and biases within a diverse team and ensures fair judgment within team members. Ethical communication resolves issues related to conflicts that arise due to difference in opinion among team members. University students undertake teamwork throughout their studies to prepare themselves well for future when they will enter corporate world and have to collaborate with team members. Teamwork increases flexibility, adaptability and emotional intelligence among university students. Organizations should adopted flatter structures with less hierarchy and follow an open communication model to boost teamwork. It is recommended that managers and team leaders should act as role model during ethical training programs. Team members should receive training about organizational ethics.

Reference Lists

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Ferri, G., 2014. Ethical communication and intercultural responsibility: A philosophical perspective. Language and Intercultural Communication, 14(1), pp.7-23.

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