Mastering Team and Interpersonal Communication

Whether in the workplace or on the football field, or even amongst members of a community, effective teamwork can produce incredible results. However,working successfully as a team is not as easy as it may seem. Effective teamwork certainly does not just happen automatically; it takes a great deal of hard work and compromise. There are a number of factors that must be in place to cohere together as a team and work seamlessly. Team communication skills are critical for ensuring the success of the team effort, whether the team is charged with creating a new product, making a process improvement, or planning the summer picnic. Strong team communication skills can help build relationships, ensure the sharing of new ideas and best practices, and benefit team members through coaching and counseling.Teams are a major part of a company. A team is defined as a unit of two or more people who share a mission and the responsibility for working to achieve a common goal. A committee is form of team, but is more formal and usually last longer than a normal team.There are many advantages and disadvantages of working with a team. Some advantages include increased information and knowledge, increased diversity of views, increased acceptance of a solution, and higher performance levels. Some disadvantages include groupthink, hidden agendas, and cost. Groupthink happens when peer pressure cause individuals not state their opinions because of the fear of being the only one to be the odd ball out. Each member of the team has to bring their knowledge and their skills to the team, in order for the team to be strong. Many teams goes through  many different phases. The first phase is orientation. Orientation allows teams to socialize, establish their roles, and begin to define their task and purpose. The second phase is conflict. In this phase members begin to state their positions, disagreements occur in this phase. The third phase is brainstorming, member discuss all their options and discuss all the pros and cons.The fourth phase is emergence. In this phase a solution is reached. The last and final step is reinforcement. Reinforcement is when the team summarizes the agree upon agreement. This phase may also be known as forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Conflicts might occur in teams, but there are steps members can take so that the conflict doesn't get over blown. Pro action is one of the steps, which is dealing with the problem before it gets taken over board. Some of the other steps include communication, openness, research, flexibility, fair play, and alliance.