Team Communication
Virtual teams are a great way to facilitate teamwork in situations where people are not able to be sitting in the same physical office together. Virtual teams are the same as regular brick and mortar teams with one exception, the way in which the team members communicate. Instead of the usual face-to-face exchange, the virtual teams rely on email, faxes, phone calls, and teleconferences to communicate with their team members. Creating a plan to ensure that the team’s performance meets the intended goal is important to the team’s success. The plan will consist of the over all time frame, the communication methods and styles, as well as how to deal with each members performance and any dysfunction that may take place.
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Understanding ones personal style of communicating will go a long way toward helping create a good and lasting impressions on others. When each team member understands not only their own communication style, but also the style of their team members, it helps to ensure that the collaboration of the team members will go smoothly. The assertive style communicator would be the best fit for the virtual team because they are strong enough to ensure that his or her own concerns are fully expressed and discussed, they also tend not to let things get pushed to the side and they come across as authoritative, but fair in most discussions. They will also be considerate of others and will typically seek input and engage with others for the best outcome of all (Norman, 2014).
An individual 's personality plays an important role to the success of the team. How this individual performs at their job also plays an important role. Understanding how each team member spends their time and what pressures he or she faces in their daily job is also important to know, this will explain a lot about their job performance and what the individual can and can not handle in their positions. The strengths and weaknesses of the individual team members inform the management of the work and knowledge capabilities, which allows for the expectations of their performance (Rice.edu,
Prompt #4 Response: Successful team performance first includes a clear sense of self. It is easier to work with a team when you know yourself first and then get to know the others on the team. A defined strategy and a clear vision of success are key in working with a team. Threats to a team are indecisiveness, not understanding your team members. Psychological factors include internal functioning and expectations in team performance.
The competencies of the team is about the team ability to respond and solve problems, ability to communicate, solve problem or manage conflicts, and ability to make decisions. It is important for the team to create an environment that allows its members to articulate their goals. It is important that team members ensure and understand how their work contributes towards team goals. Also team member should make effective necessary decisions; communicate with other team members; give and receive necessary feedback; form trust; and resolve conflicts or disagreements.
A team player must have a tremendous personality to be successful. A tremendous personality includes being friendly, tactful, and diplomatic. A friendly personality is good to help keep the other players in harmony. It is imperative to have a friendly personality so others will not be afraid to approach the team player with a problem. Being friendly to others will directly affect the tactfulness used in talking with other people. A team player that is tactful will always have the respect of the people around him/her. When a team player has the respect of the people around him/her, it will have a positive impact on any conflict that he/she must mediate when they arise on a team. The diplomatic skills a team player possesses will help bring any disputes that other players might have with someone to a quick conclusion. This is essential in keeping the team on a successful track.
A work team will be defined for the purposes of this paper by a definition borrowed from Bateman and Snell (2004). A team is formed of people (usually a small number) with complementary skills who trust one another and are committed to a common purpose, common performance goals, and a common approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Teams generally see themselves and are seen by others as a social entity, which is interdependent because of the tasks performed as members of a group.
A virtual team is a group of people working interdependently via various types of electronic media across organizational and geographical boundaries for a shared purpose (D’Souza & Colarelli, 2010). Research indicates virtual teams are becoming increasingly popular in organizations across the United States and the world (D’Souza & Colarelli, 2010; Rusman, van Bruggen, Sloep, & Koper, 2010). These teams vary in size, degree of geographic dispersion, prior shared work experience, nature of assignment, and expectations of a common future (Rusman et al., 2010). Although virtual teams have potential advantages like the removal of physical boundaries, the ability to form new partnerships, and optimization of competencies (Chinowsky & Rojas, 2003), they also introduce many challenges that may not be as prevalent in traditional teams.
The successful passing of information creates an important bond between virtual team members. “Without creating the connections, a virtual team can’t do what it needs to; function as a cohesive unit” (Thompson, n.d., Introduction section, ¶2). Information should be specific to the task at hand with a common goal in mind. Complete and accurate information not only helps a team reach its goal, but it also avoids problems and conflicts that arise between members. The importance of clear, concise information in a virtual team can not be stressed enough; however, timing should also be considered when sharing information. Information not received in a timely fashion also jeopardizes the cohesiveness of the team.
In a team-oriented setting, everyone contributes to how well the group succeeds overall. You work with fellow members of the group to complete the work that needs to be done. Having the right people in the correct roles is an important factor in measuring the success of a team, where you are united with the other members to complete the main goals. Every group is made up of definite strengths and weaknesses. Our team's 3-5 major strengths necessary to work accordingly consist of Informer, Summarizer, Orienter, Piggy-Backer, and Encourager. One of our strengths as a team is that we get input from everyone involved. Every member of our team is a leader in some way. Part of being a good leader is knowing how important it is to receive the best ideas from each member of their team. We attend group meetings where we discuss any challenges, issues, and problems. At these meetings, we often exchange ideas or brainstorm new ones with each other and come up with the best and most creative team solutions as potential answers to those perceived problems.
The components of a good team should be considered. First, a high-performance team must have strong core values to guide attitudes and behavior consistent with the team's purpose. The members should know why the team is created and why he or she is on the team. Secondly, a team should have specific performance objectives. Members should know exactly what they are trying to accomplish. This also includes having standards for measuring results and ways of obtaining performance feedback. A good team will make members realize the importance of collective efforts. Third, a high-performance team has the right mix of skills. These involve technical, interpersonal, decision-making, and problem-solving skills. No one needs to know how to do it all, but each member should be able to contribute to the group....
In conclusion, I believe despite the fact that virtual team member and leaders face unique challenges, they revolutionizing the global workforce. If done correctly and with strong leadership, virtual teams can increase productivity, lower costs and save precious time for organizations and businesses and their clients.
Skills and knowledge possessed by every member is also important for a team to become high performance. Although it is among the most important factors, however, it must be coupled with a good working relationship with every team member and good collaboration with every team member. The members who possess the good skills and wide knowledge will be a useful resource to the team if that team member can share their strengths with the other team members and vice versa. It is usually misconstrued that having skillful and intelligent team members is already enough to make a team work right. This kind of thinking is the reason why most teams, despite all of those competent members they have, fail to achieve their goals. A team should establish one common goal, not to think that way and develop a good working relationship with each member. (retrieved from: http://www.strictlysuccess.com, August 18, 2005) This can be done by self awareness exercises, like the DISC assessment and other assessments or any other kind of self awareness exercises regarding communication style differences. Then these factors and important pieces of information should be taken into full consideration before the actual project is begun. These exercise or assessments can be great ice breakers and mark the difference between a group of individuals merely assigned to a team, as opposed to functioning as...
Virtual teams – virtual team is one of the most popular teams in every organization because in virtual team the member are separated in different nation and use technologies to communicate to accomplish their goal on the time.
In the workplace it is essential individuals understand both their own personalities and also how to interact with other people based on their personalities. “Understanding others and how they function is a first step towards having good interpersonal relationships in the work environment and thereby enhancing personal effectiveness” (Chauhan & Chauhan, 2006, p. 357-358). Individual personalities can vary greatly and it is highly possible for different personalities to clash when working together, particularly in team situations. Different personalities within work groups help to influence the team performance in two distinct ways. Firstly, as an input factor, which...
Working in teams provides an opportunity for individuals to come together and establish a rapport towards others within a group. Teamwork is classified as people with different strengths and skills who work together to achieve a common goal. When a team works well, specific objectives are fulfilled and satisfied. Teamwork plays a crucial role in implementing and fulfilling a common goal in a team project. Each member plays a role and takes on different responsibilities combined together. In different stages of teamwork, conflicts and arguments may occur for as members have different standpoints which need to be harmonized within the team. The key to having an effective teamwork is to explore each member's unique abilities to motivate them.
Videoconferencing in Virtual Teams, The Business Review, 7(1) p.164-170.
Many businesses place an emphasis on the importance of teamwork. A good team consists of people with different skills, abilities and characters. A successful team is able to blend these differences together to enable the organisation to achieve its desired objectives.