How to Make Group Communication Work

At work most of us spend lots of our time in groups. This can be 2 or more people who we need to communicate with regularly.  We talked in a past blog about how simple communication seems but how difficult it actually is in practice.  Add lots of people all trying to get their point across and it can end up in a mess!

 

Group communication can be:

 

•   Informal – day to day with your team, your family, your sport or church group

•   Formal – work meetings where agendas and processes exist to share information and make decisions

 

Effective groups can swim along fantastically and then someone leaves or a new person enters that group and the dynamics can change drastically.  It’s important to be conscious of this and if you are a leader of that group you particularly need to be able to manage communication so that the task at hand can be successfully achieved.  However anyone can taken on a leadership role by helping move the group along and come to common understanding.

 

There are 2 things at play in any group:

 

1.     The Task at hand – making a decision, problem solving, planning, building something, completing an operational procedure

2.     The Maintenance of that group – how is everyone going, who’s here, who’s missing, what help do different people need

 

We usually understand the task at hand and if you don’t it’s important to ask for clarity so that the whole group is ‘on the same page’.

 

However we don’t (particularly blokes), often take time to check in on people to see that they are traveling okay. This isn’t necessarily the soft stuff. I’m sure you’ve experienced when an individual or more in a group are either aggrieved or don’t have the training to achieve the task and how that impacts on the whole group. In every group each member will have something to contribute. If you take the time to work out what that is you can share the leadership and work more effectively as a team.

 

People in groups can play different roles. Either because it comes naturally or because they have learned and practiced a skill. Here are some ‘maintenance’ styles that some people in your group or yourself may hold.   These can be used when required to help move things along:

 

Gatekeeper – they attempt to encourage communication, bring people into the discussion who have not given their ideas, keep the discussion  on track and to the point, etc.

Supporter/ Encourager –  they provide positive feedback to individuals “yes, I think that’s a good point”, “that was really helpful” etc. They recognise and accept different points of view.

Harmonizer – They try to reduce conflict in the group by encouraging members to be respectful and considerate yet allowing them to share feelings; such as frustrations or anger at others .

Standard Setter -  Express standards and best practices for the group to attempt to achieve, and applies them to evaluating the group process

Self-Discloser – Share experiences like, “This also happened to me” – helps breakthrough to the personal level and encourages others to share too.

Process observer -  This person may only talk when the group gets stuck. Helps unblock group dynamics and get conversation back on track . Often the quiet better listeners can play this role really well.

 

How well do you work in a group?