Small Groups & Team Communication

Team cohesion requires effective communication.

Communication in small groups and teams centers on one of two areas. First, communication may revolve around the task the team exists to accomplish. Second, a team must engage in maintenance communication. Without maintenance communications, emotions and individual agendas can create conflict in the task. A leader of a small group or team should be experienced in both.

Task Communication

Task communications are any communication that directly affects the outcome of the small group's efforts. Schedule and budget take up a large portion of task communication, as does resource allocation. Tools such as charts and graphs record the results of task communications. Type "A" personalities or those who are more aggressive tend to dominate task communications in most teams, drowning out weaker voices regardless of the quality of the persons input.

Maintenance Communications

A team is not a machine. It is a group of people brought together to address a particular task or problem. Maintenance communication focuses on the "people" aspect of the group. Diffusing tension and disagreement is one function of maintenance communication, and ensuring that all relevant voices are heard is another. Maintenance communications can rarely be summarized in a graph or a chart. Those who specialize in maintenance communications tend to be more empathetic and are more concerned with group development and cohesion than with task accomplishment.

Conflict

Teams in the early stages of development have a lot of conflict between task and maintenance communications. Early on, teams must spend more time focused on growing than on accomplishing. This may seem counter-intuitive, but a team that becomes cohesive can accomplish more than those that never leave the early stages of development. For example, a task-oriented person may want to start by defining the problem the team will address, while a maintenance-oriented person may want to start with brief introductions so people can get to know one another. Each one sees the other as a waste of time, which creates conflict. These conflicts must be resolved or the team will neither achieve its goal nor develop beyond infancy.

Cohesion

A small group works best when task and maintenance communications operate in harmony. When the group develops toward cohesiveness while working toward its goal, it grows faster and accomplishes more. For example, if the maintenance-oriented self-introductions also include a brief outline of the group members' qualifications, the team is more informed when the time comes to assign roles and responsibilities. When a team uses brainstorming methods that allow full participation, a broader selection of options is available. Cohesive teams balance maintenance and task communications.

Leadership

Team leaders keep the team focused on its task, but they also work to build team cohesion. They must not only be able to recognize both task and maintenance communications, they must be able to participate actively in both. More importantly, they must also know which one is appropriate in any given situation. They have to be good listeners to know when a little extra time for team-building is necessary. If they remain focused on the task and ignore the maintenance communication, their teams will fail. If, on the other hand, they spend all their available time on team-building, their teams will also fail. Balancing task and maintenance communications is a key part of being a successful team leader.

References

• The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player; John C. Maxwell; 2002