Blog1# Communication and Team Behaviour

We have discussed 5 most important attributes of an effective team player and 3 most vital qualities of a team leader in class last week. Beyond that, an effective collaboration team requires two more important elements: effective communication and team behavior.

Firstly, effective communication helps us solve problems, establish trust between each other, and create environments where innovative ideas, conflicts resolving, and important decisions can flourish. According to my observation during our group meeting , I summarized three principles of effective communication here. First principle is 'Practice active listening'.  Active listening can make the speaker feel heard and respected, which can help build closer and deeper relationship among team members. Furthermore, everyone can feel comfortable to exchange ideas, opinions and openly discuss issues in a creative manner. Second principle is 'Use nonverbal signals'. We can make use of nonverbal communication, such as body language, eye contact, laughter, volume, tone or turn-taking to enhance verbal messages that we want to express. Last principle is 'Quick stress relief'. If we are in the middle of a meeting and recognize that we are becoming stressed, looking for humor appropriately is a good way to take a moment to calm down. I believe managing principles of  effective communication will enable us to understand a person or situation better (Robinson, Segal, & Segal, 2011).

Secondly, effective team behavior is the integration of effective team players, team leader and effective interpersonal communication. Each element works both individually and collaboratively. As a team player, he/she can communicate constructively, listen actively, shares openly and willingly, cooperate, show commitment to the team. As a team leader, he/she is capable to make quick decisions, motivate team members and deal with conflicts. In addition, every team member including leader should be able to communicate effectively, so that the whole team can work together to achieve the same goal.

Last but not least,  I found there are two aspects that I can improve on to contribute team work better after examining myself. Generally speaking,  I'm an effective team member, who can respond to requests for assistance, put in good effort in team project, cooperate with  others to accomplish a job together and would like to share my information openly. To be honest, I 'm not a good listener. Sometimes I interrupt speakers to show my agreement or disagreement without allowing them to complete their sentences. Sometimes I may require others to repeat their explanation or questions due to not concentrating listening. The second aspect I can improve on is language. I realized the language barrier of intercultural communication does affect the effectiveness in discussion. For example , my first language is not English. I need to overcome language barrier to express my ideas accurately with a second language, which sometimes slows down our team's discussion progress by spending longer time in explanation to make sure we understand each other clearly.

To sum up, I will put my effort in improving my communication skills according to the study of module CS2101 and overcoming language barrier to contribute to our team in a more effective manner.

Bibliography

Robinson, L., Segal, J., & Segal, R. (2011). Effective Communication.

Thenmozhi, M. (2009). Group Behaviour. Indian Institute of Technology Madras .