ITMG624 Week 6 -Effective Project Communication

Instructions: Write a 4 page Essay addressing the five Communication Factors in Effective Team Performance. Your essay must cite as per APA 7th Edition rules for references and should address the following subheadings; Cover page Abstract Five communication Factors in effective team performance Factor 1 - Supportive Leadership Factor 2 - Communication Safety Factor 3 -Team Reflexivity Factor 4 - Task Communication Factor 5 - Boundary Spanning Conclusion References Additionally, you must cite as per APA 7th Edition rules for references, the article used as the basis for the summary. Academic writing normally includes more than 1 citation with the related reference. Try to find at least 1 other supporting or opposing source.

ITMG624 Week 6 -Effective Project Communication

Abstract

Supportive leaders have a high level of patience and they are willing to assist the team members get the best of their work, communication safety may increase the confidence of the team members, boundary spanning helps a company that lacks some of the key resources to properly network and have access to the resources. Team members are sometimes encouraged to always pause and reflect on the work that has been achieved so that they can come up with strategies meant to improve the performance especially when things in the company have not gone according to the plan.

Key words: boundary spanning, supportive, task, communication safety

The effective team performance can be described as the characteristics of a group of people, who are working together on the same project, and who possess a set of skills that can complement each other to work together and with a high level of effectiveness, lead to the accomplishment of the goals and the objectives that this team has set out to achieve (UMV Continuing Learning and Education, 2013). The team performance is enhanced because the members of the team will not get satisfied with the current state of organizational performance but they will try their best to achieve more profitability, offer quality goods and services to the organization and achieve sustainable growth.

Supportive Leadership

The supportive leadership is an effective organizational and team performance. It occurs when the team leader takes their time to guide the team members towards the path of success and they patiently help them rise and even become the best at what they do. Supportive leaders are empathetic to the situations that the employees are going through. Before they admonish an employee for poor performance, before they punish that worker because they have not achieved the goals and the obligations they set out to achieve, the supportive leader will work hard so that he or she can establish the background of the issue (UMV Continuing Learning and Education, 2013).

A supportive leader is also a participative kind of leader. For instance if the employees are participating in marketing and sales promotions, it is the role of the leader to also join in so that they can gain the hands-on experience of how the employees are faring on. When a leader is supportive, they will not be unware or ignorant of the issues that these workers are facing, instead they will be there to assist these workers cope with some of the tough challenges of their work.

Communication Safety

Communication safety is a leadership oriented activity in which the leader makes that important commitment to ensure that each member of the team actually feels safe in the type of communication that is being shared within the organization (Fapohunda, 2013). Communication safety could also be the assurance that all the communication processes and mediums will remain operational and will be used by the team members to get the most useful information in the best way possible. There is also the safety in the day to day operations, rules, standards of practice etc that they will not change and they will not reach a time that these communication processes are now disadvantaging the workers. Without communication safety, there is no confidence among the employees, they can reach a time when the only thing that is on the mind is how they can get out of this situation.

The company can enhance the communication safety by creating one of the best and safest places for communication where the employees can air their views, they can voice their concerns and they can confidently converse with others without feeling and fearing that they will either be misquoted or misunderstood. Using the safety spaces existing within the organizations, they should offer their best ideas that will not only benefit them but the whole community at large.

Team Reflexivity

For an important team out there worth its salt, reflexivity is very important. It is the process in which the team members, who are in the process of accomplishing their goals do pause for a while to take stock of what they have done and then reflect on the ways in which their overall performance could be improved. If the performance is not that good, they will find the way to improve and if it is good, the team members will establish the processes that are meant to keep the performance at the same rate (Yang et al., 2020). Through the team reflexivity process, the quality of the decisions that are made in the organization also improves. These are the kind of proper, well thought out decisions that benefits the organization, its leaders and the stakeholders.

The collective reflection of the team members on their performance will lead to performance improvement because they will correct each other and these team members will also aim at having perfect performances in their endeavors. The clearer understanding of the performance of the whole organization also helps the company in the resolution of any conflicts that it may have. For example, if the team has performed spectacularly badly, the company does not blame only one person. Every one shoulders the blame and they ensure that such mistakes are not repeated in the future.

Task Communication

Task communication is a specific organizational communication that focuses on ensuring that the all the projects and activities of the team are properly communicated and the team has the capabilities of carrying out each tasks. Task communication must be followed with the right organization mentorship and training. It is important that all the team members fully understand the elements of their tasks and what it is required of them (Nose Personal, 2019). The process of task communication is where the important information, emails, the feedback regarding each specific tasks is exchanged. Task communication should be slow, purposeful and organizational oriented. It would rather take a longer time to explain the important elements of some tasks to the team members rather than a company hurrying up in task communication and then the team members delivers below par performance in the project. A powerful task based communication system should be versatile, have a high level of clarity and be properly structured. Flexibility is also a key feature of most of these tasks because sometimes a team member is given some tasks to perform but the content of these tasks changes midday.

Boundary Spanning

Boundary spanning occurs to smaller organizations which know for sure that they do not have the connections they would want. As a result, they will focus on coming up or establishing connections with other smaller or bigger organizations so that they obtain the resources that they would otherwise not have obtained if the boundary spanning did not take place (Halt International School, 2013). It is a geopolitical strategy that also helps the companies to go further and get the skills and experience from areas that the companies would have thought they would never get. Through boundary spanning, the project team members are encouraged to go beyond and look far and wide if they have any hopes of being exceptional in their roles.

Conclusion

Effective team performance requires the team members to go beyond and to establish a team performance stature that will be of benefit to all the team members within the organization. The team members should communicate the key vital tasks in the best way possible and there should be supportive leadership in the organization.

References

Fapohunda, T. (2013). Towards Effective Team Building in the Workplace. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258344173_Towards_Effective_Team_Building_in_the_Workplace

Hult International School. (2013, June 11). Boundary Spanning: A Crucial Business Skill. Hult International Business School. https://www.hult.edu/blog/boundary-spanning-a-crucial-business-skill/

Nozbe Personal. (2019, October 2). Task-Based Communication: What It Is and How to Do It Right. Blog :: Nozbe Personal — To-Do, Task, Project and Time Management Application. https://nozbe.com/blog/task-based-communication/

UMV Continuing Learning and Education. (2013, November 27). 5 Leadership Styles for Effective Management. UVM Continuing and Distance Education. https://learn.uvm.edu/blog/blog-business/5-leadership-styles-what-styles-do-you-use

Yang, M., Schloemer, H., Zhu, Z., Lin, Y., Chen, W., & Dong, N. (2020). Why and When Team Reflexivity Contributes to Team Performance: A Moderated Mediation Model. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03044