Want to move your teams from doing good or decent work to delivering the best possible outcome? Then you need to get them to stop talking and start communicating! What’s the difference between the two and what is impact you ask? Keep reading!

What is needed for a team to function effectively and cohesively?

Great teams don’t just happen. They are a result of a great deal of effort that each individual puts into it on developing many traits. Let’s talk about the top four traits that top that list.

Openness and understanding
Each individual needs to be open to idea of working with individuals from different walks of life. He or she must be prepared to be sharing ideas and discussing them further with them. Their must also be an inclination for everyone to make an effort to get along with one another, accept the differences and work on building an equation based on finding commons. This level of openness allows a synergy to develop that results in balance between teamwork and individual expression.

Support and collaboration
Openness leads into the development of a support system between the individuals in the team. When a support system is in place, every individual supports each other in their accomplishing their tasks. Everyone is involved in the other’s success. This synergy results in achieving the objective set up.

Respect
The support system also ensures that everyone is about how it can be done better instead of who didn’t do it right. This automatically creates a constructive environment of learning and performance. This attitude towards work helps each individual develop respect for one another. This again reinforces the strong cohesiveness that is already present group.

Trust and self-disclosure
All of these in return, cement an equation that is based on trust. The individual’s in the team have no inhibition in sharing opinions with complete honesty in a respectful manner. This trust builds as each individual takes accountability to their tasks and also towards aiding the other team members in their tasks.

These are the dynamics that you will find in any team that lives by the rule of one for all and all for one. These are the teams that achieve objectives.

What are the consequences of the absence of them?

When openness, support, respect and trust are present, the result is an AWESOME team. But what happens when these traits are missing in the individuals contributing?

Fragments
Every individual works as a fraction. There is little information exchange and even lesser collaboration. Every individual is focused on the task that has been set to him or her. He or she never finds out and nor cares about the effect of their task on the end result and if it is even adding value. People work in SILOS!

Defensiveness and excuses
Nobody is ever accountable. After all, they are there to complete tasks and not deliver results. Every individual always has a reason why it is never their fault. The cause is always external, either another individual or a situation. Excuses are found in abundance and the results are proportionally low.

Blame Culture
Fingers start to point. In such an environment, everyone wants to play the game safe. All one has to do is be one step ahead the rest. Negativity starts to spread. This is how the blame culture begins to set in and then proceed to become a permanent resident of your organization culture.

It is the individuals that contribute but it a takes team to create! That is when the culture of the organization goes down the drain and the objective/bottom line out the window.

Understanding the science behind communication and the influence of individual styles on it

Science has brought forward evidence that every individual is hardwired to take a look at the world in the certain way. He or she can thank his or her genetics for that. This science is called the Coloured Brain Communication Inventory based on the Sperials Model of Left and Right Brain Patterns. The study was further evolved by AIOBP. It states that every human brain views the world and communicates with it in 16 unique patterns. These can be clubbed into a set of 4 to explain the attributes of many individuals. There is one type that is aggressive and restless. The big picture needs to be really clear to them or it puts them off balance. The second type is more logical in their processing of information with one constant eye on the bigger picture. The third type are the intuitive processors who make a lot of decisions based on their gut feeling. The last but not the least are informational processors who require a great deal of time to take decisions but when they do, the result is nearly perfect.

It is obvious that when the brain sees things so differently. The individual will also communicate his or her thoughts differently. This is where the gap begins to arise. While one might think that they give all the information needed, the other might feel the need for more or less.

Impact of improved communication and as a result of the team

Here is the answer to why communication makes a difference.

What does one gain from understanding the science? A clearer picture of one’s own style along with an understanding of how and why his or her other teammates communicate in a certain fashion. This understanding when applied the right way helps each individual communicate in a manner that makes sense to the person he or she is communicating with. On a personal note, this is great in itself. But how does it impact the team?

• Team members who are in sync with one another. Better synergy on the whole
• Better collaboration
• Shift in focus. It is back at the end result or objective
• Reduced conflicts

How does this impact the organization?

• Better performing teams
• Rooting out the blame culture
• Developing a better brand of leaders at all levels of the hierarchy. The organization is always people ready

Would you like to know more about how the Coloured Brain Communication Inventory works towards building the current performers into the future leaders of your organization? Get in touch with us today!