How Employee Communication at Work Affects Team Building
If you’ve ever been a manager, you know that one of the most challenging aspects of team building is managing the different personalities of employees to ensure effective communication at work. Myopic managers can see this as a chore, but great managers can see how each personality type can be used to improve the productivity and performance of the individual, the team, the department, and the entire organization.
One of the keys to successfully managing a team is matching tasks and projects with the interpersonal skills of each team member. This requires a manager who understands team dynamics and recognizes that employee communication in the workplace is critical to team success.
To assess employee communication at work we must address the four dimensions of relational work, which were originally studied and later identified by Timothy Butler and James Waldroop. These researchers posited that relational work can be defined by 1) influence, 2) interpersonal facilitation, 3) relational creativity, and 4) team leadership. Let’s take a closer look at these four dimensions and how they relate to employee communication at work:
• Influence – As the nickname suggests, influential people are happy when they can influence others. They have an innate ability to negotiate and persuade other team members, existing clients and potential clients alike. They are great at building networks and connections, and their communication in the workplace makes it easy and often necessary for them to lift the spirits of other team members. Influencers are usually cheerleaders.
• Interpersonal Facilitation: Team members in this category excel at sensing the emotions, motivations, and conflicts of other employees. They typically work behind the scenes to listen to employee frustrations and are experts at calming the waters. These employees are insightful and easily know what it takes to motivate another team member.
• Relational Creativity: Employee communication at work in this dimension is characterized by the use of images and words to create and convey emotions, motivate others, and build relationships. Unlike the influential personality type, which involves person-to-person interaction, relational creativity occurs at a distance. Consider, for example, a copywriter writing a speech for a CEO that can inspire an organization to meet a deadline.
• Team Leadership – The title may seem to say it all, but it’s important to remember that influencers are different from team leaders in their workplace communication. Influencers focus on the bottom line and how they affect victory, while team leaders measure success on their people’s ability to increase productivity and achieve goals. They are more interested in the people and processes they bring together to achieve their goals.
Understanding these four dimensions and how your employees’ interpersonal strengths affect their ability to build better teams is critical to improving and sustaining growth. Keep in mind the importance of rewarding your team, starting with talking to employees about their effective and ineffective communication at work.
Learn more about ways to improve your employees’ communication in the workplace by visiting www.ThinkBlueThinking.com or calling 619.550.8052.