Communication Activities of High- and Low-Performing Teams - Chief Learning Officer, So... - 0 views
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In our recent research, Rosalie J. Ocker and I found that high-performing virtual design teams differed from low-performing teams in terms of the number of messages, message length and the content profile of those messages. The high-performing teams had significantly more messages and longer messages than the low-performing teams. Additionally, the leaders of the high teams had more messages and longer messages than the leaders of the low teams. High-performing teams communicated more regarding aspects of the design. They also sent considerably more messages and longer messages that focused on summarizing their work and discussing the write-up of the report covering the project design. The high-performance teams not only communicated more, but they communicated regarding key design aspects of the project. Through their increased communication, it is not hard to conceive that they generated a greater number of high-quality and creative ideas
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ding key design aspects of the project. Through their increased communication, it is not hard to conceive that they generated a greater number of high-quality and creative ideas. Additionally, and maybe as a consequence of the increased amount of messages, the high-performance teams spent time summarizing their work and sharing these summaries with their teammates. Although the high- and low-performance teams did not differ in the amount of messages concerning team management, the summaries served a coordination function by keeping members apprised of their teammates’ ideas and progress. These summaries also appear to be key when preparing the final design report. Inspection of the transcripts shows that much of the design reports came directly from the text of comments, many of which were summary comments. In three of the four high-performing teams, the leaders did the summarization. In the fourth team, another team member did the summarization and thus was an emergent leader. In the low-performing teams, the leaders did not do any summarization at all. Thus, it is plausible that this simple act of summarizing work, coupled with the not-so-simple act of putting forth more effort, were key aspects of the success of the high-performance virtual design teams. Article Keywords: technology 1 | Next Page | 3 Buy Birth Control Pills if(typeof(cachebuster) == "undefined"){var cachebuster = Math.floor(Math.random()*10000000000)} if(typeof(dcopt) == "undefined"){var dcopt = "dcopt=ist;"} else {var dcopt = ""} if(typeof(tile) == "undefined"){var tile = 1} else {tile++} document.write(''); Like Dislike Community Disqus Login About Disqus Glad you liked it. Would you like to share? Facebook Twitter <a
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Additionally, and maybe as a consequence of the increased amount of messages, the high-performance teams spent time summarizing their work and sharing these summaries with their teammates. Although the high- and low-performance teams did not differ in the amount of messages concerning team management, the summaries served a coordination function by keeping members apprised of their teammates’ ideas and progress
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My takeaway from this relates to the whole information explosion issue - just sharing info isn't what is effective. High performing groups shared more messages, longer messages, and probably most importantly, did more to summarize their work. This acts to filter irrelevant info and highlight important ideas. Effective collaboration facilitators will encourage this kind of communication.
