Solutions of Communication Conflict

                                        Solutions of Communication Conflict

 

In this team, they face a lot of differences, like their backgrounds and personalities. In every team, difference is unavoidable, but why in this team, differences caused so many problems? Obviously, they barely communicate with each other, and they haven’t realized communication is a useful way to break the ice and build the trust, because fully communicating is a best way to understand the differences between us.

 

Without effective communication, any goal, any team will be at risk. Difference is not the key problem of this team, the lack of communication is the root of poor morale, ineffective relationships and low efficiency in the team. Team communication can increase team motivation, foster trust and respect between members, greatly improve the performance of the team. So, communication is vital to a team. Here I am going to show the details that the importance of communication.

 

A. The Necessity of Communication

1. Communication can build empathy. Empathy is the ability to see the world as another person, to share and understand another person’s feelings and needs, which means we could be better to understand each other if we build empathy by communication. As we have a lot of differences, the understanding atmosphere is the regulator to help us to avoid conflicts.

 

2.  Communication can improve trust. A team without trust it's just a group, which a lot of individuals work together. They don’t trust each other, so it is hard for them to make any progress, usually, people find disappointed. Meanwhile, they will not share information with each other, and cooperate well with one another, what they are doing is just ostensibly cooperate with each other. Thus, it is easy to predict that the team outcome will be disappointed.

 

However, when we have trust, each member in the team will become stronger, and the team will be the cohesive group. When people trust one another, the group can achieve truly meaningful goals. Therefore, we can say that trust is the foundation of a team, no trust, no team. We are from different background, without doubt, communication is essential to build trust. Usually, people cannot trust others just because they know each other little, then they will feel it is not that secure to trust. Through communication, we can know each other better, trust level will be high.

 

3. Communication can enhance the performance. With trust and understanding, people won’t have to worry about the ineffective relationship in the team, leading to a pleasured working environment. We believe that without stress from relationship, and people could effectively concentrate on the work, thus, the performance will be high. We always think capability and talent is the key successful factor for a team, but actually it is impossible for them to reach their full potential and perform well if they have a lot of stress from relationship.

 

4. Communication can highly improve the advantages of diversity. In this team, there are team members from different countries, background, so they have diversity. Diversity means difference, but diversity have a lot of advantages, which shows that this team has complementary abilities and experience, and it will help the team be more successful. So if they can fully communicate with each other, and understand each other, which means the team has been built. After successfully building the team, the differences between the team members will become the diversities in the team, which will provide the team competitive advantages.

 

                                     
                                        B.How to improve the communication in a team

1.       Every team member should have courage to say what you think. Everyone should be confident in knowing that you can make worthwhile contributions to conversation. We need to be aware that your opinions and feelings will be helpful to your team so you can adequately convey them to your team members. Individuals who are hesitant to speak because they do not feel their input would be worthwhile need not fear. When you are brave to express yourselves, people will begin to understand you.

 

2.       Every team member should share experience. People have different background and experience, and it is important to share with the team members, no matter work or life experience, because it is a channel to let your members know who you are, what your advantages and disadvantages are. By sharing experience, members will find though experience is different, your essence of the life and work is still the same to them, because all of your lives encounter failure and success, they could find the common point with you. And the common point likes the empathy, you begin to understand each other.

 

3.       We should keep the transparence in the communication processes. Transparent communication provides all team members with the same information which is possible to keep all members adequately informed. Transparent communication process maximizes the likelihood that team members will be aligned in their concept of where they are going and how they are going to get there. If we fail to adequately inform all team members, they may not contribute their ability to the team.

 

4.       Specify the goal of the team. As we all know, team goal is like the light of the boat which is sailing at night, so if we don’t specify the team goal and make sure all of us have the same goal, there will be no base of the communication. Therefore, the first crucial thing to do is to specify the team goal, let everyone knows that where we are going to. After this, team members will have direction and understand what they need to do.

 

5.       We should build private relationship with some team members. Though we are in a team, private team member relationship is beneficial for us to communicate with the whole team. As more members become your friends, more voice of you will be heard, thus, the communication in the team will be more effective. Actually this is a political measure. So we should know about some of our team members personally, and create more chances to work together or have another activity together. Gradually, we will find out we can be friends with some team members, and we can have more supporters in the team, which is easier for us to have a smooth communication.

 

6.       Create a comfortable communication atmosphere. When people work together, it will have some honest mistakes and disappointments, and many people will start to blame another team member who causes these. However, when everyone begins pointing fingers, an unpleasant atmosphere can quickly develop. This lowers morale, undermines trust, and is ultimately unproductive. To effectively communicate with our team, we must create a comfortable atmosphere and avoid a tense environment, because when we communicate in an intense context, the message we are trying to share might not be well understood or retained, which means communication is ineffective. Instead, we should encourage everyone in our group to think about the mistake in a constructive way. What you all can do to fix what happened, and move forward together, and how you can make sure that this mistake doesn't happen again. We believe the tolerant atmosphere will help people to express more.

 

7.       Listen to your team members and improve the listening skill. Communication is intended to be a two way street. Don’t just talk without listening to anyone else. Encourage everyone to open up so we can communicate the future we are going to. We have two ears and one mouth, so we must listen more than speak. A good listener can encourage their partner to talk openly and honestly. Tips for good listening include: Keep comfortable eye contact. Lean towards your partner and make gestures to show interest and concern. Look at the person who's speaking to you, nod, ask probing questions and acknowledge what's said by paraphrasing points that have been made. If you're unclear about something that's been said, ask for more information to clear up any confusion before moving on. Effective communication is a vital part of any team, so the value of good listening skills shouldn't be underestimated.

 

 

We believe that, if the communication level is higher in this team, the conflicts between members will be less. So we hope this team could take action to improve the communication, it is possible to be an excellent team.