Teamwork and

collaboration
Chap-2 Bus 231
What is teamwork?
Teamwork

Advantages
Increased information and knowledge. By pooling the
experience of several individuals, a team has access to
more information.

Increased diversity of views. Team members can bring a

variety of perspectives to the decision-making process—
as long as these diverse viewpoints are guided by a
shared goal.
Increased acceptance of a solution. Those who participate in making a
decision are more likely to support it and encourage others to accept it.

Higher performance levels. Working in teams can unleash new levels of

creativity and energy in workers who share a sense of purpose and mutual
accountability. Effective teams can be better than top-performing
individuals at solving complex problems.
Teamwork Disadvantages
Groupthink. Like other social structures, business teams can generate tremendous pressure
to conform with accepted norms of behavior. Groupthink occurs when peer pressure causes
individual team members to withhold contrary or unpopular opinions.

Hidden agendas. Some team members may have a hidden agenda—a private, counterproductive
motive, such as a desire to take control of the group, to undermine someone else on the team, or
to pursue a business goal that runs counter to the team’s mission.

Cost. Aligning schedules, arranging meetings, and coordinating individual parts of a project can eat
up a lot of time and money.
Overload. Some companies have embraced collaborative work approaches to such an extent that
they’re overloading employees with team assignments. Moreover, as a company’s best contributors
gain a reputation for helping others and getting things done, they often find themselves assigned or
invited to even more team efforts
Characteristics

Effective teams have a clear sense

of purpose, open and honest
communication, consensus-based
decision making, creativity, and
effective conflict resolution
Group Dynamics
Group dynamics are the
interactions and processes
that
take place within a team.

Each member of a group Teams typically evolve through a

plays a variety of phases, such as
role that affects the outcome orientation,
of conflict, brainstorming,
the group’s activities. emergence, and reinforcement.
Conflict Management
Proactive behavior. Deal with minor conflict before it becomes major conflict. In team settings, conflict
between two people can spread if it isn’t addressed early.

Communication. Get those directly involved in a conflict to participate in resolving it. These participants
should choose their words and nonverbal gestures carefully in order to maintain focus on the problem at
hand and to avoid further inflaming an already uncomfortable situation

Openness. Get feelings out in the open before dealing with the main issues.
Research. Seek factual reasons for a problem before seeking solutions

Flexibility. Don’t let anyone lock into a position before considering other solutions.
Fair play. Insist on fair outcomes; don’t let anyone avoid a fair solution by hiding behind the rules.

Alliance. Get opponents to fight together against an “outside force” instead of against each other
 When you
encounter
resistance or
hostility, try to
maintain your
composure and
address the other
person’s emotional
needs.
Select collaborators carefully. Whenever possible, choose a combination of people
who together have the experience, information, and talent needed for each project.
Agree on project goals before you start. Starting without a clear idea of what the team
hopes to accomplish inevitably leads to frustration and wasted time.
Give your team time to bond before diving in. If people haven’t had the opportunity
to work together before, make sure they can get to know each other before being
asked to collaborate.
Clarify individual responsibilities. Because members will be depending on each other,
make sure individual responsibilities are clear.
Establish clear processes. Make sure everyone knows how the work will be managed
from start to finish.
Avoid composing as a group. The actual composition is the only part of collaborative
communication that does not usually benefit from group participation. Brainstorming the wording of short piece
of text such as headlines and slogans can be an effective way to stimulate creative word choices
Make sure tools and techniques are ready and compatible across the team. Even
minor details such as different versions of software can delay projects.
Check to see how things are going along the way. Don’t assume that everything is
working just because you don’t hear anything negative
constructive
feedback
Collaborative communication often involves giving
and receiving feedback about writing efforts. Constructive feedback, sometimes called
constructive criticism, focuses on the process and outcomes of communication, not on
the people involved
In contrast, destructive feedback delivers criticism with no guidance to stimulate improvement.
For example, “This proposal is a confusing
mess, and you failed to convince me of anything” is destructive feedback.
The goal is to be more constructive: “Your proposal could be more effective with a clearer
description of the manufacturing process and a well-organized explanation of why the positives
outweigh the negatives.”
When giving feedback, avoid personal attacks and give the person clear guidelines for
improvement.
When you receive constructive feedback, resist the understandable urge to defend your
work or deny the validity of the feedback. Remaining open to criticism isn’t easy when
you’ve invested lots of time and energy in a project, but good feedback provides a valuable
opportunity to learn and to improve the quality of your work.
Preparing for meeting
Define your purpose

Select participants for the meeting

Choose the venue and the time

Set the agenda

Meeting
Minutes
 Attendees
Jeffries
and Madison
Team Alignment Meeting Alice, Wyatt, Frank, Trish, and Ben

Date and Time: June 1, 2025, 10:00 AM

Objectives Roundtable Updates Blockers Action Items Other Reminders

Write here Write here Write here Write here Write here

Collaborative meetings are the best! Click "Share," add your teammates, and start interacting.
 What is active listening ?
Making a conscious effort
to turn off filters and biases to truly hear
and understand what someone is saying
1. Receiving. You start by physically hearing the message and acknowledging it. Physical
reception can be blocked by noise, impaired hearing, or inattention. Some experts

Stages
also include nonverbal messages as part of this stage because these factors influence
he listening process as well.

2. Decoding. Your next step is to assign meaning to the words and phrases, which you do

of Listening
according to your own values, beliefs, ideas, expectations, roles, needs, and personal
history. Decoding is also influenced by the circumstances, the speaker’s tone, facial
gestures, and other nonverbal signals. For example, if someone says, “Well, that’s just
lovely,” a sarcastic tone signals that the intended meaning is the opposite of the literal
meaning of the words.

3. Remembering. Before you can act on the information, you need to store it for future
processing. As you learned in Chapter 1, incoming messages must first be captured
in short-term memory before being transferred to long-term memory for more permanent storage.

4. Evaluating. The next step is to evaluate the message by applying critical thinking skills
to separate fact from opinion and evaluate the quality of the evidence.

5. Responding. After you’ve evaluated the speaker’s message, you react. If you’re communicating
one-on-one or in a small group, the initial response generally takes the
form of verbal feedback. If you’re one of many in an audience, your initial response
may take the form of applause, laughter, or silence. Later, you may act on what you
have heard.
 Attention to etiquette is essential to success in every form of business
communication,
so much so that etiquette is considered an important business skill.

Poor etiquette can hinder

team efforts, drain morale and productivity, drive away customers and investors,
and limit your career potential.

Four key areas in which good etiquette

is essential are the workplace, social settings in which you represent your
employer, online
interactions in which you represent your employer, and when using mobile devices.