Verbal and Non-Verbal Communications within Team - Research Paper Example

Qualitative research paper about verbal and non-verbal communications within team leadership Introduction Communication is an essential part of an organizational culture. In order to convey important information such as daily targets, performance reviews, confidential data, support and advice and any other piece of information, some form of communication is used. For any type of message such as that between a manager and subordinate, between colleagues, from top leadership to entire teams through company network including all global regions, communication is key. Communication skills are therefore, the most sought after skills in managers as well as new employees as they are a good determinant of an employee’s potential in the firm. Having spoken about the importance of communication, it is important to note the various types of communication and the role team leaders can play to ensure most effective communication within teams. A healthy organization will have a culture that allows free flow of communication with the aid of different platforms and media. In teams, communication takes on another modicum of significance because it serves as the veins of the team body. Any team which has lack of or ineffective communication (Reina & Reina, 2006; DuFrene & Lehman, 2005) will have trouble in performance and will face heated arguments and problems intermittently. Therefore, the team leadership has to play an active role in ensuring that the verbal and nonverbal communication signals within the team are smooth and effective. Statement of problem To conduct a qualitative research on the verbal and nonverbal communication within a team Purpose of study This paper attempts to investigate the types of communication and find out the utility of each in team dynamics. There is a variety of methods that can be utilized by team leaders to support and encourage communication within the teams; the purpose of this paper is to identify the methods of communication and see their implications for teams. This paper will also attempt to connect the usefulness and necessity of the types to the everyday working of teams and their effectiveness. Research questions There are four specific research questions that have been identified for this study. These are as stated below: 1. What are the different types of verbal and non verbal communication? 2. What is the significance of each type? 3. Are there any implications and learning points for teams based on the research on the verbal and non verbal communication types? 4. What can team leaders do to maximize the communication level in teams? Literature review There is a vast amount of information available on both verbal and non verbal types of communication. In team environments, communication plays a very important role. Effectiveness of a team and the completion of the set target depend largely on communication: this does not refer to the spoken word. As a matter of fact, this encompasses everything like ‘using environmental cues to establish a common ground of understanding, seeing who is around and what they are doing, monitoring the state of artefacts in a shared work setting, noticing other people’s gestures and what they are referring to’ (Gutiwn & Greenberg, 2001), which the authors say is ‘team cognition’. This cognition is only achievable with a good mix of verbal and nonverbal communicative cues between team members. As the team is normally formed based on the unique strengths and backgrounds of people, it is imperative that the team members are able to communicate their characteristic strengths to the other team members. Failure to do so will negate the concept and purpose of the team; therefore, communication is key! Verbal communication The first main type of communication is verbal communication. As the name obviously suggests, this pertains to something that is stated and said, and is an ‘utterance’ (Wagner). It is manifested in a number of ways including: Oral communication This is when someone loudly says something. When two people are having a conversation, they are having an oral form of communication. It is dependent on a number of things including the use and choice of words, the level of understanding of both the conversers, the amount of noise available, etc. Written communication Another type of verbal communication is written communication. As this is also stated, it falls in the head of verbal. Written communication is very important and proves to be a perfect solution in this day and age of global business practices: emails and faxes allow people from all over to communicate expediently; furthermore, written messages are more concrete and reliable than the spoken word. Written messages incorporate a variety of styles, ‘from informal and chatty to formal and authoritative (Written Communications, 2006). Electronic communication With increasing reliance on and availability of technology, the corporate environment is seeking newer methods of communication that did not exist a couple of decades ago. Today’s teams must know how to interact in ‘virtual intercultural teams’ (Grosse, 2002). They are required to speak the global language, understand and appreciate cultures they hadn’t even heard of before and attempt to understand the idiosyncrasies of others’ languages. Emailing has brought the whole world a lot closer. Team leaders must ensure that everyone knows how to write proper email messages. They must always introduce themselves and seek to be sincere, straightforward and humble. Online chat systems, which are available on company intranets, also serve as a fantastic medium to conduct team meetings. Decorum must always be adhered to and the manager must ensure that it has been previously decided upon and communicated to everyone. Another form of verbal communication includes group discussion and presentations. This is extremely important in the team context but requires that the team leader assign a few rules and job roles so that the discussion session proceeds and ends smoothly and constructively. These can include the roles of leader/moderator, time keeper, note/minutes taker, encourager, designer (if needed) (Abbott & Godinho, 2001) and at times, the devil’s advocate. All these roles prove to be very useful in teams, ensuring that no unnecessary arguments break out Non-verbal communications This is the second main type of communication. Very broadly defined as the form of communication that includes everything that is not ‘said’ (Guerrero & Floyd, 2006) or explicitly stated. The study of this form of communication is extremely important in intercultural environments and in teams which have people from different backgrounds of cultures. Interpretations and translations occur to help people from different cultural backgrounds to understand each other, however these are never sufficient and need non verbal aids for elaboration (Vandenabeele, 2002). The various forms of communication that are included in non verbal communication are as follows: 1. Facial expression 2. Body language and postures 3. Gestures 4. Proxemics or personal space 5. Paralinguistic, including tone and pitch of voice 6. Appearance Non verbal behavior is a form of communication (Hinde 1975) as it sends a message to the observer. If a person makes a pained expression in a public place, he will evoke questions from the passersby inquiring if he is alright. The mere facial expression has communicated something to the viewers without the use of any words and that is the strength of nonverbal communication. There are many organizations that do not support the free flow of information along the reporting lines. Sometimes, the hierarchy is so rigid and the number of employees so huge that communicating to every level not only becomes unfeasible but almost humanly impossible. Writes Lee (2008): And it is especially true in management cultures that hoard information, or tiptoe around the truth, or rely on euphemisms to blunt accountability, or nurture a culture of extreme deference and politeness. The more employees must read between the lines for real messages and their true intent, the more nonverbal communication will establish or clarify strategic priorities and cultural norms. The problem appears when verbal communication ‘says’ something and the nonverbal communication is contradictory to it. For example, a company states clearly in its corporate values that every employee is expected to be scrupulously honest and sincere as a part of his work ethic. If, in a team, one member is not practicing this particular value despite stating agreement to it, this will create a contradiction of his verbal and nonverbal communication. This negative aspect will be that this sort of behavior, if left unchecked or discouraged by the team leader, will cause other members of the team to feel disillusioned and likely to follow suit. There is a greater likelihood of verbal and nonverbal communication messages to be misconstrued and misinterpreted (Esposito). The propensity for a person to misunderstand the intended meaning of a communication message can be due to a number of reasons: the words that have been used per se (Latham, 2006), the unintentional misrepresentation of the words or nonverbal communication by the speaker and the multiple meanings of terms and actions used (Stuart, Sarow & Stuart, 2007). It has been found that people who are extremely friendly and amicable, ‘good natured and quick to compromise and appease’ display strength in avoiding discord and ‘negativity’ (Hoffman, p.27); however, these people might appear to be lacking in strong decision making and commitment (Hoffman). The significance here is that this is the general message that is passed on to the receiver of the communication through nonverbal signals: he is likely to form this opinion even before proper interaction with the said person. In such a situation, the person will have make use of very strong verbal statements, in addition to solid nonverbal ones, to convince the receiver of his credibility. Another form of communication has been described as ‘Comforting communication’ which is a type defined by Burleson (Angell 1998) as ‘those messages having the intended function of alleviating, moderating or salving the distressed emotional states of others’. Having its origins in medicinal and nursing practices, this form of communication can be used by team leaders to great effect. Often it is found that some members of the team are struggling more than the others; they are lacking the confidence and not the skill or expertise. To boost the confidence, the team leader must play the role of a motivator who will try to comfort the member and encourage him to perform higher and focus on his strengths, rather than any other factor which might not be of equal significance. Limitations The information presented in this report is primarily based on the work of researchers and authors in the field of business, communication studies and psychology. The same limitations that apply to their research work are applicable to this piece of work. In addition to that, this report is limited to the number of resources available and used, time allowed for researching and writing and finally, the researcher’s own previous experiences and understanding of concepts used. Procedures Characteristics of qualitative research Being a qualitative research paper, this report has made use of qualitative information available in journals, magazines and books. This research is mainly secondary, therefore. The sources include journals, databases and books. The qualitative nature of this report makes it subjective: it is subject to the conclusions drawn by other researchers whose works have been referred to for this project. The subjectivity extends to the opinions and summations the researcher has made. Qualitative research strategy A set strategy was followed throughout the making of this report. The plan of action was to set the key research questions by deeply analyzing over the problem statement. Once the research questions were identified, the research commenced. The main sources for the research were journals, books and databases. The strategy has been to research the works already performed by notable researchers in this field and use their findings to draw conclusions for this report. . Role of researcher With this paper, the researcher has attempted to write an extensively researched paper. Effort has been made to keep the personal opinion of the researcher separate from the findings of the paper. The researcher has further attempted to draw conclusions and document them in a most unbiased and scrupulous manner possible. The readability of the report has been ensured to be smooth and easy. Data collection procedures As this paper is secondary in nature, it has relied on the data already collected by other researchers on similar topics. The procedure for collecting the data has been accessing it through various libraries, databases and other online sources, sifting through it to mark the relevant information and making on it after comparison with the research questions. The most useful procedure that provided the most relevant information was defining the core concepts needed for this study in the research questions and then researching and elaborating on each of them. Data analysis procedures As this topic is very extensive, a large number of resources was accessed during the research phase. The sources include journals, books, articles and online sources. Each source was diligently researched to check for significance to this study. The key findings of the research were then matched with other sources to double check conclusions. The information derived was put under headings of verbal and non verbal communications and then further elaborated. Strategies for validating findings In order to validate the findings of the research, the researcher adopted the following method: A. Checked the credibility of the findings with other credible sources of information such as books and published journals. B. Matched the findings with the key topics that have been taught in class and are a part of the coursework Anticipated ethical issues This study has been extensively researched and referenced; in light of that fact, no significant ethical issues are anticipated. There are chances, though, that the researcher misunderstood some concept presented by one of the authors whose work was used as reference or took it in a context that was not intended by the original author. This slight chance can cause a slight aberration in the findings. Findings Research shows that communication as well as the understanding and interpretation of it depends on an amalgamation of verbal and nonverbal signals. One study says that a mere 7% of a message’s impact is delivered by the actual stated or verbal composition; 38% is ‘verbal inflection’ and 55% is facial expressions and content (Spoelstra & Pienaar). This research shows that what we actually say matters a lot less than how we say it. Communication can be understood when it is accepted that it follows a specific process (Spoelstra & Pienaar; Lizotte, 2008; Foulger, 2004). The process involves a communicator delivering a message through a medium to the receiver; often, this is followed by feedback. If there is a break in any of these steps, or in the encoding or decoding of the messages (Jacobson, p.5), a communication lag occurs. Although nobody consciously follows this process during communication, it is inbuilt in all communication media. However, when the leader feels that there is ineffective communication or communication lags within the team, he must refer back to this model and see where, on the grass roots level, his team is going wrong. Team leaders have the important responsibility of negotiating and influencing other people on behalf of the team, to get them to agree and to see the viewpoint that the team jointly holds. Team leaders must realize here that the people who are strongly in disagreement are extremely difficult to convince. However, those people who are somewhat neutral or do not hold an opinion about the said subject, are the most important target audience for communication (Jacobson, 1999). By knowing the various verbal and non verbal communication methods, the team can identify such people and create a communication program, comprising of both types of cues, to convince them. Present somewhere in between verbal and nonverbal communication is some gray matter that is of equal significance in communication. These include voice inflection, tone of voice and loudness (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, p528; LeFebvre, 2008). Sometimes these are grouped with the nonverbal mode of communication. In normal conversations, the people who are naturally loud are assumed to be fun-loving, aggressive or short tempered. However, the quieter ones are assumed to be timid, low on self-confidence and less assertive. People who speak slowly are assumed to be slow thinkers and those who speak fast are thought to be high on energy. All these stereotypes affect how the receiver of information perceives the sender of it. The implication for team leaders is that they must train their team members to control and moderate their voices and tones. When presenting, a quiet speaker is likely to lose the attention of his audience quickly and the message of the presentation is likely to get lost as well. This can be a heavy cost to the effort and performance of the team. Discussion Good communication skills are a mandatory aspect in today’s working environment. Every person, at every level, is required to communicate. Some jobs require stronger communication skills, such as sales jobs, and some require relatively average communication skills but the fact of the matter is, without communication, an employee cannot succeed or even survive. In the same way, a team and its team members cannot exist in isolation. They need to discuss and share ideas, provide constructive feedback and then create or produce what they had set out to in the beginning. All these activities require a healthy dose of communication. The great thing about communication is that it can be taught and improved upon. If a new employee cannot write great emails, not all is lost as he can learn to do so. This requires the management of the company to invest in the training and development of the employees. Communication is also company and department specific. For example, in a hospital, the type of communication is highly technical, compared to that in a marketing firm. The former requires a greater understanding and knowledge of the subject whereas the second requires more imagination and creativity. Even in departments or interdepartmental teams, communication is different. The team manager is required to bring everyone on the same page from the very beginning. Failure to do so will cause unnecessary delay, disagreements and waste of resources. The team leader must place the required emphasis on both types of communication. Some people are not good with words or their writing skills are not as good as their expression or use of body language. The team leader must make effort to recognize the strengths of his team members and utilize them accordingly. Verbal and nonverbal messages include some other factors which are culture specific. For example, the way we are dressed for a meeting or the venue selected conveys to the receiver the tone and the setting of the business affair. For example, if a team leader encourages his team to dress up in jeans and t-shirts and meet up in coffee shops for discussions, he is encouraging a frank and open culture. However, in teams where there is a formal dress code and limited friendly overtures between leader and the team mates, the culture is more formal and pedantic. It is the responsibility of the team leader to set the tone of the group using the various types of communication. References Abbott, Colleen & Godinho, Sally (2001). Thinking voices: developing oral communication skills. CA: Curriculum Corporation. Angell, Lance R., (1998). 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