Working and Writing in Teams



Working and Writing in Teams
Mike O
(originally published in Google’s Knol project, now discontinued)

Work in teams.
Be a productive leader.
Resolve conflicts constructively.
Write collaborative documents.

Start by asking these questions:

What kinds of messages should groups attend to?
What roles do people play in groups?
How should we handle conflict?
How can we create the best co­authored documents?

Teamwork is crucial to success in an organization. Some teams produce products, provide services, or recommend solutions to problems. Other teams—perhaps in addition to providing a service or recom­mending a solution—also produce documents. Interpersonal communication is communication between people. Interpersonal skills such as listening and dealing with conflict are used in one-on-one conversations, in problem-solving groups, and in writing groups. These skills will make you more suc­cessful on the job, in social groups, and in community service and volunteer work. In writing groups, careful attention to both group process and writing process improves both the final product and members’ satisfaction with the group.

Teams are often most effective when they explicitly adopt ground rules. Here are some of the most common ground rules used by workplace teams.

• Start the meeting on time
• Have a prepared agenda with an objective and expected outcomes
• End the meeting on time
• Parking lot discussion items that don’t relate to this meeting’s objective
• Complete action items as committed
• One person speaks at a time
• All team members are equals
• Leave rank at the door
• Address conflict by dealing with the issue not the person
• Turn of cell phones / pagers
• Notify the team in advance if you will be absent
• Listen actively
• Be a participant, not a lurker
• What’s said in the room, stays in the room.
• Have fun, but not at the expense of someone else’s feelings.
• Be present, both physically and mentally.

What kinds of messages should groups attend to?

4 Different messages are appropriate at different points in a group’s development.

Group messages fall into three categories:

• Informational messages focus on content: the problem or challenge, data, and possible solutions.
• Procedural messages focus on method and process. How will the group make decisions? Who will do what? When will assignments be due?
• Interpersonal messages focus on people, promoting friendliness, coopera­tion, and group loyalty.

Different messages dominate during the various stages of group develop­ment. During orientation, when members meet and begin to define their task, groups need to develop some sort of social cohesiveness and to develop pro­cedures for meeting and acting. Interpersonal and procedural comments reduce the tension that exists in a new group. Insistence on information in this first stage can hurt the group’s long-term productivity.