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Chapter 7 Teamwork and Problem-Solving Skills

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An Introduction to Teamwork

Leaders Facilitate Teamwork

Management and Leadership

Teamwork C.Eng 491 Fall 2009.

Chapter 11 Management Skills

Investigating Your Career

7 Chapter Organizational Structures pp

Communications Skills (ELE 205)

Chapter 6 Team Work Blueprint By Lec.Hadeel Qasaimeh.

TEAMS What is a Team A team is a small group of people working together for a common purpose A team is a small group of people working together.

1 Chapter 12 The Manager as a Leader. 2 Lesson 12.1 The Importance of Leadership Goals Recognize the importance of leadership and human relations. Identify.

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4 Communicating and Working in Teams “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” ― Henry Ford, American.

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Objective 2.01: Differentiate between positive and negative interpersonal skills in a variety of workplace settings.

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Section 14.1 Teamwork Back to Table of Contents. Chapter 14 Teamwork and LeadershipSucceeding in the World of Work Teamwork 14.1 WHAT YOU’LL LEARN How.

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The Team and the Organization

Learning objectives.

• Define a team and describe its key characteristics.
• Explain why organizations use teams, and describe different types of teams.

What Is a Team? How Does Teamwork Work?

A team (or a work team ) is a group of people with complementary skills who work together to achieve a specific goal. [1] In the case of Motorola’s RAZR team, the specific goal was to develop (and ultimately bring to market) an ultrathin cell phone that would help restore the company’s reputation as a designer of stylistically appealing, high-function phones. The team achieved its goal by integrating specialized but complementary skills in engineering and design and by making the most of its authority to make its own decisions and manage its own operations.

Teams versus Groups

“A group,” suggests Bonnie Edelstein, a consultant in organizational development, “is a bunch of people in an elevator. A team is also a bunch of people in an elevator, but the elevator is broken.” This distinction may be a little oversimplified, but as our tale of teamwork at Motorola reminds us, a team is clearly something more than a mere group of individuals. In particular, members of a group—or, more accurately, a working group —go about their jobs independently and meet primarily to share information. A group of department-store managers, for example, might meet monthly to discuss their progress in cutting plant costs, but each manager is focused on the goals of his or her department because each is held accountable for meeting only those goals. Teams, by contrast, are responsible for achieving specific common goals, and they’re generally empowered to make the decisions needed to complete their authorized tasks.

Some Key Characteristics of Teams

To keep matters in perspective, let’s identify five key characteristics of work teams: [2] [3]

• Teams are accountable for achieving specific common goals . Members are collectively responsible for achieving team goals, and if they succeed, they’re rewarded collectively.
• Teams function interdependently . Members cannot achieve goals independently and must rely on each other for information, input, and expertise.
• Teams are stable . Teams remain intact long enough to finish their assigned tasks, and each member remains on board long enough to get to know every other member.
• Teams have authority . Teams possess the decision-making power to pursue their goals and to manage the activities through which they complete their assignments.
• Teams operate in a social context . Teams are assembled to do specific work for larger organizations and have the advantage of access to resources available from other areas of their organizations.

Why Organizations Build Teams

Why do major organizations now rely more and more on teams to improve operations? Executives at Xerox have reported that team-based operations are 30 percent more productive than conventional operations. General Mills says that factories organized around team activities are 40 percent more productive than traditionally organized factories. According to in-house studies at Shenandoah Life Insurance, teams have cut case-handling time from twenty-seven to two days and virtually eliminated service complaints. FedEx says that teams reduced service errors (lost packages, incorrect bills) by 13 percent in the first year. [4] [5]

Today it seems obvious that teams can address a variety of challenges in the world of corporate activity. Before we go any further, however, we should remind ourselves that data like those we’ve just cited aren’t necessarily definitive. For one thing, they may not be objective—companies are more likely to report successes than failures. As a matter of fact, teams don’t always work. Indeed, according to one study, team-based projects fail 50 to 70 percent of the time. [6] [7]

The Effect of Teams on Performance

Research shows that companies build and support teams because of their effect on overall workplace performance, both organizational and individual. If we examine the impact of team-based operations according to a wide range of relevant criteria—including product quality, worker satisfaction, and quality of work life, among others—we find that overall organizational performance improves. Table 7.1 “Effect of Teams on Workplace Performance” lists several areas in which we can analyze workplace performance and indicates the percentage of companies that have reported improvements in each area.

Table 7.1 Effect of Teams on Workplace Performance [8]

Types of Teams

Teams, then, can improve company and individual performance in a number of areas. Not all teams, however, are formed to achieve the same goals or charged with the same responsibilities. Nor are they organized in the same way. Some, for instance, are more autonomous than others—less accountable to those higher up in the organization. Some depend on a team leader who’s responsible for defining the team’s goals and making sure that its activities are performed effectively. Others are more or less self-governing: though a leader lays out overall goals and strategies, the team itself chooses and manages the methods by which it pursues its goals and implements its strategies. [9] Teams also vary according to their membership. Let’s look at several categories of teams.

Manager-Led Teams

As its name implies, in the manager-led team , the manager is the team leader and is in charge of setting team goals, assigning tasks, and monitoring the team’s performance. The individual team members have relatively little autonomy. For example, the key employees of a professional football team (a manager-led team) are highly trained (and highly paid) athletes, but their activities on the field are tightly controlled by a head coach. As team manager, the coach is responsible both for developing the strategies by which the team pursues its goal of winning games and for the final outcome of each game (not to mention the season). He’s also solely responsible for interacting with managers above him in the organization. The players are responsible only for executing plays. [10]

Self-Managing Teams

Self-managing teams (also known as self-directed or self-regulating teams ) have considerable autonomy. They are usually small and often absorb activities that were once performed by traditional supervisors. A manager or team leader may determine overall goals, but the members of the self-managing team control the activities needed to achieve the goals, such as planning and scheduling work, sharing tasks, meeting quality standards, and handling day-to-day operations.

Self-managing teams are the organizational hallmark of Whole Foods Market, the largest natural-foods grocer in the United States. Each store is run by ten teams (produce, prepared foods, and so forth), and virtually every store employee is a member of a team. Each team has a designated leader and its own performance targets. (Team leaders also belong to a store team, and store-team leaders belong to a regional team.) To do its job, every team has access to the kind of information—including sales and even salary figures—that most companies reserve for the eyes of traditional managers. [11]

Needless to say, not every self-managed team enjoys the same degree of autonomy. Companies vary widely in choosing which tasks teams are allowed to manage and which ones are best left to upper-level management only. As you can see in Figure 7.1 “What Teams Do (and Don’t) Manage” , for example, self-managing teams are often allowed to schedule assignments, but they are rarely allowed to fire coworkers.

Figure 7.1 What Teams Do (and Don’t) Manage

Cross-Functional Teams

Many companies use cross-functional teams —teams that, as the name suggests, cut across an organization’s functional areas (operations, marketing, finance, and so on). A cross-functional team is designed to take advantage of the special expertise of members drawn from different functional areas of the company. When the Internal Revenue Service, for example, wanted to study the effects on employees of a major change in information systems, it created a cross-functional team composed of people from a wide range of departments. The final study reflected expertise in such areas as job analysis, training, change management, industrial psychology, and even ergonomics. [12]

Cross-functional teams figure prominently in the product-development process at Nike, where they take advantage of expertise from both inside and outside the company. Typically, team members include not only product designers, marketing specialists, and accountants but also sports-research experts, coaches, athletes, and even consumers. Likewise, Motorola’s RAZR team was a cross-functional team: Responsibility for developing the new product wasn’t passed along from the design team to the engineering team but rather was entrusted to a special team composed of both designers and engineers.

We can also classify the RAZR team as a product-development or project team (a topic we’ll discuss in more detail in Chapter 10 “Product Design and Development” ). Committees and task forces , both of which are dedicated to specific issues or tasks, are often cross-functional teams. Problem-solving teams , which are created to study such issues as improving quality or reducing waste, may be either intradepartmental or cross-functional. [13]

Virtual Teams

“Teamwork,” said someone (we’re not sure who), “doesn’t tolerate the inconvenience of distance.” Indeed, technology now makes it possible for teams to function not only across such organizational boundaries as functional areas, departments, and divisions but also across time and space, as well. Working in virtual teams, geographically dispersed members interact electronically in the process of pursuing a common goal. Such technologies as videoconferencing, instant messaging, and electronic meetings, which allow people to interact simultaneously and in real time, offer a number of advantages in conducting the business of a virtual team. [14] Among other things, members can participate from any location or at any time of day, and teams can “meet” for as long as it takes to achieve a goal or solve a problem—a few days, a few weeks, or a few months.

Nor does team size seem to be an obstacle when it comes to calling virtual-team meetings: In building the F-35 Strike Fighter, U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin staked the $225 billion project on a virtual product-team of unprecedented global dimension, drawing on designers and engineers from the ranks of eight international partners ranging from Canada and the United Kingdom to Norway and Turkey. [15]

Key Takeaways

• Teamwork brings diverse areas of expertise to bear on organizational problems and projects.
• Reaching teamwork goals requires skills in negotiating trade-offs, and teamwork brings these skills into play at almost every step in the process.
• To be successful, teams need a certain amount of autonomy and authority in making and implementing their decisions.
• A team (or a work team ) is a group of people with complementary skills who work together to achieve a specific goal. Members of a working group work independently and meet primarily to share information.
• They are accountable for achieving specific common goals.
• They function interdependently.
• They are stable.
• They have authority.
• They operate in a social context.
• Companies build and support teams because of their effect on overall workplace performance, both organizational and individual.
• In the traditional manager-led team , the leader defines the team’s goals and activities and is responsible for its achieving its assigned goals.
• The leader of a self-managing team may determine overall goals, but employees control the activities needed to meet them.
• A cross-functional team is designed to take advantage of the special expertise of members drawn from different functional areas of the company.
• On virtual teams , geographically dispersed members interact electronically in the process of pursuing a common goal.

(AACSB) Analysis

You’re a marketing researcher for a multinational food-products corporation, and for the past two years, you’ve been able to work at home. The international division of the company has asked you to join a virtual team assigned to assess the prospects for a new sandwich planned for the Indian market.

List a few of the challenges that you’re likely to encounter as a member of the virtual team. Explain the steps you’d take to deal with each of the challenges that you’ve listed.

Why Teamwork Works

• Explain why teams may be effective or ineffective.
• Identify factors that contribute to team cohesiveness.

Now that we know a little bit about how teams work, we need to ask ourselves why they work. Not surprisingly, this is a fairly complex issue. In this section, we’ll answer these closely related questions: Why are teams often effective? Why are they sometimes in effective?

Factors in Effective Teamwork

First, let’s begin by identifying several factors that, in practice, tend to contribute to effective teamwork. Generally speaking, teams are effective when the following factors are met: [16]

• Members depend on each other . When team members rely on each other to get the job done, team productivity and efficiency are high.
• Members trust one another . Teamwork is more effective when members trust each other.
• Members work better together than individually . When team members perform better as a group than alone, collective performance exceeds individual performance.
• Members become boosters . When each member is encouraged by other team members to do his or her best, collective results improve.
• Team members enjoy being on the team . The more that team members derive satisfaction from being on the team, the more committed they become.
• Leadership rotates . Teams function effectively when leadership responsibility is shared over time.

Most of these explanations probably make pretty clear intuitive sense. Unfortunately, because such issues are rarely as clear-cut as they may seem at first glance, we need to examine the issue of group effectiveness from another perspective—one that considers the effects of factors that aren’t quite so straightforward.

Group Cohesiveness

The idea of group cohesiveness refers to the attractiveness of a team to its members. If a group is high in cohesiveness, membership is quite satisfying to its members; if it’s low in cohesiveness, members are unhappy with it and may even try to leave it. The principle of group cohesiveness, in other words, is based on the simple idea that groups are most effective when their members like being members of the group. [17] [18]

What Makes a Team Cohesive?

Numerous factors may contribute to team cohesiveness, but in this section, we’ll focus on five of the most important:

• Size . The bigger the team, the less satisfied members tend to be. When teams get too large, members find it harder to interact closely with other members; a few members tend to dominate team activities, and conflict becomes more likely.
• Similarity . People usually get along better with people like themselves, and teams are generally more cohesive when members perceive fellow members as people who share their own attitudes and experience.
• Success . When teams are successful, members are satisfied, and other people are more likely to be attracted to their teams.
• Exclusiveness . The harder it is to get into a group, the happier the people who are already in it. Status (the extent to which outsiders look up to a team, as well as the perks that come with membership) also increases members’ satisfaction.
• Competition . Members value membership more highly when they’re motivated to achieve common goals—especially when those goals mean outperforming other teams.

Figure 7.2 Cohesive Teams

There’s such a thing as too much cohesiveness. When, for instance, members are highly motivated to collaborate in performing the team’s activities, the team is more likely to be effective in achieving its goals. Clearly, when those goals are aligned with the goals of the larger organization, the organization, too, will be happy. If, however, its members get too wrapped up in more immediate team goals, the whole team may lose sight of the larger organizational goals toward which it’s supposed to be working.

Likewise, it’s easier for leaders to direct members toward team goals when members are all on the same page—when there’s a basic willingness to conform to the team’s rules and guidelines. When there’s too much conformity, however, the group can become ineffective: It may resist change and fresh ideas and, what’s worse, may end up adopting its own dysfunctional tendencies as its way of doing things. Such tendencies may also encourage a phenomenon known as groupthink —the tendency to conform to group pressure in making decisions, while failing to think critically or to consider outside influences.

Groupthink is often cited as a factor in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in January 1986: Engineers from a supplier of components for the rocket booster warned that the launch might be risky because of the weather but were persuaded to reverse their recommendation by NASA officials who wanted the launch to proceed as scheduled. [19]

Why Teams Fail

Teams don’t always work. To learn why, let’s take a quick look at four common obstacles to success in introducing teams into an organization: [20]

• Unwillingness to cooperate . Failure to cooperate can occur when members don’t or won’t commit to a common goal or set of activities. What if, for example, half the members of a product-development team want to create a brand-new product and half want to improve an existing product? The entire team may get stuck on this point of contention for weeks or even months.
• Lack of managerial support . Every team requires organizational resources to achieve its goals, and if management isn’t willing to commit the needed resources—say, funding or key personnel—a team will probably fall short of those goals.
• Failure of managers to delegate authority . Team leaders are often chosen from the ranks of successful supervisors—first-line managers who, as we saw in Chapter 6 “Managing for Business Success” , give instructions on a day-to-day basis and expect to have them carried out. This approach to workplace activities may not work very well in leading a team—a position in which success depends on building a consensus and letting people make their own decisions.
• Failure of teams to cooperate . If you’re on a workplace team, your employer probably depends on teams to perform much of the organization’s work and meet many of its goals. In other words, it is, to some extent, a team-based organization, and as such, reaching its overall goals requires a high level of cooperation among teams. [21] When teams can’t agree on mutual goals (or when they duplicate efforts), neither the teams nor the organization is likely to meet with much success.

Motivation and Frustration

Finally, remember that teams are composed of people, and whatever the roles they happen to be playing at a given time, people are subject to psychological ups and downs. As members of workplace teams, they need motivation, when motivation is down, so are effectiveness and productivity. As you can see in Figure 7.3 “Sources of Frustration” , the difficulty of maintaining a high level of motivation is the chief cause of frustration among members of teams. As such, it’s also a chief cause of ineffective teamwork, and that’s one reason why more employers now look for the ability to develop and sustain motivation when they’re hiring new managers. [22]

Figure 7.3 Sources of Frustration

• Members are interdependent.
• Members work better together than individually.
• Teams work well enough to satisfy members.
• Leadership rotates.
• Members help one another.
• Members become boosters.
• Members trust one another.
• Group cohesiveness refers to the attractiveness of a team to its members. If a group is high in cohesiveness, membership is quite satisfying to its members; if it’s low in cohesiveness, members are unhappy with it and may even try to leave it.
• Unwillingness to cooperate
• Lack of managerial support
• Failure of managers to delegate authority
• Failure of teams to cooperate

At some point in the coming week, while you’re working on an assignment for any one of your classes, ask at least one other member of the class to help you with it or to collaborate with you in studying for it. After you’ve completed your assignment, make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of working on the assignment with another person.

The Team and Its Members

• Understand the importance of learning to participate in team-based activities.
• Identify the skills needed by team members and the roles that members of a team might play.
• Learn how to survive team projects in college (and actually enjoy yourself).
• Explain the skills and behaviors that foster effective team leadership.

“Life Is All about Group Work”

“I’ll work extra hard and do it myself, but please don’t make me have to work in a group.”

Like it or not, you’ll probably be given some teamwork assignments while you’re in college. More than two-thirds of all students report having participated in the work of an organized team, and if you’re in business school, you will almost certainly find yourself engaged in team-based activities. [23] [24]

Why do we put so much emphasis on something that, reportedly, makes many students feel anxious and academically drained? Here’s one college student’s practical-minded answer to this question:

In the real world, you have to work with people. You don’t always know the people you work with, and you don’t always get along with them. Your boss won’t particularly care, and if you can’t get the job done, your job may end up on the line. Life is all about group work, whether we like it or not. And school, in many ways, prepares us for life, including working with others”. [25]

She’s right. In placing so much emphasis on teamwork skills and experience, college business departments are doing the responsible thing—preparing students for the business world that awaits them. A survey of Fortune 1000 companies reveals that 79 percent already rely on self-managing teams and 91 percent on various forms of employee work groups. Another survey found that the skill that most employers value in new employees is the ability to work in teams. [26] [27] If you’re already trying to work your way up an organizational ladder, consider the advice of former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca: “A major reason that capable people fail to advance is that they don’t work well with their colleagues”. [28] The importance of the ability to work in teams was confirmed in a survey of leadership practices of more than sixty of the world’s top organizations. [29] When top executives in these organizations were asked, “What causes high-potential leadership candidates to derail? (stop moving up in the organization),” 60 percent of the organizations cited “inability to work in teams.” Interestingly, only 9 percent attributed the failure of these executives to advance to “lack of technical ability.” While technical skills will be essential in your getting hired into an organization, your team skills will play a significant role in your ability to advance.

To be team-ready or not to be team-ready—that is the question. Or, to put it in plainer terms, the question is not whether you’ll find yourself working as part of a team. You will. The question is whether you’ll know how to participate successfully in team-based activities.

Will You Make a Good Team Member?

What if your instructor in this course decides to divide the class into several three-, four-, or five-member teams and assigns each team to develop a new product plus a business plan to get it into production and out on the market? What teamwork skills could you bring to the table? What teamwork skills do you need to work on? What qualities do you possess that might make you a good team leader?

What Skills Does the Team Need?

Sometimes we hear about a sports team made up of mostly average players who win a championship because of coaching genius, flawless teamwork, and superhuman determination. [30] But not terribly often. In fact, we usually hear about such teams simply because they’re newsworthy—exceptions to the rule. Typically a team performs well because its members possess some level of talent. This doesn’t mean, however, that we should reduce team performance to the mere sum of its individual contributions: Members’ talents aren’t very useful if they’re not managed in a collective effort to achieve a common goal.

In the final analysis, of course, a team can succeed only if its members provide the skills that need managing. In particular, every team requires some mixture of three sets of skills:

• Technical skills . Because teams must perform certain tasks, they need people with the skills to perform them. For example, if your project calls for a lot of math work, it’s good to have someone with the necessary quantitative skills.
• Decision-making and problem-solving skills . Because every task is subject to problems, and because handling every problem means deciding on the best solution, it’s good to have members who are skilled in identifying problems, evaluating alternative solutions, and deciding on the best options.
• Interpersonal skills . Because teams are composed of people, and because people need direction and motivation and depend on communication, every group benefits from members who know how to listen, provide feedback, and smooth ruffled feathers. The same people are usually good at communicating the team’s goals and needs to outsiders.

The key to success is ultimately the right mix of these skills. Remember, too, that no team needs to possess all these skills—never mind the right balance of them—from day one. In many cases, a team gains certain skills only when members volunteer for certain tasks and perfect their skills in the process of performing them. For the same reason, effective teamwork develops over time as team members learn how to handle various team-based tasks. In a sense, teamwork is always work in progress.

What Roles Do Team Members Play?

Like your teamwork skills, expect your role on a team to develop over time. Also remember that, both as a student and as a member of the workforce, you’ll be a member of a team more often than a leader (a subject that we’ll take up in the next section). Team members, however, can have as much impact on a team’s success as its leaders. The key is the quality of the contributions they make in performing nonleadership roles. [31]

What, exactly, are those roles? At this point, you’ve probably concluded that every team faces two basic challenges:

• Accomplishing its assigned task
• Maintaining or improving group cohesiveness

Whether you affect the team’s work positively or negatively depends on the extent to which you help it or hinder it in meeting these two challenges. [32] We can thus divide teamwork roles into two categories, depending on which of these two challenges each role addresses. These two categories (task-facilitating roles and relationship-building roles) are summarized in Table 7.2 “Roles that Team Members Play” .

Table 7.2 Roles that Team Members Play [33]

Task-Facilitating Roles

Task-facilitating roles address challenge number one—accomplishing the team goals. As you can see from Table 7.2 “Roles that Team Members Play” , such roles include not only providing information when someone else needs it but also asking for it when you need it. In addition, it includes monitoring (checking on progress) and enforcing (making sure that team decisions are carried out). Task facilitators are especially valuable when assignments aren’t clear or when progress is too slow. Moreover, every team needs people who recognize when a little task facilitation is called for.

Relationship-Building Roles

When you challenge unmotivated behavior or help other team members understand their roles, you’re performing a relationship-building role and addressing challenge number two—maintaining or improving group cohesiveness. This type of role includes just about every activity that improves team “chemistry,” from confronting to empathizing .

Bear in mind three points about this model of team-membership roles: (1) Teams are most effective when there’s a good balance between task facilitation and relationship building; (2) it’s hard for any given member to perform both types of roles, as some people are better at focusing on tasks and others on relationships; and (3) overplaying any facet of any role can easily become counterproductive. For example, elaborating on something may not be the best strategy when the team needs to make a quick decision; and consensus building may cause the team to overlook an important difference of opinion.

Blocking Roles

Finally, review Table 7.3 “How to Block Teamwork” , which summarizes a few characteristics of another kind of team-membership role. So-called blocking roles consist of behavior that inhibits either team performance or that of individual members. Every member of the team should know how to recognize blocking behavior. If teams don’t confront dysfunctional members, they can destroy morale, hamper consensus building, create conflict, and hinder progress.

Table 7.3 How to Block Teamwork [34]

Class Team Projects

As we highlighted earlier, throughout your academic career you’ll likely participate in a number of team projects. Not only will you make lasting friends by being a member of a team, but in addition you’ll produce a better product. To get insider advice on how to survive team projects in college (and perhaps really enjoy yourself in the process), let’s look at some suggestions offered by two students who have gone through this experience. [35] [36]

• Draw up a team charter . At the beginning of the project, draw up a team charter (or contract) that includes the goals of the group; ways to ensure that each team member’s ideas are considered and respected; when and where your group will meet; what happens if a team member skips meetings or doesn’t do his or her share of the work; how conflicts will be resolved.
• Contribute your ideas . Share your ideas with your group; they might be valuable to the group. The worst that could happen is that they won’t be used (which is what would happen if you kept quiet).
• Never miss a meeting . Pick a weekly meeting time and write it into your schedule as if it were a class. Never skip it. And make your meetings productive.
• Be considerate of each other . Be patient, listen to everyone, communicate frequently, involve everyone in decision making, don’t think you’re always right, be positive, avoid infighting, build trust.
• Create a process for resolving conflict . Do this before conflict arises. Set up rules to help the group decide whether the conflict is constructive, whether it’s personal, or whether it arises because someone won’t pull his or her weight. Decide, as a group, how conflict will be handled.
• Use the strengths of each team member . Some students are good researchers, others are good writers, others have strong problem-solving or computer skills, while others are good at generating ideas. Don’t have your writer do the research and your researcher do the writing. Not only would the team not be using its resources wisely, but two team members will be frustrated because they’re not using their strengths.
• Don’t do all the work yourself . Work with your team to get the work done. The project output is not as important as the experience of working in a team.
• Set deadlines . Don’t leave everything to the end; divide up tasks, hold team members accountable, and set intermediary deadlines for each team member to get his or her work done. Work together to be sure the project is in on time and in good shape.

What Does It Take to Lead a Team?

“Some people are born leaders, some achieve leadership, and some have leadership thrust upon them.” Or so Shakespeare might have said if he were managing a twenty-first-century work team instead of a sixteenth-century theater troupe. At some point in a successful career, whether in business, school, or any other form of organizational work, you may be asked (or assigned) to lead a team. The more successful you are, the more likely you are to receive such an invitation. So, what will you have to do as a leader? What skills will you need?

Like so many of the questions that we ask in this book, these questions don’t have any simple answers. As for the first question—what does a leader have to do?—we can provide one broad answer: A leader must help members develop the attitudes and behavior that contribute to team success: interdependence, collective responsibility, shared commitment, and so forth.

Influence Team Members and Gain their Trust

Team leaders must be able to influence their team members. And notice that we say influence : except in unusual circumstances, giving commands and controlling everything directly doesn’t work very well. [37] As one team of researchers puts it, team leaders are more effective when they work with members rather than on them. [38] Hand in hand with the ability to influence is the ability to gain and keep the trust of team members. People aren’t likely to be influenced by a leader whom they perceive as dishonest or selfishly motivated.

Figure 7.4 Team Leaders

Team leaders are most effective when they can not only influence members but also gain their trust. [39]

Assuming you were asked to lead a team, there are certain leadership skills and behaviors that would help you influence your team members and build trust. Let’s look at seven of these:

• Demonstrate integrity . Do what you say you’ll do, and act in accordance with your stated values. Be honest in communicating with members, and follow through on promises.
• Be clear and consistent . Let members know that you’re certain about what you want, and remember that being clear and consistent reinforces your credibility.
• Generate positive energy . Be optimistic and compliment team members. Recognize their progress and success.
• Acknowledge common points of view . Even if you’re about to propose some kind of change, before embarking on a new stage of a project recognize the value of the views that members already hold in common.
• Manage agreement and disagreement . When members agree with you, focus on your point of view and present it reasonably. When they disagree with you, acknowledge both sides of the issue and support your own with strong, clearly presented evidence.
• Encourage and coach . Buoy up members when they run into new and uncertain situations and when success depends on their performing at a high level. Give them the information they need and otherwise help them to perform tasks.
• Share information . Let members know that you’re knowledgeable about team tasks and individual talents. Check with team members regularly to find out what they’re doing and how the job is progressing. Collect information from outside sources, and make sure that it gets to the team members who need it.
• As the business world depends more and more on teamwork, it’s increasingly important for incoming members of the workforce to develop skills and experience in team-based activities.
• Technical skills : skills needed to perform specific tasks
• Decision-making and problem-solving skills : skills needed to identify problems, evaluate alternative solutions, and decide on the best options
• Interpersonal skills : skills in listening, providing feedback, and resolving conflict
• Team members deal with two basic challenges: (1) accomplishing the team’s assigned task and (2) maintaining or improving group cohesiveness.
• Task-facilitating roles address challenge number one—accomplishing team tasks. Relationship-building roles address challenge number two—maintaining or improving group cohesiveness. Blocking roles consist of behavior that inhibits either team performance or that of individual members.
• Draw up a team charter.
• Contribute your ideas.
• Never miss a meeting.
• Be considerate of each other.
• Create a process for resolving conflict.
• Use the strengths of each team member.
• Don’t do all the work yourself.
• Set deadlines.
• Demonstrating integrity
• Being clear and consistent
• Generating positive energy
• Acknowledging common points of view
• Managing agreement and disagreement
• Encouraging and coaching
• Sharing information

One student, a veteran of team-based assignments, has some good advice to offer students who are following in her footsteps. Don’t start, she advises, until you’ve drawn up a team charter . This charter (or contract) should include the following: the goals of the group; information on meeting times and places; ways to ensure that each member’s ideas are considered and respected; methods for resolving conflicts; a “kick-out” clause—a statement of what will happen if a team member skips meetings or fails to do his or her share of the work. [40]

Now assume that you’ve just been assigned to a team in one of your classes. Prepare a first-draft charter in which you spell out rules of conduct for the team and its members.

The Business of Communication

• Discuss the role of communication in the design of the RAZR cell phone.
• Define communication and discuss the ways in which organizations benefit from effective communication.

Communication by Design

As the chief designer assigned to the “thin-clam” team at Motorola, Chris Arnholt was responsible for some of the phone’s distinctive physical features, including its sleek aluminum finish and backlit keyboard. In fact, it was he who pushed the company’s engineers and marketers to buck an industry trend toward phones that were getting fatter because of many add-ons such as cameras and stereo speakers. For Arnholt had a vision. He called it “rich minimalism,” and his goal was to help the Motorola cell phone team realize a product that embodied that profile.

But what exactly did Arnholt mean by rich minimalism? “Sometimes,” he admits, “my ideas are tough to communicate,” but as a veteran in his field, he also understands that “design is really about communication”. [41] [42] His chief (and ongoing) task, then, was communicating to the cell phone team what he meant by rich minimalism. Ultimately, of course, he had to show them what rich minimalism looked like when it appeared in tangible form in a fashionable new cell phone. In the process, he also had to be sure that the cell phone included certain key benefits that prospective consumers would want. As always, the physical design of the finished product had to be right for its intended market.

We’ll have much more to say about the process of developing new products in Chapter 10 “Product Design and Development” . Here, however, let’s simply highlight two points about the way successful companies approach the challenges of new-product design and development (which you will likely recognize from reading the first part of this chapter):

• In contributing to the new-product design and development process, industrial designers like Chris Arnholt must effectively communicate both ideas and practical specifications.
• The design and development process usually succeeds only when the assigned team integrates input from every relevant area of the organization. [43]

The common denominator in both facets of the process is effective communication. The designer, for example, must communicate not only his vision of the product but also certain specifications for turning it into something concrete. Chris Arnholt sculpted models out of cornstarch and then took them home at night to refashion them according to suggestions made by the product team. Then he’d put his newest ideas on paper and hand the drawings over to another member of his design team, who’d turn them into 3D computer graphics from which other specialists would build plastic models. Without effective communication at every step in this process, it isn’t likely that a group of people with different skills would produce plastic models bearing a practical resemblance to Arnholt’s original drawings. On top of everything else, Arnholt’s responsibility as chief designer required him to communicate his ideas not only about the product’s visual and physical features but also about the production processes and manufacturing requirements for building it. [44]

Thus Arnholt’s job—which is to say, his responsibility on the cell phone team—meant that he had to do a lot more than merely design the product. Strictly speaking, the designer’s function is to understand a product from the consumer’s point of view; develop this understanding into a set of ideas and specifications that will satisfy not only consumer needs but producer requirements; and make recommendations through drawings, models, and verbal communications (IDSA, 2008). Even our condensed version of the RAZR story, however, indicates that Arnholt’s job was far broader. Why? Because new-product design is an integrative process: contributions must come from all functions within an organization, including operations (which includes research and development, engineering and manufacturing), marketing , management , finance , and accounting. [45]

Our version of the RAZR story has emphasized operations (which includes research and development, engineering, and manufacturing) and touched on the role of marketing (which collects data about consumer needs). Remember, though, that members from several areas of management were recruited for the team. Because the project required considerable investment of Motorola’s capital, finance was certainly involved, and the decision to increase production in late 2004 was based on numbers crunched by the accounting department. At every step, Arnholt’s drawings, specs, and recommendations reflected his collaboration with people from all these functional areas.

Figure 7.5 Motorola Razor

The explosion of text messaging has changed the way people use their cell phones and created new design needs for manufacturers like Motorola. [46]

What all this interactivity amounts to is communication. [47] As for what Arnholt meant by rich minimalism, you’ll need to take a look at the picture of the RAZR at the beginning of the chapter. Among other things, it means a blue electroluminescent panel and a 22 kHz polyphonic speaker.

What Is Communication?

Let’s start with a basic (and quite practical) definition of communication as the process of transferring information from a sender to a receiver. When you call up a classmate to inform him that your Introduction to Financial Accounting class has been canceled, you’re sending information and your classmate is receiving it. When you go to your professor’s Web site to find out the assignment for the next class, your professor is sending information and you’re receiving it. When your boss e-mails you the data you need to complete a sales report and tells you to e-mail the report back to her by 4 o’clock, your boss is sending information and, once again, you’re receiving it; later in the day, the situation will be reversed.

Your Ticket In (or Out)

Obviously, you participate in dozens of “informational transfers” every day. (In fact, they take up about 70 percent of your waking hours—80 percent if you have some sort of managerial position. [48] [49] In any case, it wouldn’t make much sense for us to pursue the topic much further without assuming that you’ve gained some experience and mastered some skills in the task of communicating. At the same time, though, we’ll also venture to guess that you’re much more comfortable having casual conversations with friends than writing class assignments or giving speeches in front of classmates. That’s why we’re going to resort to the same plain terms that we used when we discussed the likelihood of your needing teamwork skills in an organizational setting: The question is not whether you’ll need communication skills (both written and verbal). You will. The question is whether you’ll develop the skills to communicate effectively in a variety of organizational situations.

Once again, the numbers back us up. In a recent survey by the Association of Colleges and Employers, the ability to communicate well topped the list of skills that business recruiters want in potential hires. [50] A College Board survey of 120 major U.S. companies concludes that writing is a “threshold skill” for both employment and promotion. “In most cases,” volunteered one human resources director, “writing ability could be your ticket in—or your ticket out.” Applicants and employees who can’t write and communicate clearly, says the final report, “will not be hired and are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion”. [51]

Why Are Communication Skills Important?

They’re important to you because they’re important to prospective employers. And why do employers consider communication skills so important? Because they’re good for business. Research shows that businesses benefit in several ways when they’re able to foster effective communication among employees: [52] [53]

• Decisions are more convincing and certain, and problem solving is faster.
• Warning signs of potential problems appear earlier.
• Workflow moves more smoothly and productivity increases.
• Business relationships are stronger.
• Marketing messages are more persuasive.
• The company’s professional image is enhanced.
• Employee satisfaction goes up and turnover goes down.
• The firm and its investors enjoy better financial results.

What Skills Are Important?

Figure 7.6 “Required Skills” reveals some further findings of the College Board survey that we mentioned previously—namely, the percentage of companies that identified certain communication skills as being “frequently” or “almost always” necessary in their workplaces. As you can see, ability in using e-mail is a nearly universal requirement (and in many cases this includes the ability to adapt messages to different receivers or compose persuasive messages when necessary). The ability to make presentations (with visuals) also ranks highly.

Figure 7.6 Required Skills

• Designers must effectively communicate both ideas and practical specifications.
• The process usually succeeds only when the assigned team integrates input from every relevant area of the organization.
• Communication is the process of transferring information from a sender to a receiver.
• Decisions are more assured and cogent, and problem solving is faster.

Pick a company you’re interested in working for when you graduate from college. For this company, identify the following:

• A starting position you’d like to obtain on graduation
• A higher-level position you’d like to be promoted to in five years.

For each of these positions, describe the skills needed to get the job and those needed to be successful in the position.

Communication Channels

• Discuss the nature of communications in an organizational setting, including communication flows, channels, and networks.
• Explain barriers to communication, and discuss the most common types of barriers to group communication.

What Is Organizational Communication?

Clearly, the task of preparing and submitting a finished sales report doesn’t require the same kinds of communication skills as talking on the phone with a classmate. No matter what your “workstation” happens to be—whether your workplace office or your kitchen table—you’re performing the task of preparing that sales report in an organizational setting . You’re still a sender transferring information to a receiver, but the organizational context of the task requires you to consider different factors for success in communicating effectively (including barriers to success). A report, for example, must be targeted for someone in a specific position and must contain the information necessary to make a specific set of decisions. [54]

Communication Flows

Here’s another way of thinking about communication in an organizational setting. Let’s assume that you and the classmate you called on the phone are on roughly equal footing—you’re both juniors, your grades in the class are about the same, and so forth. Your phone conversation, therefore, is “lateral”: You belong to the same group (your accounting class), and your group activities take place on the same level.

Communication may also flow laterally in organizational settings (as it does between you and your classmate), but more often it flows up or down. Take a look at Figure 7.7 “Formal Communication Flows” . As you can see, we’ve added a few lines to show the three directions in which communications can flow in a typical organization: [55] :

• As the term suggests, downward communication flows from higher organizational levels (supervisors) to lower organizational levels (subordinates).
• Upward communication flows from lower to higher organizational levels.
• Lateral (or horizontal) communication flows across the organization, among personnel on the same level.

Your boss’s request for a sales report is an instance of downward communication, and when you’ve finished and submitted it, you will have completed a task of upward communication.

Figure 7.7 Formal Communication Flows

Advantages of Communication Flows

Naturally, each of these different directional flows has its functions and advantages. Downward communication, for example, is appropriate for giving instructions or directions—telling people what to do. (As a goal of communication, by the way, giving orders isn’t as one-sided as it may seem. One of the things that employees—the receivers—most want to know is: What, exactly, does my job entail?) [56] Like a sales report, upward communication usually provides managers with information that they need for making decisions, but it’s also the vehicle for new ideas, suggestions, and complaints. Horizontal communication supports efforts to coordinate tasks and otherwise help people work together.

Disadvantages of Communication Flows

And, of course, each type of flow has its disadvantages. As information seeps downward, for instance, it tends to lose some of its original clarity and often becomes distorted or downright wrong. (This is especially true when it’s delivered orally.) In addition, unlike Donald Trump, most people who are responsible for using downward communication don’t like delivering bad news (such as “You’re fired” or, more commonly, “Your job is being phased out”); as a result, bad news—including bad news that happens to be important news—is often ignored or disguised. The same thing may happen when bad news—say, a negative status report—must be sent upward.

Finally, while horizontal flows are valuable for promoting cooperation, they can also be used to engage in conflict—for instance, between two departments competing for the same organizational resources. The problem is especially bad when such horizontal communications breach official upward or downward lines of communication, thus bypassing managers who might be able to resolve the conflict.

Channels of Communication

Figure 7.8 “Channels of Communication” summarizes two additional sets of characteristics of organizational communication— internal and external channels and formal and informal channels. [57] Internal communication is shared by people at all levels within a company. External communication occurs between parties inside a company and parties outside the company, such as suppliers, customers, and investors. Both internal and external forms of communication include everything from formal e-mail and official reports to face-to-face conversations and casual phone calls. External communication also takes such forms as customer and supplier Web sites, news releases, and advertising.

Note that Figure 7.8 “Channels of Communication” takes the form of a grid, thus creating four dimensions in which communication can take place. Informal communication, for example, can take place either among people within the company (internally) or between insiders and outsiders (externally). By and large, though you can use the same set of tools (memos, reports, phone calls) to communicate in any of these four situations, some tools (team blogs, news releases, supplier Web sites) are useful only in one or two.

The Formal Communication Network

An organization’s formal communication network consists of all communications that flow along its official lines of authority. Look again at Figure 7.7 “Formal Communication Flows” . Because it incorporates the organization chart for Notes-4-You, it shows the company’s lines of authority—what we called reporting relationships . Here we can see that the reporting relationships in question consist of upward communication from subordinates to superiors. In reporting to the operations manager, for example, the notetakers’ supervisor communicates upward. Conversely, when the notetakers’ manager needs to give direction to notetakers, she will use downward communication . If the notetakers’ manager and the copiers’ manager must get together to prepare a joint report for the operations manager, they’ll engage in lateral communication . In short, an organization’s formal communication network is basically the same thing as its network of reporting relationships and lines of authority. [58]

The Informal Communication Network

Every company also has an informal communication network (or grapevine) , which goes to work whenever two or more employees get together and start talking about the company and their jobs. Informal communication can take place just about anywhere (in one person’s cubicle, in the cafeteria, on the golf course) and by just about any means (phone, e-mail, instant messaging, face-to-face conversation).

Though it’s sometimes called the grapevine , an informal network is an extremely important communication channel. Why? For the simple reason that it’s typically widespread and can rarely be prevented, even if it’s not officially sanctioned by the company—indeed, even when the company tries to discourage or bypass it. Unofficial information crosses virtually every boundary drawn by a firm’s organization chart, reaching out and touching everyone in the organization, and what’s more, it travels a lot faster than official information.

Problems with the Flow of Information through Informal Channels

The downside of “unofficial” information should be obvious. Because much of it is communicated orally, it’s likely to get distorted and often degenerates into outright misinformation. Say, for example, that a rumor about layoffs gets started in your workplace. As more than one manager will verify, such rumors can do more damage than the reality. Morale may plummet and productivity won’t be far behind. Valuable employees may abandon ship (needlessly, if the rumors are false). [59]

And imagine what can happen if informal information gets outside the organization. In the 1970s, Chicago-area McDonald’s outlets found themselves fighting rumors about worms in their hamburgers. Over the years, Coca-Cola has had to fight rumors about terrorists joining its organization, subversive messages concealed in its label, and hyperacidity (false rumors that Coke causes osteoporosis and makes a good pesticide and an equally good spermicide). [60] [61]

What to Do about Informal Information Flows

On the upside, savvy managers can tap into the informal network, either to find out what sort of information is influencing employee activities or to circulate more meaningful information, including new ideas as well as corrective information. In any case, managers have to deal with the grapevine, and one manager has compiled a list of suggestions for doing so effectively: [62]

• Learn to live with it . It’s here to stay.
• Tune into it . Pay attention to the information that’s circulating and try to learn something from it. Remember: The more you know about grapevine information, the better you can interact with employees (who, in turn, will probably come to regard you as someone who keeps in touch with the things that concern them).
• Don’t participate in rumors . Resist the temptation to add your two cents’ worth, and don’t make matters worse.
• Check out what you hear . Because it’s your job to replace bad information with good information, you need to find out what’s really going on.
• Take advantage of the grapevine . Its only function is to carry information, so there’s no reason why you can’t pump some useful information through it.

Perhaps most importantly, when alert managers notice that the grapevine is particularly active, they tend to reach a sensible twofold conclusion:

• The organization’s formal lines of communication aren’t working as well as they should be.
• The best way to minimize informal communication and its potential damage is to provide better formal communication from the outset—or, failing that, to provide whatever formal communication will counteract misinformation as thoroughly as possible.

Let’s go back to our example of a workplace overwhelmed by layoff rumors. In a practical sense, what can a manager—say, the leader of a long-term product-development team—do to provide better communication? One manager suggests at least three specific responses: [63]

• Go to your supervisor or another senior manager and try to find out as much as you can about the organization’s real plans.
• Ask a senior manager or a human resources representative to meet with your team and address members’ concerns with accurate feedback.
• Make it a priority to keep channels open—both between yourself and your team members and between team members and the human resources department.

Because actions of this sort send a message, they can legitimately be characterized as a form of formal communication. They also reflect good leadership: Even though the information in this case relates only indirectly to immediate team tasks, you’re sharing information with people who need it, and you’re demonstrating integrity (you’re being honest, and you’re following through on a commitment to the team).

Overcoming Barriers to Communication

What are barriers to communication.

By barriers we mean anything that prevents people from communicating as effectively as possible. Noise, for example, can be a barrier to communication; if you and other team members are mumbling among yourselves while your team leader is trying to explain task assignments, you’re putting up a barrier to group communication. As a matter of fact, you’re putting up two barriers: In addition to creating noise , you’re failing to listen . About 80 percent of top executives say that learning to listen is the most important skill in getting things done in the workplace, [64] [65] and as President Calvin Coolidge once remarked, “No man ever listened himself out of a job.” Business people who don’t listen risk offending others or misinterpreting what they’re saying.

Two Types of Barriers

Figure 7.9 barriers to communication.

Though developed to improve communication, in some cases cell phones can create a barrier. [66]

As for creating unnecessary verbal noise and failing to listen, we can probably chalk them up to poor communication habits (or maybe the same habit, for as legendary management expert Peter Drucker argues, “Listening is not a skill; it is a discipline. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut”). In the rest of this section, we’ll overlook personal barriers to communication and concentrate instead on two types of barriers that are encountered by groups of people, sometimes large and sometimes small, working toward organizational goals.

Cultural Barriers

Cultural barriers, which are sometimes called cultural filters, are the barriers that result from differences among people of different cultures. [67] Experts and managers agree that cultural diversity in the workplace can and should be a significant asset: It broadens the perspectives from which groups approach problems, gives them fresh ideas, and sparks their creativity; it also gives organizations an advantage in connecting with diverse customer bases. None of these advantages, though, magically appears simply because workplace diversity increases. To the contrary: As diversity increases, so does the possibility that a group will be composed of people who have different attitudes and different ways of expressing them.

If it hasn’t happened already, for example, one of these days you’ll find yourself having a work-related conversation with a member of the opposite sex. If the conversation doesn’t go as smoothly as you’d expected, there’s a good reason: Men and women in the workplace don’t communicate the same way. According to American linguist Deborah Tannen, men tend to assert their status, to exert confidence, and to regard asking questions as a sign of weakness. Women, in contrast, tend to foster positive interrelationships, to restrain expressions of confidence, and to ask questions with no trouble. [68] [69]

It really doesn’t matter which “style” (if either) is better suited to making a conversation more productive. Two points, however, are clear:

• Even if two people of the opposite sex enter a conversation with virtually identical viewpoints, their different styles of expressing themselves might very well present a barrier to their reaching an agreement. Much the same can be said of differences in style arising from other cultural filters, such as ethnicity, education, age, and experience.
• Workplace conversations can be tricky to negotiate, yet there’s no escaping them. Like life in the outside world, observes Tannen, life in the workplace “is a matter of dealing with people…and that means a series of conversations.” That’s also why surveys continue to show that managers regard the ability to communicate face to face as a key factor in an employee’s promotability. [70]

Functional Barriers

Let’s return for a moment to Figure 7.7 “Formal Communication Flows” . Recall that when we introduced the organizational structure, we characterized it as a functional organization —one that groups together people who have comparable skills and perform similar tasks. Note, however, that in setting up this form of organization for our hypothetical company, we found it necessary to insert two layers of management (four functional managers and two job supervisors) between our owner/president and our lowest-level employees. In this respect, our structure shares certain characteristics with another form of organization— divisional , which groups people into units that are more or less self-contained and that are largely accountable for their own performance.

What does all this have to do with barriers to communication? Simply this: The more “divisionalized” an organization becomes, the more likely it will be to encounter communication barriers. Not surprisingly, communication gets more complicated, for the same reason that an organization comes to rely on more levels of management. [71] Notes-4-You, for instance, needs two supervisors because its notetakers don’t do the same work as its copiers. In addition, because their groups don’t perform the same work, the two supervisors don’t call on the same resources from the company’s four functional managers. (Likewise, Notes-4-You also has four functional-area managers because none of them does the same work as any of the others.)

Officially, then, the operations of the two work groups remain distinct or specialized. At the same time, each group must contribute to the company-wide effort to achieve common goals. Moreover, certain organizational projects, like Motorola’s cell phone project, may require the two groups to work together more closely than usual. When that happens, employees from each of the two groups may find themselves working together on the same team, but even so, one crucial fact remains: Information that one group possesses and the other doesn’t must still be exchanged among team members. It may not be quite as apparent as the cultural diversity among men and women in many workplace situations, but there is in fact a functional diversity at Notes-4-You among notetakers and copiers. [72]

Figure 7.10 “Functional Barriers to Communication” illustrates the location of barriers that may be present when a team-based project must deal with a certain degree of functional diversity. As you can see, we’ve modeled our process on the process of the Motorola ultratrim phone project. [73] We don’t need to describe the entire process in detail, but we will focus on two aspects of it that we’ve highlighted in the drawing:

• The company has assigned team members from different functional areas, notably marketing and operations (which, as at Motorola, includes design, engineering, and production).
• Information (which we’ve characterized as different types of “specs”) must be transferred from function to function, and at the key points where this occurs, we’ve built in communication barriers (symbolized by brick walls).

If, for example, marketing specs called for the new Motorola phone to change colors with the user’s mood, someone in engineering might have to explain the difficulties in designing the software. If design specs called for quadraphonic sound, production might have to explain the difficulties in procuring sufficiently lightweight speaker components.

Figure 7.10 Functional Barriers to Communication

Each technical problem—each problem that arises because of differences in team members’ knowledge and expertise—becomes a problem in communication. In addition, communicating as a member of a team obviously requires much more than explaining the limitations of someone else’s professional expertise. Once they’ve surfaced, technical and other problems have to be resolved—a process that will inevitably require even more communication. As we’ve seen in this part of the chapter, improving communication is a top priority for most organizations (for one thing, developing a team-based environment is otherwise impossible), and the ongoing task of improving communication is pretty much the same thing as the ongoing task of overcoming barriers to it.

• Downward communication flows from higher organizational levels (supervisors) to lower organizational levels (subordinates).
• Lateral (or horizontal ) communication flows across the organization, among personnel on the same level.
• Organizational communication flows through two different channels . Internal communication is shared by people at all levels within a company. External communication occurs between parties inside a company and parties outside the company, such as suppliers, customers, and investors.
• Organizational communication also flows through two different networks . Its formal communication network consists of all communications that flow along an organization’s official lines of authority. The informal communication network , sometimes called the grapevine , goes to work whenever two or more employees get together and start talking about the company and their jobs.
• Barriers to communication include anything that prevents people from communicating as effectively as possible. Among groups, two types of barriers are common. Cultural barriers , sometimes called cultural filters , are the barriers that result from differences among people of different cultures. Functional barriers arise when communication must flow among individuals or groups who work in different functional areas of an organization.

Write three messages (you decide which communication channel to use):

• To a coworker asking her for a report on this quarter’s sales for your division
• To your manager telling him what the sales were for the quarter and whether sales improved (or got worse), and why
• To the vice president of the company recommending a new system for tracking sales in your division

Forms of Communication

• Explain the do’s and don’ts of business e-mails.
• Describe the process followed to create and deliver successful presentations.
• Learn how to write clear, concise memos.

As mentioned previously, the College Board identified these communication skills as “frequently” or “almost always” necessary in the workplace: [74] e-mail, presentation with visuals, technical reports, formal reports, memos, and presentations without visuals. The skill ranked highest in importance was the use of e-mails, including the ability to adapt messages to different receivers or compose persuasive messages when necessary. The ability to make presentations (with visuals) ranked second in importance. Report writing came next. Given the complexity of report writing, we will not cover this topic here. Instead, we will look at the remaining three forms of communication: e-mail, presentations with visuals, and memos.

Tips for Writing Business E-Mails

Dennis Jerz and Jessica Bauer created the following list of the top 10 tips for writing effective e-mail messages: [75]

• Write a meaningful subject line. Recipients use the subject line to decide whether to open or delete a message and sometimes where to store it. Write a subject line that describes the content.
• Keep the message focused. Avoid including multiple messages or requests in one e-mail. Try to focus on only one topic. Use standard capitalization and spelling; none of this “thx 4 ur help 2day ur gr8.”
• Avoid attachments. Extract the relevant text from a large file and ask the recipient if he or she wants to see the full document.
• Identify yourself clearly. Identify yourself in the first few lines —otherwise your message might be deleted quickly.
• Be kind. Don’t flame. Avoid writing e-mails when you are upset. Always think before you hit the “send” button. Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back. If you’re mad, write the e-mail, but don’t send it. Keep it in your “save” or “draft” folder and reread it the next day.
• Proofread. Use spell check and read the memo carefully before sending it.
• Don’t assume privacy. Don’t send anything you wouldn’t want posted on the office bulletin board (with your name on it). Remember, employers can read your e-mails!
• Distinguish between formal and informal situations . When writing to a coworker with whom you are friends, you can be less formal than when you are writing to your manager or a client.
• Respond promptly . Get back quickly to the person who sent you the e-mail. If you’re too busy to answer, let the person know you got the message and will respond as soon as you can.
• Show respect and restraint . Watch out: Don’t use the “reply to all” button in error. Don’t forward an e-mail before getting permission from the sender.

Planning, Preparing, Practicing, and Presenting

For some, the thought of making a presentation is traumatic. If you’re one of those people, the best way to get over your fear is to get up and make a presentation. With time, it will get easier, and you might even start enjoying it. As you progress through college, you will have a number of opportunities to make presentations. This is good news—it gives you practice, lets you make your mistakes in a protected environment (before you hit the business world), and allows you to get fairly good at it. Your opportunities to talk in front of a group will multiply once you enter the business world. Throughout your business career, you’ll likely be called on to present reports, address groups at all levels in the organization, represent your company at various events, run committee meetings, lead teams, or make a sales pitch. [76] In preparing and delivering your presentation, you can follow a four-step process (plan, prepare, practice, and present) designed by Dale Carnegie, a global training company named after its famed founder. [77]

Plan your presentation based on your purpose and the knowledge level and interest of your audience. Use words and concepts your audience can understand, and stay focused. If your audience is knowledgeable about your topic, you can skim over the generalities and delve into the details. On the other hand, if the topic is new to them, you need to move through it slowly. As you plan your presentation, ask yourself these questions: What am I trying to accomplish? Am I trying to educate, inform, motivate, or persuade my audience? What does my audience know about the topic? What do I want them to know? How can I best convey this information to them?

Once you have planned your presentation, you’re ready to prepare. It might be easier to write your presentation if you divide it into three sections: opening, body, close. Your opening should grab your audience’s attention. You can do this by asking a question, telling a relevant story, or even announcing a surprising piece of information. About 5 to 10 percent of your time can be spent on the opening. The body covers the bulk of the material and consumes about 80 to 85 percent of your time. Cover your key points, stay focused, but do not overload your audience. It has been found that an audience can absorb only about four to six points. Your close, which uses about 5 to 10 percent of your time, should leave the audience with a positive impression of you and your presentation. You have lots of choices for your close: You can either summarize your message or relate your closing remarks to your opening remarks or do both.

This section should really be called “Practice, Practice, Practice” (and maybe another Practice for emphasis). The saying “practice makes perfect” is definitely true with presentations, especially for beginners. You might want to start off practicing your presentation by yourself, perhaps in front of a mirror. You could even videotape yourself and play it back (that should be fun). As you get the hang of it, ask a friend or a group of friends to listen to and critique your talk. When you rehearse, check your time to see whether it’s what you want. Avoid memorizing your talk, but know it well.

Figure 7.11 Presentations

Preparation is key to a successful presentation. [78]

Now you’re ready for the big day—it’s time to present. Dress for the part—if it’s a professional talk, dress like a professional. Go early to the location where you’ll present, check out the room, and be sure any equipment you’ll need is there and works. Try to connect with your audience as soon as you start your presentation. Take your time delivering your opening. Act as natural as you can, and try to relax. Slow your speech down, as you’ll likely have a tendency to speed up if you get nervous. Pause before and after your main point for emphasis. If you put brief notes on index cards, avoid reading from the cards. Glance down at them when needed, but then look up at your audience as you speak. Involve your audience in your presentation by asking them questions. Not only will they feel included, but it will help you relax. When you’re close to finishing, let your audience know this (but don’t announce it too early in the talk or your audience might start packing up prematurely). Remember to leave some time for questions and answers.

Visual Aids

It’s very common to use visual aids (generally PowerPoint slides) in business presentations. The use of visual aids helps your audience remember your main points and keeps you focused. If you do use PowerPoint slides, follow some simple (but important) rules: [79]

• Avoid wordiness: use key words and phrases only.
• Don’t crowd your slide: include at most four to five points per slide.
• Use at least an eighteen-point font (so that it can be seen from the back of the room).
• Use a color font that contrasts with the background (for example, blue font on white background).
• Use graphs rather than just words.
• Proof your slides and use spell check.

And most important: The PowerPoint slides are background, but you are the show. Avoid turning around and reading the slides. The audience wants to see you talk; they are not interested in seeing the back of your head.

How to Write an Effective Memo

Memos are effective at conveying fairly detailed information. To help you understand how to write a memo, read the following sample memorandum.

____________________________________________

As college students, you’ll be expected to analyze real-world situations, research issues, form opinions, and provide support for the conclusions that you reach. In addition to engaging in classroom discussions of business issues, you’ll be asked to complete a number of written assignments. For these assignments, we’ll give you a business situation and ask you to analyze the issues, form conclusions, and provide support for your opinions.

In each assignment, you’ll use the memo format , which is the typical form of written communication used in business. Writing in memo format means providing a complete but concise response to the issues at hand. Good memo writing demands time and effort. Because the business world expects you to possess this skill, we want to give you an opportunity to learn it now.

Here are a few helpful hints to get you started on the right track:

• The format should follow the format of this memo . Note the guide headings —“TO,” “FROM,” “DATE,” and “RE” (which, by the way, stands for “regarding” or “reference”). We also include a line across the page to signal the beginning of the body of the memo.
• Keep paragraphs short and to the point. The trick is being concise yet complete—summarizing effectively. Paragraphs should be single-spaced, flush against the left margin, and separated by a single blank line.
• Accent or highlight major points . Use underlining, bullets, or bold type for desired effect (taking care not to overdo it).
• Use short headings to distinguish and highlight vital information. Headings keep things organized, provide structure, and make for smooth reading. Headings (and, as appropriate, subheadings) are an absolute must .
• Your title (the “Re” line) should reflect the contents of your memo: It should let the reader know why he or she should read it. Keep the title short—a phrase of a few words, not a sentence.
• Be persuasive and convincing in your narrative. You have limited space in which to get your key points across. State your positions clearly. And again, be concise (a memo is not a term paper).
• If you have any additional information in the form of exhibits —charts, tables, illustrations, and so forth—put them in an attachment . Label each item “Exhibit 1,” “Exhibit 2,” and the like. Give each one a title, and be sure to reference them in your narrative (“As shown in Exhibit 1, the annual growth rate in sales has dropped from double-digit to single-digit levels”).
• Finally, staple multiple pages for submission. Needless to say, be sure to proofread for correct spelling and punctuation. Don’t scribble in changes by hand: They’re sloppy and leave a bad impression.

Final Comment

Now that you’ve read our memo, we expect you to follow the simple guidelines presented in it. This form of communication is widely practiced in business, so take advantage of this opportunity to practice your memo-writing skills.

Nonverbal Communication

Sometimes it’s not what you say or how you say it that matters, but what your body language communicates about you and how you feel. When a good friend who’s in a bad mood walks into a room, you don’t need to hear a word from her to know she’s having an awful day. You can read her expression. In doing this, you’re picking up on her nonverbal communication—“nonword” messages communicated through facial expressions, posture, gestures, and tone of voice. People give off nonverbal cues all the time. So what effect do these cues have in the business setting? Quite a bit—these cues are often better at telling you what’s on a person’s mind than what the person actually says. If an employee is meeting with his supervisor and frowns when she makes a statement, the supervisor will conclude that he disapproved of the statement (regardless of what he claims). If two employees are discussing a work-related problem and one starts to fidget, the other will pick this up as disinterest.

Given the possible negative effect that nonverbal cues can have in business situations, how can you improve your body language? The best approach is to become aware of any nonverbal cues you give out, and then work to eliminate them. For example, if you have a habit of frowning when you disapprove of something, recognize this and stop doing it. If the tone of your voice changes when you are angry, try to maintain your voice at a lower pitch.

• Write a meaningful subject line.
• Keep the message focused and readable.
• Avoid attachments.
• Identify yourself clearly in the first few lines.
• Be kind. Don’t flame. Always think before hitting the “send” button.
• Don’t assume privacy.
• Distinguish between formal and informal situations.
• Respond promptly.
• Show respect and restraint.
• In preparing and delivering your presentation, you can follow a four-step process: plan, prepare, practice and present.
• You should plan your presentation based on your purpose and the knowledge level and interest of your audience.
• Your opening , which uses about 5–10 percent of your time, should grab your audience’s attention.
• The body covers your main points and uses about 80 to 85 percent of your time.
• Your close , which uses about 5 to 10 percent of your time, should leave the audience with a positive impression of you and your presentation.
• The saying “ practice makes perfect” is definitely true when giving presentations (especially for beginners).
• Visual aids, such as PowerPoint slides, can aid your presentation if they are used properly.
• Keep paragraphs short and to the point.
• Accent or highlight major points .
• Use short headings.
• Your title should reflect the contents of your memo.
• Be persuasive and convincing in your narrative.

(AACSB) Reflection

• Ask a friend or a family member to tell you which nonverbal cues you frequently transmit. Identify those that would be detrimental to you in a business situation. Indicate how you could eliminate or reduce the impact of these cues. Ask the same person (or someone else) whether you are a good listener. If the answer is no, indicate how you could improve your listening skills.
• Prepare a presentation on “planning, preparing, practicing, and presenting.” Divide your presentation into three parts: opening, body, and closing. Prepare visual aids. Pretend that your audience is made up of recent college graduates hired by Nike.

Cases and Problems

Learning on the web (aacsb).

Factors Contributing to Nike’s Success

This writing assignment solicits your opinion on factors contributing to Nike’s success. To complete it, you should go to http://www.nikebiz.com/company_overview/timeline to learn about Nike’s history by reviewing the company’s time line.

Memo Format

Use the memo format described in the chapter for this assignment. Your memo should not exceed two pages. It should be single spaced (with an extra space between paragraphs and bulleted items).

You’re one of the fortunate college students selected to participate in Nike’s summer internship program. The program is quite competitive, and you still can’t believe that you were chosen. You arrived in Beaverton, Oregon, yesterday morning and have been busy ever since. Last night, you attended a dinner for new interns where you were welcomed to Nike by CEO Mark Parker.

You were lucky to be sitting next to a personable, well-informed Nike veteran named Simon Pestridge. Pestridge joined Nike about twelve years ago. He was telling you about a past assignment he had as director of marketing for Australia. (You were impressed with his status at Nike, not just because he doesn’t look much older than you, but also because you’ve always wanted to travel to Australia.) The dinner conversation turned to a discussion of the reasons for Nike’s success. Others at the table were giving their opinions on the subject when Pestridge turned to you and said, “As a new intern, give us an outsider’s point of view. Why do you think Nike’s been so successful?” You were about to venture an opinion when Pestridge was called away for a phone call. As he got up, however, he quickly said, “Send me a memo telling me what factors you think have contributed to Nike’s success. Keep it simple. Three factors are plenty.” Though you were relieved to have a little time to think about your answer, you were also a bit nervous about the prospect of writing your first official memo.

As everyone else headed for the Bo Jackson gym, you went back to your room to think about Pestridge’s question and to figure out how to go about writing your memo. You want to be sure to start by telling him that you enjoyed talking with him. You also need to remind him that you’re responding to his question about three factors in Nike’s success, and must be sure to explain why you believe they’re important. You’ll end by saying that you hope the information is helpful and that he can contact you if he has any further questions.

So far, so good, but you’re still faced with the toughest part of your task—identifying the three factors that you deem important to Nike’s success. Fortunately, even at Nike there’s always tomorrow to get something done, so you decide to sleep on it and write your memo in the morning.

Ethics Angle (AACSB)

The Goof-Off

You and three other students have been working on a group project all semester in your Introduction to Business class. One of the members of the team did very little work; he failed to attend almost all the meetings, took no responsibility for any of the tasks, didn’t attend the practice session before your presentation, and in general was a real goof-off. But he happens to be friends with two of the team members. You and your other team members have been asked to complete the attached team member evaluation. You want to give the student what he deserves—almost no credit. But your other two team members don’t agree. They argue that it is “unsocial and mean” to tell the truth about this student’s lack of contribution. Instead, they want to report that everyone shared the work equally. The evaluation will be used in determining grades for each team member. Those who contributed more will get a higher grade than those who did not. Prepare an argument that you can advance to the other team members on the ethics of covering for this student. Assuming that your two teammates won’t change their minds, what would you do?

Attachment to Ethics Angle Problem

Introduction to Business

Team Member Evaluation

(To be given to your faculty member during the last week of class)

TEAM ___________________

You have a total of $100,000. You can use this to reward your team members (including yourself) for their contributions to the team project.

Fill in each team member’s name below (including your own), and show beside each name how much of the $100,000 you would give that member for his or her contributions to the preparation and presentation of the team project. Do not share your recommendations with your team members.

Your recommendations will be confidential.

YOUR NAME ______________________________________________________

Team-Building Skills (AACSB)

Team Skills and Talents

Team projects involve a number of tasks that are handled by individual team members. These tasks should be assigned to team members based on their particular skills and talents. The next time you work on a team project, you should use the following table to help your team organize its tasks and hold its members responsible for their completion.

Here is how you should use this document:

• Identify all tasks to be completed.
• Assign each task to a member (or members) of your team based on their skills, talents, and time available.
• Determine a due date for each task.
• As a task is completed, indicate its completion date and the team member (or members) who completed the task. If more than one team member works on the assignment, indicate the percentage of time each devoted to the task. You can add tasks that surface as your team works its way through the project.
• If the assigned person fails to complete the task, or submits poor quality work, add a note to the report explaining what happened and how the situation was corrected (for example, another team member had to redo the task).
• Submit the completed form (with all columns completed) to your faculty member at the class after your team project is due. Include a cover sheet with your team’s name (or number) and the name of each team member.

The Global View (AACSB)

A Multicultural Virtual Team

You work for Nike, a global company. You just learned that you were assigned to a virtual team whose mission is to assess the feasibility of Nike’s making an inexpensive shoe that can be sold in Brazil. The team consists of twelve members. Three of the members work in the United States (two in Beaverton, Oregon, and one in New York City). Two work in England, two in China, two in India, and three in Brazil. All are Nike employees and all were born in the country in which they work. All speak English, though some speak it better than others. What challenges do you anticipate the team will face because of its multicultural makeup?. How could these challenges be overco

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Work Life is Atlassian’s flagship publication dedicated to unleashing the potential of every team through real-life advice, inspiring stories, and thoughtful perspectives from leaders around the world.

Contributing Writer

Work Futurist

Senior Quantitative Researcher, People Insights

Principal Writer

Better together: 8 essential teamwork skills to master

Use these strategies to align expectations, streamline communication, and crush your goals.

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5-second summary

• Building “soft skills,” such as effective communication and collaboration skills, are vital components of a team’s success. 
• Making sure everyone is aligned on goals and responsibilities may seem like a no-brainer, but research shows that team members do not always have the clarity that leadership assumes they do. 
• Using formal procedures to make decisions and solve problems can help ensure that teams don’t get sidetracked by predictable bottlenecks. 

Teamwork is powerful. Tapping into people’s individual strengths and collecting diverse perspectives and ideas helps you get projects across the finish line more efficiently – full stop.

Here’s the catch: those perks only pan out if your team works together effectively. And most of us have seen firsthand that successful teamwork doesn’t just happen . Leaders are required to make strategic decisions, encourage positive behaviors, and cultivate an environment where people can get their best work done – not just individually, but as a unit.

That all starts with ensuring your team has mastered the most essential teamwork skills.

What are teamwork skills?

Teamwork skills are the traits and competencies you tap into when working with other people toward a common goal. Knowing how to work well with others isn’t an inherent trait – it’s a malleable skill (and an important one, ranking as one of the most in-demand soft skills employers look for).

When you focus on improving your ability to work on a team, what you’re really doing is strengthening the critical skills that fuel successful teamwork. Whether you want to better yourself or help your direct reports master working together as a unit, let’s take a closer look at eight skills to focus on. 

1. Communication

“We never listen when we are eager to speak.” – Francois de la Rochefoucauld 

A large portion of team or project failures (just take the untimely explosion of NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter , as one example) arise from miscommunication. So, for teams to work well together, it’s non-negotiable that they know how to share information and get on the same page. 

The ability to openly convey a message, align expectations, and offer feedback is essential in the workplace. However, improving communication skills isn’t only about talking – listening plays an equally important role. Active listening in particular enhances shared understanding and helps teams avoid crossed wires. 

Help your team communicate:

• The extroverts on your team are more than willing to jump in with suggestions and opinions, but that can mean steamrolling their colleagues. To make sure everyone’s voice is heard, send an agenda to all participants beforehand so people have time to gather their thoughts. Then, be sure to check in with each person during the meeting to make sure they’ve had a chance to speak. For in-depth guidance, run the inclusive meetings play to make sure that everybody’s input is considered when your team meets.
• Communication isn’t one size fits all, and your team will be better equipped to communicate information and ideas if they know other people’s communication styles . Having each member of the team create a user manual gives them a low-pressure way to share their ideal conditions for getting work done – from their favorite communication channels to how they prefer to receive feedback.
• Schedule a regular team stand-up to avoid siloed information your team. This is a short, dedicated huddle where you can discuss team goals, progress, and obstacles to keep everybody in the loop and aligned.

2. Collaboration

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. – Helen Keller

Collaboration and teamwork are more or less synonyms, so it makes sense that you’d see this skill high on the list. But simply throwing a group of people together and giving them a task doesn’t inherently lead to effective collaboration , no matter how talented those individuals may be.

Rather, clarity needs to take priority. Team members should understand their unique roles, responsibilities, and deadlines, as well as how their individual tasks impact the project as a whole. That broader focus increases accountability and empowers people to find answers or proactively solve problems themselves.

Help your team collaborate: 

• Who does what shouldn’t be a mystery on your team, however, people may not always have visibility into what tasks their coworkers have to do. Try creating a shared document that details everyone’s regular tasks and current projects. You can also run the roles and responsibilities play so there’s no doubt or confusion about what’s on each person’s plate.
• There are certain norms that play out on your team on a daily basis – like muting yourself on Zoom when you aren’t talking or using bullet points in emails – despite the fact that they might never be formally discussed. Consider creating a shared doc that spells out the “rules of the road” for your team. Encourage people to add to it regularly. It’s a great way to help newbies on the team get up to speed quickly. Running the working agreements play can help your team iron out a list of those previously unspoken expectations and avoid misunderstandings.

3. Goal setting

How to write SMART goals

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” – Lawrence J. Peter

Teamwork is all about working your way toward a finish line together – but first, you need to agree on where that finish line actually is . While managers might like to think their goals are obvious and widely accepted, team members may disagree: 72% of employees admit they don’t fully understand their company’s strategy. That’s why this particular teamwork skill is so important.

In order to reap the benefits of effective teamwork, team leaders need to not only explain team- and company-level goals, but also actively involve employees in the process of setting those objectives so that they can take ownership of the outcomes.

How to help your team set goals: 

• Boost clarity and accountability by setting SMART goals , which are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. 
• Use a defined goal-setting system like objectives and key results (OKRs) or goals, signals, and measures so everybody understands what success looks like.
• Make juicy, long-term targets feel more manageable by setting smaller short-term goals along the way.
• Store your team goals somewhere centralized and accessible in the workplace (like Confluence ) so that everybody on the team can refer back to them when needed.

4. Decision making

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Teamwork is often at its most frustrating when you feel pressure to make a speedy decision. With so many perspectives to manage, reaching a consensus can be slow. That’s why decision-making is a skill that’s vital in a team environment, especially in collaborative cultures where the manager isn’t always the one with the last word. 

To get their best work done, people should be able to listen to other opinions and suggestions with an open mind, then come together collectively to choose the best way forward.

Help your team make decisions: 

• Default to a standard decision-making process to give your team a straightforward framework to rely on as you make choices together. 
• Sometimes a consensus isn’t possible. In those cases, who has the final say on a project? Who’s contributing but not necessarily a key decision-maker? Those roles can get murky. Use the DACI framework so your team knows who fits where and can make more efficient group decisions.
• Does your team suffer from major decision delays? Try setting a deadline for your team to make a choice. Psychology says that while deadlines can be stressful, they also tend to increase focus.
• Be mindful of common phenomena that stand in the way of decisiveness, like analysis paralysis and decision fatigue , and take steps to address them when you see them creep in.

5. Problem solving

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” – Albert Einstein 

Whether it’s a project that’s running off the rails or a conflict between a couple of colleagues, you and your team are bound to run into your fair share of roadblocks. In those moments, your team’s problem-solving skills are what will carry you through. 

Successful problem-solving isn’t about slapping on a quick-fix band-aid. Some stumbling blocks can be deceptively complex. To truly address and prevent issues, start by digging deep and understanding all of the factors at play using critical thinking skills and problem-solving abilities.

How to help your team solve problems: 

• Use problem framing to step back and understand the who, what, why, and where of a problem before jumping into solutions.
• The 5 Whys Analysis is simple on the surface – it essentially involves asking, “Why did this happen?” five times in a row. This exercise helps your team uncover the root causes of a problem rather than acting on assumptions and surface-level symptoms.
• The first possible solution to a problem isn’t always the best one, and that’s one of the many benefits of a team: everybody has access to an assortment of ideas and experiences to find the most suitable answer. Sparring helps your team get quick, honest feedback from each other in a way that feels structured and approachable.

6. Interpersonal skills

Beyond the buzzwords: Why interpersonal skills matter at work

“Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way.” – Mavis Mazhura 

The thing about teamwork is that you’re working with other people – and everyone has their own feelings, perceptions, experiences, preferences, and more. That’s what makes working as part of a team so enriching (and challenging). 

It’s also why interpersonal skills are so critical. They’re the soft skills that you use when working, communicating, and interacting with other people (and plenty of the teamwork skills we’ve already covered also fall under the “interpersonal skills” category). From emotional intelligence to negotiation, these competencies help you work alongside others with less conflict and fewer hiccups.

How to help your team work well together:

• Participate in a team personality assessment like Johari Window so team members can uncover traits they may not see in themselves.
• Provide training or other opportunities for team members to build their conflict resolution skills to better handle disputes and disagreements when they come up.
• People can’t always control their emotions, but they can control and improve their reactions and behaviors. Unfortunately, emotions can easily become confused with personalities. Try to model and encourage people to switch from “I am…” language to “I feel…” language to keep those lines clear. For example, “I am anxious about this deadline” becomes “I feel anxious about this deadline.” It’s a small but significant shift in how your message comes across.

7. Time management

Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose. Thomas Edison

There’s often a lot to get done and that’s another perk of being part of a team: there are more people to chip in on all of the work that needs doing. But without effective time management skills, teams are setting themselves up for conflict, chaos, and frustration. Bottlenecks halt progress, deadlines become suggestions, and the team’s entire plan runs off the rails. 

By focusing on improving time management – both individually and as a unit – people can get their work done without the frantic and frustrating dash to the finish line. 

How to help your team manage their time:

• Use one (or several) tried-and-tested time management strategies to help your team prioritize and focus.
• Team collaboration falls apart when people don’t have a grasp on dependencies. For example, Team Member A might not think missing a deadline by a few days is a big deal – until they realize that it means Team Member B can’t start their assigned tasks. Dependency mapping gives you and your entire team a better sense of how things fit together, so you can proactively manage bottlenecks and other issues.

8. Growth mindset  

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

All teams encounter rough seas from time to time, and a growth mindset is what helps them power through obstacles and find creative solutions. 

Put simply, a growth mindset is a teamwork skill that frames problems as opportunities – chances to reflect, learn, and improve. A growth mindset helps your team use past experiences to drive better collaborations – and it also means they won’t bristle at perceived failures or criticisms.

How to help your team have a growth mindset: 

• Run a retrospective regularly or at the end of project milestones so that your team can honestly discuss what worked, what didn’t, why, and how you’ll use that information moving forward.
• Prioritize regular and frequent constructive feedback for all team members. These candid conversations help them understand how they can improve themselves – which, in turn, helps them improve the entire team.

Advice, stories, and expertise about work life today.

A Framework for Teachable Collaborative Problem Solving Skills

• First Online: 01 January 2014

Cite this chapter

• Friedrich Hesse 5 ,
• Esther Care 6 ,
• Juergen Buder 5 ,
• Kai Sassenberg 5 &
• Patrick Griffin 6  

Part of the book series: Educational Assessment in an Information Age ((EAIA))

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In his book “Cognition in the Wild”, Hutchins (1995) invites his readers to scan their immediate environment for objects that were not produced through collaborative efforts of several people, and remarks that the only object in his personal environment that passed this test was a small pebble on his desk. In fact, it is remarkable how our daily lives are shaped by collaboration. Whether it is in schools, at the workplace, or in our free time, we are constantly embedded in environments that require us to make use of social skills in order to coordinate with other people. Given the pervasiveness of collaboration in everyday life, it is somewhat surprising that the development of social and collaborative skills is largely regarded as something that will occur naturally and does not require any further facilitation. In fact, groups often fail to make use of their potential (Schulz-Hardt, Brodbeck, Group performance and leadership. In: Hewstone M, Stroebe W, Jonas K (eds) Introduction to social psychology: a European perspective, 4th edn, pp 264–289. Blackwell, Oxford, 2008) and people differ in the extent to which they are capable of collaborating efficiently with others. Therefore, there is a growing awareness that collaborative skills require dedicated teaching efforts (Schoenfeld, Looking toward the 21st century: challenges of educational theory and practice. Edu Res 28:4–14, 1999). Collaborative problem solving has been identified as a particularly promising task that draws upon various social and cognitive skills, and that can be analysed in classroom environments where skills are both measurable and teachable.

This chapter provides a conceptual framework of collaborative problem solving that is informed by findings from fields of research as diverse as cognitive science, education, social psychology and psycholinguistics.

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Hesse, F., Care, E., Buder, J., Sassenberg, K., Griffin, P. (2015). A Framework for Teachable Collaborative Problem Solving Skills. In: Griffin, P., Care, E. (eds) Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills. Educational Assessment in an Information Age. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9395-7_2

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Chapter 7: Teamwork, Leadership & Conflict Resolution

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7.0 Introduction 7.1 What Is a Group? 7.2 Group Life Cycles and Member Roles 7.3 Group Problem Solving 7.4 Teamwork and Leadership 7.5 Conflict in the Work Environment 7.6 Conflict Management in Today’s Global Society 7.7 Crucial Conversations 7.8 Conclusion

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Teamwork: Solving Problems

Problem solving is the ability to work through problems by using critical thinking skills to arrive at a solution. In the workplace teams have to solve problems every single day. Problem solving as a team improves the chances of coming up with the best solution or result. When people work together they can share and compare ideas and choose the one that best solves the problem. There is usually more than one solution to every problem. However, the process to solve a problem is always the same:

1. Find the problem 2. Define the problem 3. Describe the problem 4. Diagnose the problem 5. Test the diagnosis

In this post we will examine these steps in more detail and outline why it important for your students to understand how knowing these steps will make them ready for the workplace.

Find the Problem

The first step in solving problems is to understand that there is a problem. A problem exists when there is a difference between what is happening and what should be happening. Start by collecting all of the facts about the problem and leave out personal thoughts or opinions. In the workplace, it pays to be proactive about finding and solving problem. Ideally, workplaces identify problems before they become serious issues. In this way the business saves time and money.

Define the Problem

To define the problem means to make a statement that tells what the problem is. It may seem like a simple part of the problem solving process but it has been said that how a problem is defined determines how the problem will be solved. This means that defining the problem correctly is key to getting it solved. A problem can be defined by answering one of the following questions: “What is not happening that should be happening?” or “What is happening that should not be happening?”

Describe the Problem

Once a problem has been defined the next step is to describe the problem. The description should include three parts: an identity, a location, and timing. The identity has to do with who or what is involved in the problem. The location describes where the problem is happening, and the timing tells when the problem is occurring.

Diagnose the Problem

To diagnose the problem means to find the cause of the problem. This requires careful thinking about the problem description in order to come up with a hypothesis or explanation for the problem. Start by breaking down the information into small pieces. The more simple or basic each detail is, the easier information is to analyze. From here a hypothesis can be formed that explains why the problem is occurring.

Test the Diagnosis

Once there is a hypothesis for the problem it is time to test the theory. Change something about the diagnosis for the problem. Change situations, places or people. Has the problem been solved? If not, the team needs to go back and formulate a new hypothesis for the problem. This process is repeated until the problems gets solved.

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• 11 Benefits of teamwork in the workplac ...

11 Benefits of teamwork in the workplace (with examples)

Teamwork is one of the most important tools when it comes to organizational efficiency. Though we can all agree that teamwork is important, not everyone realizes just how impactful it is in the workplace. Teamwork in the workplace is when a group of individuals work together toward a collective goal in an efficient manner. When multiple people work together toward a common goal, your business can flourish. 

We’ve rounded up 11 top benefits of teamwork in the workplace, with examples throughout to help you better understand just how important teamwork is. Ready to work on teamwork? Let’s dive in.

What is teamwork?

Teamwork is the process of working collaboratively with a group of people to achieve a specific goal. It involves the combined efforts of individual members who bring their unique knowledge and skills to the table. Effective teamwork in the workplace relies on key components such as active listening and open communication, and ensures each person's input contributes towards reaching the team's goals.

Why is teamwork important?

Teamwork in the workplace is important because it supports an organization's operational efficiency. Strong team dynamics enable individual members to divide complex projects into manageable tasks, which enhance productivity and enable an organization to function more effectively. Moreover, successful teamwork creates a supportive network that can significantly enhance job satisfaction and employee morale.

Benefits of teamwork in the workplace

1. teamwork cultivates effective communication.

Effective teamwork in the workplace starts with solid communication . In order to work together—whether when ideating or working on a new project—you need to communicate to create cohesion and clear goals.

Communication starts by building camaraderie and team synergy . A great way to do this is by organizing team building activities. This could be a quick icebreaker at the beginning of a meeting or a whole day spent solving fictional problems with teammates. 

A successful team that demonstrates clear communication is more efficient and productive. Not to mention it creates an enjoyable work environment. 

Communication example: Daniella and Kabir are working on a project task together. Kabir is confused when reviewing the project notes so he messages Daniella to ask for help. They hop on a quick call and work through the problem together. By working as a team, they effectively communicated and were able to complete the task the same day. 

Tip: Take communication one step further by keeping tasks and collaboration in a shared digital space. That way, everyone can stay on the same page, no matter where they are.

 2. Teamwork improves brainstorming

Brainstorming is a powerful method that helps teams think outside of the box. It involves individuals working together by communicating ideas for a number of initiatives. These could include projects, processes, products, and services. 

Good teamwork means your team communicates and feels comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas. Without teamwork, your brainstorming sessions could suffer, and, in turn, so could your team’s quality and performance. 

Ultimately, the success of brainstorming sessions relies on solid teamwork in the workplace. By investing time to foster trust and open communication, every individual’s potential can be maximized, benefiting the whole team. You can do this by connecting in a one on one setting regularly and encouraging team members to share their insights. 

Brainstorming example: Kat needs to come up with three design ideas for a new landing page. Instead of ideating by herself, she asks the team to join in on a brainstorming session. Since there are many team members sharing ideas, Kat receives more than enough ideas to get started. 

Tip: Check out 29 brainstorming techniques to help spark creativity within your team. 

3. Teamwork encourages a common goal

Having a common goal in mind is essential when it comes to prioritizing projects and new initiatives. With multiple team members working on individual tasks, a project goal helps keep deliverables aligned and ensures objectives are met. 

There are a number of ways you can communicate a goal in a way that both encourages teamwork in the workplace and promotes collaboration. These include:

Business case : A business case is a document that details the value of a project or initiative. This ensures each team member has the same starting point before diving into a project.

Team meeting: Meetings are a great way to get your team in one place to communicate expectations and work together. Having an initial meeting—as well as a post mortem meeting once the project is over—can help determine deliverables and ensure objectives were met. 

Timeline software : Timeline tools can help your team visualize the work you need to complete and how you’ll hit your project goals. Clarifying task due dates and dependencies unlocks teamwork and allows team members to thrive. 

Goal-oriented example: Kat is leading a meeting on a new process that’s being put into place. Kabir asks what the purpose of the process is. Kat explains that they’ll be adding a new tool to their scheduling process to automate some of the team’s work, like tedious and time consuming tasks. Now, the team understands the underlying goal.

Tip: Align tasks to goals using goal-setting software that helps you achieve progress and keeps team members on the right track every step of the way.

4. Teamwork in the workplace improves problem solving skills

Problems can be difficult to solve on your own. That’s why working together as a team can offer quicker and often more effective solutions. 

Not only does this help create an efficient process for problem solving, but using teamwork creates shared goals.

Problem solving example: Project manager Kat finds out there is an issue with image implementation that’s postponing the project launch date. Instead of trying to solve it alone, she enlists her team in a brainstorming session to come up with solutions. Because she asked her team for help, she was able to co-create a solution in just an hour, as opposed to what could have taken days by herself. 

Tip: Practice problem solving as a group by using team building activites to motivate your team members to feel confident in their solutions. 

5. Teamwork helps build trust

Trust in the workplace is something that is built over time. It takes transparent communication, one-on-one sessions, and support to build that trust with team members. 

A team that trusts each other feels comfortable communicating ideas, collaborating in the workplace , and growing individual strength. Not just that, but they also feel a sense of belonging within the group. 

The absence of teamwork in the workplace can lead to a breakdown in trust. This can result in team members feeling isolated and turning competitive, focusing on individual achievements over team success, which can undermine both morale and performance. 

Trust example: Ray has a task that’s overdue. His manager, Kabir, offers to sit down with him and offer support. Afterward, Ray feels relieved and has the confidence to complete the task. Next time he has an issue, he knows he can reach out to Kabir for support. 

Tip: Building teamwork in the workplace goes beyond the daily tasks; it's about connecting with your team members on a personal level. Figuring out what makes them unique is a great way to build trust over time. 

6. Teamwork improves company culture

Most companies strive for a good organizational culture , but it’s not as easy as having chats at the water cooler or a monthly pizza party. Company culture involves making your team members feel heard and empowered to do their best work while offering them work-life balance and an overall enjoyable work environment. 

To build culture, encourage camaraderie and teamwork in the workplace. Spending time with one another can help build this bond and, in turn, improve working relationships and the culture around the (virtual) office. 

Culture example: Kabir’s team has a huddle every Monday where they share what they did over the weekend and any upcoming projects for the week. Since they get to talk about both personal and work-related topics, the team enjoys their Monday meeting. In fact, communication and overall culture have improved since the team began meeting on Mondays. 

Tip: Build shared values by giving team members the opportunity to share the values they think are important. 

7. Teamwork creates efficiency

From communicating effectively to improving company culture, teamwork drives many benefits, including creating team efficiency . An efficient team works together to quickly manage problems and daily tasks. As a result, efficient teams use resources more effectively and reach their deliverables faster. When it comes to organizational growth, few strategies are as impactful as cultivating streamlined efficiency through teamwork in the workplace. Such cohesion is instrumental in fostering innovative solutions while maintaining consistent quality.

Efficiency example: There’s a new project on the horizon for Ray and his team. Ray’s first instinct was to ask Kat, his senior specialist, to tackle it since she’s the best fit to handle the task. After analyzing the difficulty of the project, he decides to have his entire team tackle it together. To his surprise, they completed the project in just half the initial timeline.

Tip: To encourage efficiency across projects, align your team using one work management tool. That way, everyone can clearly see the goals you’re working towards, the timeline for that work, and who's responsible for what.

8. Teamwork increases employee engagement

A little known secret to fostering long-term happiness and engagement is to nurture teamwork in the workplace. When team members feel part of a supportive group, they're more likely to be content and involved, which naturally boosts their work satisfaction over time. 

To increase employee engagement, encourage teamwork inside and outside of work. Schedule time for your team to connect about more than just work. Your team will feel more open when working in a group, which leads to a higher retention rate. 

Engagement example: Kat’s team has been working hard on a top priority project. Unfortunately, issues arose and now they have to stay late to finish the project before the weekend. Kat knows that she needs to do something to keep the team’s spirits and energy up. She decides to start the evening with a team building activity. This immediately engages the team and gets everyone excited to put their heads together and finish the project off strong.

Tip: Make your virtual meetings more engaging by starting them off with a quick ice breaker question to lighten up the mood. 

9. Teamwork motivates high performing teams

Accountability is a powerful motivator, and teamwork in the workplace is a surefire way to instill this sense of responsibility. It spurs team members not just to meet expectations, but to exceed them and willingly contribute their best ideas to the group's endeavors. The higher performing each team member is, the higher performing your overall team will be, meaning you can create high quality work more efficiently. Not only is a high performing team good for your company, but it also helps job satisfaction, as doing well will motivate individuals to continue growing their skillset.

High performing example: It’s team review time and Kat gets a shoutout at all hands for implementing a new process to increase productivity. Kabir, a new team member, feels empowered to work hard and will receive a superb review next quarter. 

Tip: High performing teams are usually made up of individuals who seek motivation from within, otherwise known as intrinsic motivation . 

10. Teamwork in the workplace develops individual strengths

Teamwork isn’t just about team success—it also supports individual development as well. Team members who grow their individual knowledge can then share that with others during future projects. 

The result: Individual team members grow their own strengths as well as the strengths of the team. These could include your ability to problem solve, effectively communicate , and combat procrastination—all of which are important skill sets to develop in the workplace. 

Individual strengths teamwork example: Kabir is new to the team and working on his first task. He’s a little stuck so he reaches out to a team member for help. Kat shares her tips on how she works on a similar task. She even shares a tool that Kabir didn’t know about. This helps him complete the task more efficiently.

Tip: If a team member can complete a task just as well as you could, delegate it without intervening. This allows your team members to grow their individual strengths and skills. 

11. Teamwork improves decision making skills

While problem solving and decision making sound similar, decision making skills are all encompassing. To be good at decision making, you need the confidence to make quick decisions based on the knowledge you’ve gathered in your role. 

Teamwork in the workplace is invaluable for improving decision-making abilities. It creates an environment where team members are encouraged to tackle questions and make decisions promptly, which is essential for real-time problem-solving.

Decision making teamwork example: Kabir is leading his first team meeting for a new project. As he’s explaining the upcoming timeline and deliverables, an executive asks who will be working on the project. Kabir is quick to answer confidently, as he’s already brainstormed with his team on who will tackle what. 

Tip: Encourage teamwork in the workplace by inviting team members to actively participate in important meetings, such as by presenting their solutions. This gets them used to explaining their thought process in front of other team members. 

How to improve teamwork in the workplace

Improving teamwork in the workplace is about fostering an environment that values the contributions of all team members and encourages collaborative efforts towards shared goals . It involves enhancing teamwork skills across the board. Here are seven steps you can take to foster great teamwork.

Clarify roles and responsibilities. Assign clear goals based on desired outcomes, allowing employees to understand their objectives. For instance, a designer might be tasked with improving user experience, as measured by customer feedback, rather than just completing a set number of designs.

Establish outcome-based expectations. Shift the focus from processes to results, which urges team members to think strategically about accomplishing their objectives. For example, this method could lead a sales team to prioritize closing deals that align with long-term business strategy over merely hitting short-term numbers.

Set standards of excellence. Define what high-quality work looks like for each position and establish performance benchmarks. A customer service rep, for example, would aim for swift resolution times and high satisfaction ratings, setting a clear target to strive towards.

Provide time for self-reflection. Allocate time for individuals to assess their strengths and passions. A software engineer might discover their knack for algorithm optimization, steering them towards new learning opportunities.

Align strengths with tasks. Give individual team members roles that capitalize on their strongest skills. When a marketing analyst with a talent for data visualization is tasked with creating campaign performance reports, their skill set directly enhances the value of the work produced.

Foster an atmosphere of trust and openness. Cultivate an environment that values teamwork in the workplace through sharing and open communication between colleagues. By establishing regular "open floor" meetings, team members can freely exchange innovative ideas and feedback, bolstering team performance.

Encourage continuous improvement. Establish a routine of constructive feedback, supporting personal and professional growth. This approach might involve quarterly performance discussions that not only review past achievements but also set actionable objectives for skills and career development.

Teamwork in the workplace FAQ

What are the benefits of working in teams .

Working in teams is beneficial because it allows for the division of difficult tasks, making complex projects more manageable and enabling solutions that leverage diverse skill sets. Teamwork in the workplace fosters a collaborative environment where each person contributes different perspectives, which can lead to more innovative solutions and shared success.

How do you demonstrate teamwork skills at work? 

Demonstrating teamwork skills at work involves actively listening to colleagues, contributing ideas, and showing reliability. Being part of a team means collaborating effectively, whether in person or virtually, and supporting others in achieving shared goals. Teamwork in the workplace is about being adaptable, communicative, and committed to the team’s success.

What makes a good team? 

A good team operates with a strong sense of unity and shared purpose. Its members possess complementary skills, and there's a balance of roles that ensures all necessary tasks are handled efficiently. Strong teamwork in the workplace embraces open communication, respects each other's contributions, and is focused on achieving collective goals.

Why is teamwork important in business? 

Teamwork is important in business because it brings together different viewpoints and improves problem-solving capabilities. It fosters efficiency and productivity, as tasks are completed faster with collaborative effort. The importance of teamwork in the workplace is also evident in driving innovation, as employees are encouraged to brainstorm and contribute ideas in a supportive setting. Plus, when teamwork is strong, it can lead to improved employee morale and job satisfaction.

Drive teamwork through communication

Teamwork is a valuable tool to use in the workplace that comes with a multitude of benefits. From building trust to encouraging problem solving skills, teamwork brings your team together and creates clear communication. 

If you want to encourage teamwork in the workplace, try work management software. Make working on common goals easier and keep communication streamlined.

Related resources

How to find alignment on AI

How to scale your creative and content production with Asana

Smooth product launches are simpler than you think

Fix these common onboarding challenges to boost productivity

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7 Soft Skills to Put on Resume that Employers Want to See

Posted May 15th, 2024

While employers across all industries look for candidates with technical skills and subject-matter expertise, those aren’t the only types of skills they value .

Employers also want to see noteworthy transferable skills — otherwise known as soft skills. 

And the reason is simple. 

Soft skills help employees build resilience and agility. From leadership skills to critical thinking, transferable skills help employees solve problems, resolve conflicts, and strategize new possibilities. This makes them an incredible asset to just about any company.

Let’s take a closer look at some soft skills you should consider adding to your resume to position yourself as a top-talent candidate. 

1. Industry specific soft skills 

Include relevant skills employers in your specific industry value. 

For instance …

Travel nursing: Employers from compact nursing states look for skills such as adaptability, empathy, teamwork, and communication.

Here’s a look at an Indeed travel nurse job posting that highlights empathy as a required soft skill:

Teaching: Educational organizations look for employees with skills such as creativity, flexibility, and the ability to tailor educational experiences. 

Project management industry: Lead project managers look for team members with pristine time management skills, organizational skills, and conflict resolution abilities.

Tourism: Tour guide operators look for employees with strong people skills, language skills, and storytelling skills. 

Look how travelers referenced the impact their tour guides’ storytelling skills had on their WWII tours in Normandy :

Consulting industry: Consultancy firms value consultants who display active listening skills, interpersonal skills, and business analysis skills. 

For a comprehensive list of skills, conduct research to uncover the standards in your specific industry. 

You might also consider conducting informational interviews with people who have landed the role you’re aspiring to secure. They can share their firsthand experiences and help you pinpoint the most valuable skills employers in your industry are looking for.

2. Soft skills learned from internships and previous jobs

Be specific about the skills you’ve acquired from relevant internships or previous job experiences. 

The less training you have to go through — and the more applicable your experience is — the more admirable your resume will be. 

In fact, according to NACE’s Job Outlook 2024 report , potential employers cite internship experience as the main deciding factor when choosing between two qualified candidates for a job opening. NACE recommends highlighting both the internship experience you’ve gained with an employer’s organization and within the industry to catch an employer’s eye.

For instance, you may have learned how to pivot during crises while working with a startup company. You might also have learned online sales skills simply by being in the SaaS industry. 

Go into detail about how the skills you’ve acquired helped you solve a major problem or achieve success at work. This helps potential employers envision how you apply the soft skills you’ve learned from previous roles.

3. Problem-solving skills

Highlight your problem-solving abilities to show potential employers how agile you can be during challenging situations at work. 

Nearly 90% of employers value problem-solving as a critical skill when searching for suitable employees.

No matter what industry you’re in, unexpected situations can come up, and knowing how to pivot and find a solution is paramount to your success — and the organization you work for.

Imagine running an automated contextual ad campaign, only to find out your programmatic ads showed up next to harmful content. After conducting research, you learn there’s an AI tool you can use that automatically scans content against stringent brand safety and suitability metrics before placing ads. 

To “solve the problem,” you set up future ads using this tool. You also get to discuss with your public relations team how to correct any potential brand harm that occurred after the ad.

In this example, you didn’t accept defeat. You went above and beyond to prevent ads from showing up in inappropriate contexts. You also quickly worked to protect the company from a negative brand reputation after a mistake occurred.

This way of approaching conflict shows employers they can rely on you to do what’s best for the organization — especially when problems arise.

4. Strong teamwork skills 

Include your ability to work in teams , adapt to team norms, and communicate effectively with co-workers. 

While being able to carry your own weight is vital, working well with others is also a sought-after skill. In most organizations, being able to coexist with other team members and work toward a common goal is necessary for the company’s success. 

Imagine a project management team with employees who miscommunicate, show signs of disrespect, or ghost team members. Getting deliverables complete would be a complete nightmare. 

On the flip side, imagine a project management team without silos that values one another’s expertise and collaborates seamlessly to get work done. There’s no limit to what a team that’s in sync can accomplish.

5. Flexibility/adaptability

Provide concrete examples of how you’ve demonstrated flexibility and adaptability in various contexts. This positions you as a valuable asset to any organization seeking resilient, agile, and forward-thinking professionals.

For instance, you might share how you successfully transitioned to new roles within an organization. This demonstrates your ability to quickly acclimate to different responsibilities and excel in unfamiliar territory.

You could also share examples of times when you embraced learning new technologies or methodologies. This illustrates your openness to growth and your proactive approach to staying current in your field.

Showcasing your capacity to pivot quickly in response to shifting priorities is particularly compelling to potential employers. Whether you’ve faced sudden changes in project scope, tight deadlines, or unexpected challenges, highlighting your ability to remain calm under pressure and adapt your approach accordingly demonstrates your resilience and resourcefulness.

Go the extra mile by emphasizing your willingness to take on new challenges and step outside your comfort zone. 

Whether it’s volunteering for cross-functional projects or spearheading initiatives outside of your usual scope of work, these experiences showcase your readiness to embrace change and contribute to the organization’s success.

6. Written and verbal communication skills

Highlight written and verbal communication skills on your resume to show employers you can convey ideas clearly, foster connections with colleagues and stakeholders, and drive meaningful outcomes.

For instance, illustrate your ability to craft clear, concise, and engaging written content. That might be drafting emails , reports, or proposals. Include a link to a portfolio so they can see how your writing contributes to achieving project milestones, gaining stakeholder buy-in, or advancing organizational initiatives.

Underscore your verbal communication skills by sharing experiences where you’ve excelled in delivering presentations, leading meetings, or participating in collaborative brainstorming sessions. 

Don’t forget to include all of the languages you speak, too. Multilingualism is a valuable asset, particularly in global or multicultural workplaces, where effective communication across language barriers is essential for success.

7. Analytical skills

Share how you gather, analyze, and interpret data to make informed decisions and solve complex problems at work.

Provide examples of projects or tasks where you were required to gather information from various sources, analyze it systematically, and draw meaningful insights. That might’ve included conducting market research, analyzing financial data, or interpreting performance metrics.

Highlight your critical thinking skills, too. Employers look for team members who can evaluate information objectively, identify patterns or trends, and generate innovative solutions to challenges. Discuss instances where you’ve applied critical thinking to solve problems, make recommendations, or improve processes within your organization.

Go the extra mile by sharing concrete examples of how your analytical skills have contributed to tangible outcomes. 

That might’ve been identifying cost-saving opportunities, optimizing processes to improve efficiency, or driving revenue growth through data-driven strategies. Highlighting the impact of your analytical abilities reinforces your value as a strategic thinker and problem solver.

Wrap up 

While technical expertise and qualifications are undoubtedly essential, it’s often soft skills that set exceptional candidates apart in a competitive job market. 

Employers value soft skills because they contribute to an agile work environment, effective collaboration, and overall productivity.

Soft skills such as communication, teamwork, adaptability, and problem-solving aren’t just desirable — they’re increasingly essential in navigating challenges at work. 

Strong communication skills foster understanding, build relationships, and drive positive outcomes. Effective teamwork supports collaboration, innovation, and shared success. Adaptability helps teams thrive in dynamic environments, embrace change, and seize opportunities for growth. And problem-solving skills help employees identify challenges, develop creative solutions, and drive continuous improvement.

Employers recognize that individuals with strong soft skills aren’t only better equipped to navigate challenges — but are also more likely to contribute positively to organizational culture and success. 

The bottom line? Whether it’s fostering a collaborative team environment, driving innovation, or delivering exceptional customer experiences, soft skills play a fundamental role in achieving organizational goals and driving sustainable growth.

Author Bio:

Jeremy is co-founder & CEO at uSERP , a digital PR and SEO agency working with brands like Monday, ActiveCampaign, Hotjar, and more. He also buys and builds SaaS companies like Wordable.io and writes for publications like Entrepreneur and Search Engine Journal.

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Advice from Apollo

10 essential soft skills every software developer needs to master

I magine, if you will, the realm of software engineering as a grand orchestral performance. The stage is set, the spotlight illuminates, and the conductor raises the baton. The symphony begins, and as the musicians pour their heart and soul into their instruments, an extraordinary spectacle unfolds. Yet, amid the crescendos of coding, the harmonies of frameworks, and the rhythms of deadlines, a subtle melody often goes unheard.

It's the symphony of soft skills, the intricate notes that dance between the lines of code, the subtle harmonies that resonate amid collaboration. Just as a maestro imbues a symphony with emotion and depth, software engineers too require a set of soft skills to elevate their craft from mere coding to a virtuoso performance.

In the current landscape, a discussion about these skills holds even greater significance – they are the orchestrators of success that transcend the boundaries of code, differentiating exceptional software engineers from the rest.

Discover the 10 essential soft skills that every software developer should possess, as shared by Saurabh Saxena, the Chief Operating Officer of Scaler and InterviewBit.

1. COMMUNICATION

Communication is not a one-way tool. Both parties involved are equally important. Sometimes a candidate with good technical skills might need help to explain the approach. Software engineers must be able to articulate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Candidates with the best verbal communication skills cannot convert their thoughts, ideas, and designs into proper demonstrable code. Listening is another essential communication skill; software engineers should be good listeners.

The ones who are good listeners have an edge over the others in terms of understanding the business requirements and needs of the user. Listening carefully, communicating well, and confidently speaking are key metrics to improving your communication. If they work on improving these skills, they can have better growth in their career.

2. BE ADAPTIVE

The tech industry evolves rapidly with new methodologies, frameworks, and languages. Software developers and engineers must adapt to these changes for a lifelong learning approach. Being a software developer, you need to be open-minded and adaptive.

In some situations, both might mean different things, but they may rotate in cycles going together, and in some, they might mean the same thing. Open-minded people are also more receptive to others' feedback and listen to, and appreciate the value of feedback given by others.

As you climb up the ladder of software engineering levels, this skill set will be vital for your professional career.

3. BE PATIENT

Software engineering is a challenging profession. It's a very complex feat. A typical software engineering cycle starts with the product manager gathering the product requirements, and software engineers reviewing and going through multiple iterations.

Then they go on to high-level and low-level design, getting them checked by their peers, jumping onto the coding plan, coming up with a testing plan, and finally creating the test suite. It involves so many processes and can be pretty tiring.

'Patience' will be your longtime friend in the mission of software engineering. Once you are patient and accept everything around you, you will have an unmatchable sharp mental ability.

4. MANAGEMENT

As a software engineer, you will be involved in different levels of management. As a fresher, you will begin with time management. You will be involved in so many subtasks at a time, creating confusion. Then, as you move up the ladder, you will realise that project management is essential.

Scoping projects, setting deadlines, and ensuring you put in all the efforts to meet these deadlines are critical. Another important aspect is to not say ''yes'' to everything. If you do, you are bound to disappoint someone. So sometimes, saying no is a beneficial and healthy skill set to possess. Ultimately, prioritizing tasks, setting realistic goals and time management will increase productivity.

5. TEAMWORK

Software engineering is a team sport; collaborative teamwork is essential for success. You will be collaborating with many people throughout this project completion journey. You will work with product managers and colleagues to get your design and code review, testing engineers, privacy and security consultants, etc.

So, for you to grow as a software engineer, your team will also need to grow with you. Embrace the collaborative mindset, engage in brainstorming sessions, and be receptive to feedback.

6. PROBLEM-SOLVING

To get into top tech companies or any company, being a good problem solver with critical thinking skills is paramount. Solutions are always meaningful, but the approach towards the problem is even more critical.

As a software engineer, you will be dealing with issues of different levels of complexity. How you break the problem down into simpler subproblems and how you deal with ambiguity will define you as a software engineer. So, having solid problem-solving skills is paramount for any software engineer.

7. ACCOUNTABILITY

If you are accountable for your mistakes and accept them, you can grow as a human being and as a software engineer. In our day-to-day lives, we make a lot of errors. It's essential to take ownership of the tasks that you are doing and your mistakes.

Being humble in one way or another is in confluence with being accountable. Software engineers with a lot of experience are the most humble. They listen the most, and that's the reason why they stay as the leaders of their group. Accountability builds trust among your peers and makes you a better professional.

8. EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT

As a software engineer, you will build products for your customers. But a customer sometimes does not use your product the way you intended. For example, suppose there are 10 cases of use for your product. In that case, the customer will come up with an innovative '11th' use case and ultimately defy the purpose of your software development.

It's imperative to understand what emotion is driving your user to behave in a particular way so that you can build better products for your customers. Ultimately, your victory is when the customer is happy. Apart from the customer's perspective, empathy is another vital tool from the point of view of teamwork and collaboration.

More often, being a software engineer, you will work in a team with people from diverse backgrounds. So make sure you respect their belief systems and accept whatever technical options and variety they bring to the table.

9. BEING APPROACHABLE

A crucial part of people's skills is being approachable. Software engineers maintain their growth by being approachable and helpful. Quite often, the project's success depends on the software engineers who are working on the project. The reason is it correlates with the right personality.

Being approachable doesn't necessarily mean you have to say yes to everyone. As mentioned earlier, if you say yes to everyone, you will likely disappoint many people. A moderate combination of yes and no and being helpful and approachable will help you grow as a software engineer.

10. STAY CURIOUS

Our software industry is growing at a rapid pace. If you're missing out on self-learning new technologies and languages, you will not progress as a software engineer. Curiosity is a soft skill that will be your companion on the self-learning journey.

You have to go beyond and beyond to find the root cause of the problem, try to find some supporting ways to make the codebase better than the current situation, solve the problem and help the software engineers around you.

The habit of curiosity and being explorative can help software engineers become technically dependable teammates. Be more curious about the problem you are working on, and explore the codebase as to why the customer needs a particular feature and what technical solutions may be more beneficial than the current state-of-the-art technology.

WAY FORWARD

Looking ahead, the future of software engineering hinges on mastering not only the intricacies of code but also the art of soft skills. As technology evolves, the need for adept communicators, adaptable problem solvers, and collaborative team players will intensify.

Embracing these skills is not just a choice; it is a strategic decision to excel in an industry where success is defined by the synergy of technical prowess and human ingenuity. So, the need of the hour for software engineers today is to fine-tune the skillset and navigate the ever-changing landscape with the harmonious blend of coding finesse and soft skill virtuosity.

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