TEAM WORK

Part2: Team work-Outline

1. Team work definition

2. Team work benefits

3. Factors of effective team

4. Stages of Team development

5. Positive Team skills

6. Team Work tools

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 What is Team Work?
 A team is a collection of interdependent individuals who work together
(over a period of time) to achieve a common goal.

 The team sometimes refers to committees or task forces in certain

organizations.

 Generally, human being gravitates toward groups;

Ex. We play sport in groups, worship in groups etc…

Dr. Ahmad Dagamseh Communication skills (ELE205) Chapter 6 (Team Work) 3

 Team Work benefits
1. Morale among workers tends to be higher and absenteeism is less.

2. Customer satisfaction increase since team focus on ways to improve the

quality of products.

3. Teams make decisions, solve problems, provide support, accomplish

missions, and plan their work.

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 Factors for effective Team
1) Clear goals.

2) Qualified team members (Ex. technical experts, problem solvers, good

communication skills and trained in team work process).

3) Commitment to excellence (i.e. achieving the goal).

4) Outside (others) recognition (not only self satisfaction, team need to

receive management recognition ).

5) Collaborative climate (rapport (‫ )ألفه‬with one another, honest and trust).

 To enhance the climate members need to feel valued.

 A collaborative climate develops when members experience inter

dependence).

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 Stages of Team development
A) Form stage
 Identify the strength and weaknesses (members capabilities, roles).
B) Norm stage
 Clarifying goals, then assigning tasks (i.e. Who will do what, when and
how, etc ...).
C) Work stage
 To begin substantive (real or core) work on their goals to complete the
task.
D) Storm stage
 Resolve any disagreement that may occur.
E) Perform stage
 The assigned tasks were completed and ready to present the work.

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 Positive Team skills
1. Accountability and responsibility .

2. Trustworthiness.

3. Spirit of cooperation.

4. Respectfulness.

5. Enthusiasm.

6. Willingness to resolve conflicts.

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Positive Team skills
1. Accountability

 Being responsible, Team member need to be clear on their responsibilities

to assure one another that they can be counted on.

2. Trustworthiness

 Trustworthiness results when members are accountable however trust is

built when members open and honest with each other.

3. Spirit of cooperation

 Cooperation is generated when members are willing to be flexible, open

minded and able to compromise when necessary.

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Positive Team skills
4. Respectfulness

 Respect is evidenced when members given the opportunity to voice their

view.

5. Enthusiasm

 When team members approach their work with interest and enthusiasm
they set in motion an energy that keeps them focused and on track.

6. Willingness to resolve conflicts

 Effective team have variety of strategies to resolve conflicts while keeping

relationships intact.

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 Team Work Tools
A) Organize the team

B) Members and leader responsibilities

C) Communicate team progress

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 Team Work Tools
A) Organize the team:

 Recruiting (‫( )تجنيد‬voluntary, member have the choice, num. of participant 5

to 7).

Training the members:

- All members need to understand the company’s philosophy and goals.

- Members should be offered suggestion for maximizing their productivity.

- Each team needs to be given clear direction as to it’s purpose).

 Identifying roles: (The role which each member should play).

 Selecting meeting format: (How often they will meet , when they will meet
in order to accomplish their assigned task).

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 Team Work Tools
 Determining a team assessment method: (Teams do a quick check of their
performance).

 Identifying methods of conflict resolution. (substantive (‫ )موضوعي وثابت‬or

personal).

B) Members and leader responsibilities:

- Members should attend, prepare, stay involved and adhere to the meetings.

- Leader should set the meeting agenda, encourage participants, keep

discussion on track, clarify, summarize and facilitate problem solving.

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Team Work Tools
D) Communicate team progress:

- Keeping records of their work as it progress, they need to document each

meeting for the benefit of themselves and maybe for those outside the
group.

- Documenting the meeting includes: the date, place, meeting minutes,

members, members that absent, topics that discussed, decision made, and
follow up action required and signature of member who prepared the
minutes (‫( )المحضر‬which should be clear, concise, accurate and easy to
read).

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 Diversity

• In communication, diversity could be in: cultural values,

religion, habits, gender, origin, accents, stereotypes and so on.
Acknowledge Intercultural Interdependence
Sources of diversity:
a) Movement toward a global economy
• When OPEC raised the

Price of oil in the 1970, people

In the whole world had to stand in

waiting Lines at gas stations.

• Many of our jobs are directly

or indirectly is dependent on

foreign trade.
Acknowledge Intercultural Interdependence
Sources of diversity:
b) Increase in ethnic/ language minorities
Actually minorities are not numbers they are

people we know, care about, and depend

Upon, they enrich our lives, because of their

differences and they help us to Imagine

new ways of thinking and behaving.

Acknowledge Intercultural Interdependence
Sources of diversity:
c) Variation in communication styles

Differences in communication styles

can make the sender of the message
appear to be pushy, rude, aggressive,
passive, etc. Factors involved in this
are volume and rapidity of speech,
tone of voice, and emphasis on key
words
• Cross-Cultural Communication: Is a field of study that looks at
how people from different cultural backgrounds communicate, in
similar and different ways among themselves, and how they try to
communicate across cultures.
• Understanding these different perspectives about how
communication works is a necessary first step in communicating
cross-culturally.
• Not all cultures view communications at the same way, for
example the American way is different than the Asian one .
• The greater the cultural/linguistic difference, the greater the
likelihood of communication breakdown.
• Differences in world-views, values, and communication
styles leads to misunderstandings .
Cross-cultural communication makes us more conscious
(‫)واع‬of our own communication.
 Choose our words carefully
 Clarify our questions
 Refrain from discussing some topics.
 Fear from misinterpretation of nonverbal.

This increased awareness can make us uncomfortable

when communicating with people from other culture.
Cultures vary with their “do’s and taboos”
(What is good to do or bad to do)
• The effective cross-cultural
communicators learn what they
are and respect them.

Example: giving small gift to

Japanese visitor.
Any other examples??
Learning about cultural norms and variation in
communication styles of a particular cultural group
helps ensure understanding.
• Cultural norms are behavior patterns that are typical
of specific groups. Such behaviors are learned from
parents, teachers, and many others whose values,
attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors take place in the
context of their own organizational culture.
• It is helpful to understand the world-view and the
value systems different groups of people hold.
Barriers are more easily overcome if people see each
other as friendly, cooperative and trustworthy.
Variation in spoken language:
- We tend to make modification to our communication
depending on where and with whom we are
communicating. In class or in coffee shop.
- We change depending on informal or formal
relationships.
- How we think people will respond to our use of
slang or regional variation in dialect.
- Talking louder and slower when talking with
children or non-English speakers.
Variations in nonverbal communication: is the hidden
dimension of our communication :
• Use of time:(chronemics) how we regard time

• Use of personal space: proxemics

• Use of eye contact: oculesics

• Use of gestures (kinesics)

• Use of touch (haptics)

• Use of voice (vocalics)

 Barriers to Intercultural Communication
Four barriers to effectiveness in
intercultural communication:
1. Walking on eggs
Certain topics create tension for ethnic minorities
2. Hot buttons
words that invoke an emotional response in other
person.
3. Container myth
Is assumption that words mean the same thing across all
cultures
4. Language, vernacular (‫ (عاميه‬and
accent bias
Tools of diversity:
Overcome personal Biases
• Racism, stereotypes and discrimination negatively impact our
communication with others.

• These are the source of hurt feelings and result in

miscommunication, damaged relationships and loss in
productivity.

• Not only be sensitive to your own racisms but also develop

strategies to resist the racism that may occur in your
workspace.
Forms of racism:

• Overt racism (‫ (علني‬: such as “all… are lazy” or “they should go back
where they came from”.

• Symbolic racism: is attacking some symbol of importance to a particular

group of people.

• Arms – length racism: is suggesting that you don’t mind to work or know
minority people, but you oppose any closer relationship.

• Tokenism: believing that knowing one person from (different race….) is

enough to prove that he is not racist.

• Institutional Racism: Ideologies and structures that are used to

systematically legitimize unequal division of power and resources
between groups on the basis of race.
Some Important Definitions
Stereotype: negative beliefs about a particular group, it does not
consider people as individuals, it categorizes them as
members of a group who all think and behave in the same
way. We may pick up these stereotypes from what other
people say, from T.V or from what we read.

Prejudice: a set of rigid and unfavorable attitudes toward a

particular group. An unsupported judgment usually
accompanied by disapproval.
• Discrimination: the differential treatment based on unfair
categorization. It involves keeping people out of activities or
places because of the group to which they belong.
• Racism: the belief that one race is superior to another.
Scapegoating: The policy of blaming an individual or group when
the fault actually lies elsewhere. Those who we scapegoat
become objects of our aggression

Competence: Is an ability to accomplish goals while also

reducing misunderstanding and building strong interpersonal
relationships, these competencies will enhance your overall
quality of your life.