Communication + Virtual Teams

Communication

Communication is defines as "any act by which one person gives to or receives from another person information about that person's needs, desires, perceptions, knowledge, or affective states. Communication may be intentional or unintentional, may involve conventional or unconventional signals, may take linguistic or nonlinguistic forms, and may occur through spoken or other modes."1 It is a learned skill or process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior. For humans the interpersonal communication is an important process because it’s the base for relationships. There are some important and necessary elements involved during this process: the communicator, the receiver, the perceptual screens, and the message. But there are also some issues and barriers that humans have to overcome like the noise, distance, age, gender, encode and decode, language barriers, and the feedback. All of these have an important role in the way individuals communicate and interpret. Communication is the key to social support.

For organizations, communication plays a really important role at the moment in which managers have to express rules, goals, ideas and opinions to employees. It is what links managers and workers to share information and vice versa. Leaders have to maintain an effective communication with everyone inside the organization. Clarity, a specific objective (purpose of the message), a full understanding, consistency, completeness, feedback and time are some principles in order to have an effective communication. There are different types of managers in each organization and each one uses singular approaches. There are five different ways managers exercise their role:

1. The expressive speaker:This type of managers openly express thoughts, opinions, ideas and feelings which help employees know where they stand.

2. The emphatic listeners: These types of leaders are really patient and are willing to listen. They worry about others but don’t take responsibility for their actions.

3. The persuasive leaders: These leaders encourage others to achieve goals instead of given orders.

4. Sensitive to feelings leaders: This leader is sensible to feelings and self image. Tries to take critical perspectives and provide negative feedback in a constructive way. Works to improve employee self-esteem.

5. Informative managers: These managers are willing to maintain open communication with employees. They avoid information overload.



Virtual Teams

Virtual teams are defined as: “known as a Geographically Dispersed Team (GDT) – is a group of individuals who work across time, space, and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology. They have complementary skills and are committed to a common purpose, have interdependent performance goals, and share an approach to work for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Geographically dispersed teams allow organizations to hire and retain the best people regardless of location.”2 Virtual teams have some specific characteristics which are: geographically dispersed over different time zones, driven by a common purpose, enabled by communication technologies, involved in cross-boundary collaboration, not permanent, small team size, knowledge workers and members may belong to different companies.

There are different types of virtual teams which vary in the number of people and the degree of interaction. There are four types:

1. Teleworkers: “Allows employees to work at home or at a local telework center one or more days per week using communication tools, such as such as phone, fax, modem, Internet teleconferencing, e-mail or IM, to perform work duties from a remote location.”3

2. Virtual teams: “Are teams of people who primarily interact electronically and who may meet face-to-face occasionally.”4 They have common goals and are visible in the organization structure.

3. Virtual communities: Are larger entities with common purposes, roles and norms. “Virtual community is a social network of individuals who interact through specific media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals.”5 People participate and interact via internet.

4. Virtual groups: Are a combination of a number of teleworkers that have no common goals or objectives with independent tasks and activities. These groups are flexible, save time and money. They require strong coordination, good communication and advanced technology.

Questions

1. Communication is a process that allows organizations to send/receive messages within their own boundaries but also to interact with outside entities (customers, suppliers, the media, etc.). Messages are send/received not only through oral and written statements, there are many channels and ways that need to be considered when discussing effective organizational communication. In that sense, the use of sounds has become increasingly important.

Based on the article “If Intercontinental were a sound…what would it be?” Please discuss the implications (potential advantages, disadvantages, challenges, etc.) of using sounds to send strategic messages. You need to integrate the use of key concepts relating to the topic of communication to support your answer.

I think that communication by sounds can make things much more difficult and confusing. For some people understanding certain words, languages and concepts can be hard. For organizations having a good communication with their employees can be hard if leaders don’t use simple language and basic ideas. Imagine if sometimes people don’t understand what their boss is trying to say even though they speak the same language, how it would be if they communicate by sounds. An organization to communicate all of its components by sounds will not only be hard but it will also leave important information aside and maybe it won’t be clear.

Clarity, a specific objective (purpose of the message), a full understanding, consistency, completeness are some of the principles for an effective communication which are not completely satisfied when a message is given through a melody. This type of messages are unclear and confusing, and don’t send a clear purpose. They don’t give a general image of the organization and the message is not consistent because they can be subjective.

“There are many aspects to verbal communication and social interaction with others. To communicate well on a verbal level a person must be able to: hear well, translate thoughts into words with fluency, speak well, feel confident in themselves and desire to make contact. Any difficulties in one of these areas will restrict the exchanges needed for an easy conversation.”6 If we analyze this we can conclude that verbal communication can be affected easily and it is kind of complicated. Communication by sounds could be easier because people don’t have to speak, don’t have to learn language rules but they have to hear well.


References

1. http://www.unm.edu/~devalenz/handouts/defcomm.html

2. http://managementhelp.org/grp_skll/virtual/defntion.pdf

3. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/T/teleworking.html

4. http://www.seanet.com/~daveg/vrteams.htm

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_community

6. http://www.soundtherapy.com.au/information_sheets/communication.pdf

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_communication

Images Taken From:

- http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_185/1189978433pU44RK.jpg

- http://pmtips.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/virtual_team1.jpg