(Photo courtesy of socialmonsters.org)
Teamwork and the communication around it has become the stuff of trite sayings and one breath pep talks. In the movies, it comes with swelling music and the shift in the story arc. In real life, team communication can be tricky, requiring day-to-day refinements and a list of policies to maintain communication without violating boundaries. In some industries, poor communication can be disastrous and even fatal. It is these organizations that have made team communication an art that every business should emulate.
Lessons From the Healthcare Industry
When you are going into surgery, you want to know that all of the important information has been communicated. The difference between right and left can be important in these situations. Medical staff practice and are instructed on communication methods. Notetaking, feedback procedures and multidisciplinary messaging are all part of intense training. Research shows that this form of concentrated education will change the communication habits of a team. Team behaviors are not natural. If you want to communicate as a team then it is your responsibility to teach your staff how this is accomplished.
Working Like the Military
A lot can go wrong with bad communication in the military. The armed forces have a long history of implementing strategies for good communication and rapid team response. One of the primary methods is automation. Scientists studying the effects of team behavior while the participants flew multiple unmanned flying vehicles found that reliably automating some of the tasks significantly prevented a decline in team performance. An easy way to reproduce this effect in the office is to place your information on a cloud-based system and share software resources throughout the team. Doing this will automate your internal processes, increasing your team’s performance.
The Maritime Lesson
For those who live and work on the oceans, the flow of air, water and information are of utmost importance. The example that every business should take from the maritime industry is to know your flow. According to the International Maritime Organization’s Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping, communication should be precise, simple and unambiguous. Your team members need to keep their communication direct and you, as the boss, need to know how much communication is happening. Too many messages destroy any hope of simplicity and precision.
An Idea From Aerospace
In the aerospace industry, there are some messages that cannot be easily delivered via a note. Flight controllers cannot simply leave a notation about a low-flying plane and assume it will be seen in a timely fashion. To ensure that your team has the best communication, overlap shifts and responsibilities. Aerospace has a system of overlapping, so more than one team member is working at one time during the critical exchange of information time. By overlapping shifts or, if your organization does not require shift work, overlapping job functions, you force communication, making it a necessity to properly perform the task.
Learn From Educators
Most of what we learn about team behavior and communication happened when we were in school. There is a large body of research focused on the team dynamic in classes. The big rule here is for everyone to be positive. Studies have shown that positive team communication directly leads to group and individual boosts in performance. Create a culture of positive communication for the best working team.
