Effective Communication

 Last week, we talked about working in teams  Plants  Resource Investigators  Coordinator  Shaper  Monitor Evaluator  Team Worker  Implementer  Completer Finisher  Specialist

 Forming  Storming  Norming  Performing

 The group is not yet a group but a set of individuals. This stage is characterized by talk about the purpose of the group. The definition and the title of the group, its composition, leadership pattern, and life-span. At this stage, too, each individual tends to want to establish his personal identity within the group, make some individual impression.

 Most groups go through a conflict stage when the preliminary, and often false, consensus on purposes, on leadership and other roles, on norms of work and behaviour, is challenged and re-established. At this stage a lot of personal agendas are revealed and a certain amount of inter-personal hostility is generated. If successfully handled this period of storming leads to a new and more realistic setting of objectives, procedures and norms. This stage is particularly important for testing the norms of trust in the group.

 The group needs to establish norms and practices. When and how it should work, how it should take decisions, what type of behaviour, what level of work, what degree of openness, trust and confidence is appropriate. At this stage there will be a lot of tentative experimentation by individuals to test the temperature of the group and to measure the appropriate level of commitment.

 Only when the three previous stages have been success fully completed will the group be at full maturity and be able to be fully and sensibly productive. Some kind of performance will be achieved at all stages of development but it is likely to be impeded by the other processes of growth and by individual agendas. In many periodic committees the leadership issue, or the objective and purpose of the group, are recurring topics that crop up in every meeting in some form or other, seriously hindering the true work of the group.

 Which communication method should you use?  Electronic?  Face to face?  Synchronous?  Asynchronous?

 Social World  Pragmatics  Semantics  Syntactics  Empirics  Physical World

 Empirics  Physical World

 Syntactics  Empirics  Physical World

 Semantics  Syntactics  Empirics  Physical World

 Pragmatics  Semantics  Syntactics  Empirics  Physical World

 Social World  Pragmatics  Semantics  Syntactics  Emprirics  Physical World

 If all communication is carried by signs  For communication to succeed we need to consider all the rungs on the Semiotic Ladder

 Primitive  In terms of technology  Sophisticated  In terms of complex interplay between different channels  Not just speech and hearing  Also body language & eye gaze

 How much space do you need?  Different cultures allow different distances  Environmental factors (such as noise) affect space  But can you be comfortable?  How about when Video Conferencing?

 Can I control the zoom on their camera, and they control mine?

 What’s it for?  Lovers  Checking attention  Conveying interest / confusion / boredom  Authority / Power  Building a bond  How about on video conferences?

 Aha!  Erm!  Hmmm…!  Er!  Um!  Uhh!

 For Confirmation / Interruption  Electronic communication reduces the channels available;  Sight  Sound  Gesture  As we lose channels, we lose back channel responses

 Context helps us understand, and back channels provide context;  Internal context  Depending on previous utterances  External context  Depending on the environment

 A conversation is a series of turns…  I could request a ‘turn’ with “well, uh…”  You could offer a ‘turn’ with “what do you think?”  Often turns are signified with a pause or gap in conversation.  We live in a physical world, and physics says communication can not be instant…  Quick(er), but not instant  Given these pauses are short, often the pauses are lost during telecommunication  Leading to confused conversations

 We are efficient at repairing communication breakdowns  However with electronic communication  Lack of redundant channels  Reduced turn taking frequency  Reduced back channels  In reality it isn’t the breakdowns that cause problems, but the inability to recover from them.

 What is different between reading a book, and sitting in class?  Here we can build a common ground  Much of communication is concerned with building common ground  Utterances should be relevant & helpful  Relevant – continuing the current topic  Helpful – considering the listeners knowledge & understanding

 Common & Familiar  From letters to Google wave  Very different style from face-to-face communication  Discrete: directed messages such as , with no explicit connection between messages  Linear: Participants messages added in temporal order to a single transcript  Non-linear: messages are linked together in hypertext fashion  Spatial: Messages arranged across 2D surface

 Text based communication loses channels  Gesture, Body Language, Facial Expressions  Loss of Affective State of speaker  Happy, Sad, Angry, Humorous  Loss of Illocutionary Force of the message  Importance, Urgency

 Emoticons are often used to convey this  :-)  ;-)

 Text based communication is often more heated, by calmer conversants  Stronger language, as message has to be explicit  Emotionally distanced, often time to calm down between messages

 Becoming more or less important?  Originally was unreliable  “I didn’t get it” ;)  No guilt felt  Originally we wouldn’t react the same way to an as a formal letter  But different cultures treat differently

 Different environments  Cotemporality?  Message is seen as soon as it is typed  Simultaneity?  Participants send and receive at the same time  Sequential?  Utterances are ordered  How often have you misunderstood an online conversation due to sequential issues?

 Choose the right method for the conversation…  Is it professional?

 Effective place to make decisions and keep all members informed. There are good meetings and bad meetings;  BAD meetings run on forever, with no focus, no point, and make you wonder why you’re there.  GOOD meetings leave you feeling energised and feeling like you’ve accomplished something.

 Prepare for the meeting:  Why are we meeting?  Do make a decision?  To generate ideas?  To get status reports?  To communicate something?  To make plans?  Who needs to be here?

 Prepare an Agenda  Reports from Subcommittees  Continuing Business  New Business  Communicate in Advance  Send the Agenda out  Ensure all attendees are available at the time, and are aware of the meeting

 1) Attendance  2) Approval of Minutes  3) Ongoing Business  3.1 Item 1  3.2 Item 2  4) New Business  4.1 Item 1  4.2 Item 2  5) Any Other Business

 Consider the room layout:  Can everyone see each other?  The ‘U’ layout.  Encourage participation  Let everyone have their say.  Don’t let people dominate discussions, encourage quieter people to contribute.  Don’t allow side meetings  Keep people focused on the main discussion  Other meetings can happen at other times

 Handle Conflict  Positive healthy conflict promotes discussion before decision making  Negative, personal attacks poison the atmosphere  Identify common goals, and use them as the direction towards agreements.  Reach Consensus  Don’t leave decisions / actions hanging.  Who is responsible for the next step?  When will they finish their task?

 Why do we write minutes?  An accurate record of a meeting – and all decisions taken.  We can forget things! (Like what we should be doing before the next meeting)  We can be absent! By reading the minutes I should understand what happened at the meeting.  To avoid discussing the same topics again and again.  To hold people accountable.

 What should the minutes tell us?  When was the meeting?  Who attended?  Who did not attend? (And who sent apologies in advance)  What topics were discussed?  What was decided?  What actions were agreed upon?  Who is to complete the actions, and by when?  Where materials distributed at the meeting? (If so can we include a copy?)  When is the next meeting?

 Do write (and distribute) the minutes straight after the meeting.  Those who attended will be reminded what they should be doing.  Those who didn’t can catch up quickly.  Don’t skip minutes just because everyone attended.  I have the memory of a fish!  Don’t describe “he said”, “she said” (unless it’s important)  Record the topics discussed  Record the decisions made  Record the action items  Record the above in enough detail that someone who missed the meeting can also understand the key rationale for decisions / actions etc.

 Don’t include anything that will embarrass someone.  “At which point John ran out screaming for his Mum!”  Use positive language  It wasn’t heated and angry, it was lively and energetic  Especially important if you disagree with the decisions made

 Preparation!  Both the slides & the technology  Don’t just read from the slides  Practice, practice, practice

 You don’t need to be the ‘leader’ to be the ‘leader’…?  Is leadership “Nature” or “Nurture”?