Effective Communication

We did an exercise in class where we had to tell someone something that I liked about their outfit.  Then do it again and reword it with the word “but”.  The word “but” almost immediately puts you on the defensive.  However, in your day to day conversations, one would never think about it because it seems such a small and inconsequential thing, but it has a tremendous effect.  I have struggled all semester with getting my MOT team to side with my view on a couple of projects.  Even in our desert survival class exercise, I scored the least of everyone in our team with a 47, but our team average was a 76.  I failed to adequately communicate my position on some of the items as well as I was not as outspoken as some of the others.  There was actually someone on our team who said that the salt tablets were needed to produce water.  He was very adamant and seemed quite believable so we ranked it higher (9) when I had ranked it as at 14.  It was how he presented it that got us on his side.  Now when I think back to my team struggles, it was more because of how I was trying to get my ideas across. 

                This week alone I caught myself several times stating something positive and countering it with something negative; and I instantly noticed the mannerisms and facial expressions of the person I was speaking with change.  Small things - (1) word makes a big impact or difference for a conversation that was meant to be positive to in seconds be considered negative, thus putting then on the defensive.  At the end of the day, it looks like I have been the key to my own problems.

One Common Goal

Can teams work effectively together? If not, can you pin point the problem?  The answer to both - not always.  There are a lot of things that go into making a team effective.  For example, structure (Does everyone know their role and responsibilities?) and communication (Can everyone share their ideas and give and, most importantly, receive feedback?)

These are all great things, but mean absolutely nothing when everyone is not on the same page.  This past weekend we discussed in class two great examples of a team that did not work so well together (The Army Crew Team) and one that did (Everest).

The JV team was expected to not be the strongest team and felt they had “Nothing To Lose” so they gave their very best every time.  The Varsity team, on the other hand, thought they were strong individually and collectively they should have been the stronger team.  However, they were not.  There wasn’t any team cohesiveness.  They blamed each other.

In the Mount Everest film, I remember one of the team members saying something along the lines of “It doesn’t matter which side you fall off of.  You are in it every step of the way.”   They all as a team accomplished their goal versus individually.  They were able to sacrifice, endure uncertainty, and, unbelievably, to assist a blind man to climb to the top of Mount Everest.

At the end of the day, you may not personally like the people you work with or even share some of their day to day interests, but when you come together as a team, collectively the team should have a target in mind.  The Varsity team had to learn to have a common respect for each other.  Communication and structure are two to name a few in helping to build an effective team, but you have to have a common goal.