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Reflection Paper #3 Culture and Teams

Amanda Poole Comm. 305A 001 10/04/10 Amanda.poole@qmail.queens.edu

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Amanda Poole Mrs. Gregory Comm. 305A-001 4 November 2010 Building a successful team within an organization can be a very difficult and challenging aspect. This is because many people do not even know how to work in teams, or the culture of which teams are built. There are also many factors that go into creating a thriving team within an organization, and many times these aspects have to be learned. Some of these aspects that should be included in successful organization team are cultural theory, communication networks, and the ability to solve conflicts within teams. Cultural theory has a huge impact on communication within organizations, which in turn can affect organizations ability to have a productive and cohesive team. According to Zaremba, cultural theory as applied to organizations refers to the perspective that there is a phenomenon that can be called organizational culture and that this phenomenon is a factor affecting organizational life and success. Culture theory enhances the expectation that markets work. This is because people are powered by social beings and their own thoughts and expectations (Serrat). According to Olivier Serrat, it can contribute to understanding and spreading the development where group relationships predominate and individualism is lessened. A culture that reflects the values sharing, collective activity, and participatory decision making facilitates the management of individual and collective knowledge (Serrat). An

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organization that demonstrates these values will probably have productive and cohesive teams within their company (Serrat). Basically, if an organization can learn how to thrive as one, instead of individuals, they are more likely to be a successful organization. Organizations need paths in order to pass information along, and we call these paths communication networks. According to Zaremba managers must create, cultivate, and nourish these networks, or paths, in order to permit the flow of information. One of the three basic network systems of communication networks includes formal and informal networks. Formal networks are those that are prescribed by the organization. These are official, appropriate channels for people to follow when relaying information (Zaremba page 134). According to Zaremba, informal networks are those channels that carry information on routes that are not prescribed by the organization. This can otherwise be known at the grapevine. Informal networks consist of several different types of grapevine methods that are extremely important in organizations. They include single strand, gossip, probability, and cluster. Sometimes informal networks can be more useful and help more than formal networks because the information travels faster. Communication networks are needed in order to build successful teams within organizations. Without the transfer on information through a company many employees would be left out and uninformed. Conflicts among groups are a common thing, but many people do not know how to analyze or deal with them. Four types of conflict include task, interpersonal, procedural, and conflict over inequity. This is basically the what, who, and how of a conflict. According to Zaremba there are five styles of conflict management. They include competition, avoidance, accommodation, collaboration, and compromise. To

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solve a conflict within a group one would need to determine an appropriate conflict management strategy. According to Zaremba, one would need to ask questions like, What the nature of the conflict is, or how deep the values are held? In order to resolve a conflict the manager should separate the people from problem, be nice to everyone involved, but hard on the problem (Zaremba page 184). It is important for them to focus on interests more than positions, and they should brainstorm ideas for possible solutions. In resolving a conflict within a team it is important to remain constructive and to focus on the best alternative to a negotiated solution (Zaremba page 184). Conflicts within groups are always going to occur and there is no way to avoid them completely. It is important for organizations to be aware of how to resolve them. Consequently, if an organizations team is in a conflict, then the work is most likely not getting done and this will cause the organization to suffer. This year on the tennis team here at Queens our head coach added a new assistant coach to the program. As a freshman last year, I personally believed that communication between the team and coaching staff was excellent. But, this year things have started off very abruptly and not as I expected. Since our new assistant coach has been added to the program communication networks have been much slower and sometimes even nonexistent. We receive emails the night before we have meetings or practice, and sometimes people do not even receive any emails. This is most likely caused by a managing conflict. There have been several misunderstandings between our assistant coach and head coach on who was sending e-mails which contain information to the players such as when practice was scheduled, meeting times with the team, and dealing with complaints and concerns. This has affected the overall

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communication process and effectiveness of our team. This has also led to an informal communication network, grapevine, in which the players on the team find information out from other teammates. This works most of the time, but is not as effective as a formal communication network would be. I believe it is possible to build, or manufacture, an organizational group identity and culture. Organizations do not just start with an identity. It is something that has to be made and identified by the company and the employees have to learn it. Just like how all people are not often efficient team members. Being successful in a group or team is something that has to also be learned by many people, while to others it comes naturally. Building an efficient and cohesive team is a very challenging thing to do. But, when an organization has a productive team and culture, they will surly thrive.

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Works Cited Serrat, Olivier. "Culture Theory." Asian Development Bank: Fighting Poverty in Asia and the Pacific -- ADB.org. 22 Dec. 2008. Web. 03 Nov. 2010

Zaremba, Alan Jay. Organizational Communication. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.