Communicating in Teams

and Mastering Listening

and Nonverbal
Communication Skills

© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 1

 Overview
Overview of
of Teams
Teams

Advantages
Advantages Disadvantages
Disadvantages

Information & knowledge Groupthink

Diversity of views Hidden agendas

Acceptance of solutions Free riders

Performance levels High costs

© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 2

Team decision making can deliver the following benefits:

Increased information and knowledge. By aggregating the resources of
several individuals, teams bring more information to the decision process.
Increased diversity of views. Team members bring a variety of view points to
the decision process.
Increased acceptance of solutions. Those who participate in decision making
are more likely to support the decision and encourage others to accept it.
Increasing performance levels. Working in teams can unleash vast amounts of
creativity and energy in workers who share a sense of purpose and mutual
accountability.
Teamwork also has disadvantages. A team may develop groupthink, the
willingness of individual members to set aside their personal opinions and go
along with the rest of the team members, even if they are wrong. Some team
members may have a hidden agenda—private motives that affect the group’s
interaction. Other team members may be free riders—those who don’t
contribute their fair share to the group’s activities because they aren’t held
individually accountable for their work. Still another drawback to teamwork is
the high cost of coordinating group activities. Aligning schedules, arranging
meetings, and coordinating a project can eat up a lot of time and money.

2
 Characteristics of
Effective Teams
Clear Open
Purpose Communication

Consensus
Creative
Decision
Thinking
Making

Focused Conflict
Efforts Resolution

© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 3

Effective teams have a clear sense of purpose, communicate openly and

honestly, reach decisions by consensus, think creatively, remain focused, and
resolve conflict effectively. The purpose of developing an effective team is to
get members to collaborate on necessary tasks, and much of that collaboration
takes place in meetings.

3
 Preparing for Meetings

Purpose Participants

Agenda Location

© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 4

The key to productive meetings is careful planning of purpose, participants,

location, and agenda.
Decide on your purpose. In informational meetings, participants share
information and sometimes coordinate action. Briefings may come from each
participant or from the leader. In decision-making meetings participants
persuade, analyze, and solve problems. They are often involved in
brainstorming sessions and debates.
Select participants. Try to invite only those people whose presence is essential.
If the session is purely informational and one person will be doing most of the
talking, you can include a relatively large group. However, if you’re trying to
solve a problem, develop a plan, or reach a decision, try to limit participation
to between 6 and 12 people.
Choose an appropriate location. Decide where you’ll hold the meeting, and
reserve the location. Also, consider the seating arrangements.
Set and follow an agenda. Meeting agendas help prepare the participants.
Distribute the agenda to participants several days before the meeting so that
they know what to expect and can be prepared.

4
 Effective Focus

Meetings Procedures

Participation

Closing

Follow-Up
© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 5

The success of any meeting depends largely on the effectiveness of its leader.
The leader is responsible for staying focused: that is, keeping the meeting
moving along, pacing the presentation and discussion, and summarizing
meeting achievements.
One way a leader can improve the productivity of a meeting is by using
parliamentary procedure, a time-tested method for planning and running
effective meetings. The basic principles of parliamentary procedure can help
teams to transact business efficiently, protect individual rights, maintain order,
preserve a spirit of harmony, and accomplish team and organizational goals.
Some participants are too quiet and others are too talkative. The best meetings
are those in which everyone participates, so a leader must not let one or two
people dominate the meeting while others doodle on their notepads.
At the end of the meeting, the leader should summarize the discussion or list
the actions to be taken and specify who will take them and when. Wrapping
things up ensures that all participants agree on the outcome and gives people a
chance to clear up any misunderstandings.
As soon as possible after the meeting, the leader must make sure that all
participants receive a copy of the minutes or notes, showing recommended
actions, schedules, and responsibilities.

5
 The Listening Process
Message

Receiving
Receiving Interpreting
Interpreting Remembering
Remembering

Feedback Message

Responding
Responding Evaluating
Evaluating

Message
© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 6

By understanding the process of listening, you begin to understand why oral

messages are so often lost. Listening involves five related activities, which
usually occur in sequence:
1. Receiving: Physically hearing the message and taking note of it. Physical
reception can be blocked by noise, impaired hearing, or inattention.
2. Interpreting: Assigning meaning to sounds according to your own values,
beliefs, ideas, expectations, roles, needs, and personal history. The
speaker’s frame of reference may be quite different from yours, so you may
need to determine what the speaker really means.
3. Remembering: Storing a message for future reference. As you listen, you
retain what you hear by taking notes or by making a mental outline of the
speaker’s key points.
4. Evaluating: Applying critical thinking skills to weigh the speaker’s
remarks. You separate fact from opinion and evaluate the quality of the
evidence.
5. Responding: Reacting once you’ve evaluated the speaker’s message. If
you’re communicating one-on-one or in a small group, the initial response
generally takes the form of verbal feedback. If you’re one of many in an
audience, your initial response may take the form of applause, laughter, or
silence. Later on, you may act on what you have heard.

6
 Barriers to Listening

Prejudgment

Self-
Centeredness

Selective
Listening
© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 7

Because listening requires a mix of physical and mental activities, it is subject

to a variety of physical and mental barriers. A large part of becoming a good
listener is the ability to recognize and overcome these barriers.
Prejudgment. People operate on some basic assumptions. However, these
assumptions can be incorrect or inappropriate in new situations. Moreover,
some people listen defensively, viewing every comment as a personal attack.
Self-centeredness causes some people to take control of conversations, rather
than listening to what’s being said. No matter what subject is being discussed,
they know more than the speaker does—and they’re determined to prove it.
Another common problem is selective listening: letting your mind wander to
things such as whether you brought your dry-cleaning ticket to work. You stay
tuned out until you hear a word or phrase that gets your attention once more.
The result is that you don’t remember what the speaker actually said; instead,
you remember what you think the speaker probably said.
The important thing is to recognize these counterproductive tendencies as
barriers and to work on overcoming them.

7
 Effective Listening
• Find areas of interest
• Focus on content
• Hold your fire
• Listen for ideas
• Take selective notes
© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 8

Effective listening strengthens organizational relationships, enhances product

delivery, alerts the organization to innovation from both internal and external
sources, and allows the organization to manage growing diversity both in the
workforce and in its customers. Effective listening requires a conscious effort
and a willing mind. To improve your listening skills, heed the following tips:
Find areas of interest. Look beyond the speaker’s style by asking yourself what
the speaker knows that you don’t.
Judge content, not delivery. Evaluate and criticize the content, not the speaker.
Review the key points. Do they make sense? Are concepts supported by facts?
Hold your fire. Don’t interrupt. Depersonalize your listening so that you
decrease the emotional impact of what’s being said and are better able to hold
your rebuttal until you’ve heard the total message.
Listen for ideas. Listen for concepts and key ideas as well as for facts, and
know the difference between fact and principle, idea and example, and
evidence and argument.
Take selective notes. Take meaningful notes that are brief and to the point.

8
 Effective Listening
• Work at listening
• Block competing thoughts
• Paraphrase the speaker
• Stay open-minded
• Stay ahead of the speaker
© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 9

Work at listening. Look for unspoken messages. Often the speaker’s tone of
voice or expressions will reveal more than the words themselves. Provide
feedback. Let the speaker know you’re with him or her. Maintain eye contact.
Provide appropriate facial expressions.
Block out competing thoughts. Fight distractions by closing doors, turning off
radios or televisions, and moving closer to the speaker.
Paraphrase the speaker’s ideas. Paraphrase or summarize when the speaker
reaches a stopping point.
Stay open-minded. Keep an open mind by asking questions that clarify
understanding; reserve judgment until the speaker has finished.
Capitalize on the fact that thought is faster than speech. Stay ahead of the
speaker by anticipating what will be said next and by thinking about what’s
already been said.

9
 Receiving Telephone Calls
• Answer promptly

• Identify yourself

• Establish rapport

• Be positive

• Take messages

• Explain your actions

© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 10

To be as effective as possible when receiving calls, observe the following

helpful tips:
•Answer promptly and with a smile.
•Identify yourself.
•Establish the needs of your caller.
•Be positive.
•Take complete, accurate messages.
•Explain what you are doing.

10
 Making Telephone Calls
• Get ready
• Schedule the call
• Minimize distractions
• Introduce yourself
• Don’t take up too much time
• Maintain focus
• Use a positive close

© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 11

To be as effective as possible when making phone calls, keep in mind the

following tips:
•Be ready before you call.
•Schedule the call.
•Eliminate distractions.
•Make a clear, comprehensive introduction.
•Don’t take up too much time.
•Maintain audience focus throughout the call.
•Close in a friendly, positive manner.

11
 Using Voice Mail

Minimize Reduce
Time-Zones Paperwork

© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 12

Much more than a glorified answering machine, voice mail lets you send,
store, and retrieve verbal messages. Actually, voice mail is just a part of what
is now called voice processing, which can include an automatic attendant,
automatic call distribution, e-mail and paging integration, call forwarding, call
screening, and many other features.
Voice mail can be used to replace short memos and phone calls that need no
response. It is most effective for short, unambiguous messages. Like e-mail, it
solves time-zone difficulties and reduces a substantial amount of interoffice
paperwork.

12
 Effective
Voice Mail Greetings

Be
BeBrief
Brief Sound
Sound Keep
KeepCallers
Callers
and
andAccurate
Accurate Professional
Professional in
inMind
Mind

Make
MakeOptions
Options Update
UpdateYour
Your Respond
Respondto
to
Helpful
Helpful Greetings
Greetings Calls
CallsPromptly
Promptly

© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 13

Before recording your outgoing greeting for your own voice-mail system,
organize your thoughts. You want your message to be accurate and concise.
The following tips can make your voice mail greeting more effective:
•Be brief (less than 30 seconds) and accurately state what callers should do.
•Sound professional (businesslike and cheerful).
•Keep your callers in mind by encouraging detailed messages.
•Make options logical and helpful.
•Keep your personal greeting current.
•Check your voice mail regularly and respond to calls promptly.

13
 Effective
Voice Mail Messages

Keep
Keepthe
the Sound
Sound Avoid
AvoidPersonal
Personal
Message
MessageSimple
Simple Professional
Professional Messages
Messages

Replay
Replaythe
the Avoid
AvoidMultiple
Multiple Don’t
Don’tHide
Hide
Message
Message Messages
Messages Behind
BehindVoice
VoiceMail
Mail

© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 14

When you leave a message on someone else’s voice mail system, think about
your message in advance, and plan it carefully. Remember the following:
•Keep the message simple.
•Sound professional.
•Avoid personal messages.
•Replay the message before leaving the system.
•Don’t leave multiple, repetitive messages.
•Never hide behind voice mail.

14
 Nonverbal Communication

Intent

Spontaneity

Honesty

Efficiency
© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 15

The most basic form of communication is nonverbal communication: all the

cues, gestures, facial expressions, spatial relationships, and attitudes toward
time that enable people to communicate without words. Nonverbal and verbal
communication methods differ in terms of intent and spontaneity. You
generally think about verbal messages, if only for a moment. However, when
you communicate nonverbally, you sometimes do so unconsciously.
People’s actions often do speak louder than their words. In fact, most people
can deceive others much more easily with words than they can with their
bodies. Words are relatively easy to control; body language, facial expressions,
and vocal characteristics are not. By paying attention to these nonverbal cues,
you can detect deception or affirm a speaker’s honesty.
Nonverbal communication is also important because it is efficient. When you
have a conscious purpose, you can often achieve it more economically with a
gesture than with words. A wave of the hand, a pat on the back, a wink—all are
streamlined expressions of thought. However, nonverbal communication
usually blends with speech to carry part of the message—to augment,
reinforce, and clarify that message.

15
 Types of Nonverbal
Communication

Facial Use of Time Vocal

Expressions and Space Characteristics

Gestures Personal Touching

and Posture Appearance Behavior

© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 16

Your face is the primary site for expressing your emotions; it reveals both the
type and the intensity of your feelings.
By moving your body, you can express both specific and general messages,
some voluntary and some involuntary. Many gestures have a specific and
intentional meaning. Other types of body movement are unintentional and
express a more general message.
Your voice carries both intentional and unintentional messages. The tone and
volume and your accent and speaking pace say a lot about who you are, your
relationship with the audience, and the emotions underlying your words.
People respond to others on the basis of physical appearance. Because you see
yourself as others see you, their expectations can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Although an individual’s body type and facial features impose limitations,
most people are able to control their attractiveness to some degree.
Touch can convey warmth, comfort, and reassurance. Touching behavior is
governed in various circumstances by relatively strict customs regarding who
can touch whom and how. Touching has become controversial because it can
be interpreted as sexual harassment.
Time and space can be used to assert authority. Some people demonstrate their
importance by making other people wait; others show respect by being on
time. People can assert their status by occupying the best space. When others
stand too close or too far away, we are likely to feel ill at ease.

16
 Maximizing Nonverbal
Communication
• Avoid conflicting signals
• Strive for honesty
• Smile genuinely
• Maintain eye contact
• Be aware of posture and gestures
• Use appropriate vocal signals
© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 17

When communicating orally, pay attention to your nonverbal cues, and avoid
giving others conflicting signals. You can improve your nonverbal
communication by following these tips:
•Avoid giving conflicting signals.
•Be as honest as possible in communicating your emotions.
•Smile genuinely. Faking a smile is obvious to observers.
•Maintain the eye contact your audience expects.
•Be aware of your posture and of the gestures you use.
•Use appropriate vocal signals and minimize unintentional messages.

17
 Maximizing Nonverbal
Communication
• Know your audience
• Acknowledge comfort zones
• Shake hands appropriately
• Respect varying attitudes about time
• Use touch carefully
• Be aware of false cues
© Prentice Hall, 2004 Business Communication Essentials Chapter 2 - 18

•Know your audience. Imitate the appearance of people you want to impress.
•Respect your audience’s comfort zone.
•Adopt a handshake that matches your personality and intention.
•Be aware of varying attitudes toward time.
•Use touch only when appropriate.
•Be aware that people may give false nonverbal cues.

18