Effective Communication: How Distributed Teams Excel at It

This essay argues that communication is enhanced within distributed teams. It posits that dedicated communication lines, the use of effective collaboration tools, specific communication guidelines, and the implementation of check-ins and milestones contribute to improved communication. The essay supports these arguments with theoretical references, concluding that distributed teams, by adhering to predefined frameworks and maintaining digitalized records, foster better communication and achieve overall goals. The document is contributed by a student and available on Desklib, a platform providing AI based study tools for students.

Running head: COMMUNICATION
COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Topic: Communication gets better by working in distributed teams
Introduction
Communication forms a critical part of the organization and with respect to this, it
becomes critical for all the firms as present in the business environment to ensure that, they are
able to make sufficient use of the different management communication tools in order to transfer
the overall goals of the organization and in addition to this, it also comes in useful to achieve the
overall goals of the firm. According to Berkun (2013), distributed teams often perform well and
help the associated organization in achieving their overall goals and objectives. Although these
teams work on an online platform, the connection between them is considerably strong. Hence,
the main aim of the report is to present an argument for the statement- Communication gets
better by working in distributed teams. The stands for the statement shall be presented which
shall then be followed by the description of the different communication channels which are used
in the communication and the frequency of their use.
Stands for the statement
In line of the statement, that Communication is better in the distributed teams, the
following arguments can be presented:
 The communication is better in the distributed teams because, they make use of dedicated
communication lines. When it is a known fact that, the different teams are situated away
from one another then, the team members often make use of the right means of
communication from the beginning (Bjørn and Ngwenyama 2009). This means that, the
communication channels which are set up by them include mediums like virtual

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meetings, regular office communication and collaboration on different projects, which
provides the team with a sense of purpose, energy and enthusiasm.
 The second argument in support of the virtual team members is that, they tend to perform
well and are more likely to achieve their overall goals because they make use of the right
collaboration tool (Kaul 2014). This means that the virtual and distributed teams ensure
that they take advantage of the digitalization and share the relevant documents on a
virtual basis like making use of the Google drive, which helps in maintaining the overall
transparency of the system and along with this, also allows the users to ensure that they
are able to keep a record of all the data being transmitted in the systems and that, they are
not leaving out the sharing of any important information (Mai and Hoffmann 2014). As
everything is digitalized in he distributed teams, there exists no chances of
miscommunication which may thereby lead to a misunderstanding.
 Thirdly, the reason why the communication in the distribution can be understood to be
better is because they have specific guidelines to communicating effectively. This means
that, in order to ensure success in the long run, the distributed teams often have specific
guidelines with respect to the flow of information which is required to take place in an
organization. Although the distributed teams may make use of the communication tools
in any medium of their choice however, forming specific guidelines helps to make the
procedure comparatively easier, for instance, the emails can be used for the messages
which aren’t urgent in nature, in addition to this, the instant pinging and related measures
can be used to communicate urgent messages (Gupta et al. 2009). Moreover, mediums
like conferencing calling can be used to hold meetings. Hence, as the distributed teams

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function by these specific guidelines, it assists them in attaining their overall goals and
ensuring that, they are able to outperform
 Lastly, the reason why the distributed teams perform well can be communicated to the
fact that, make use of check-ins and milestones and celebrate success (Bovée, Thill and
Raina 2016). As these members are not close to one another in an organization, they
often make use of various check-ins, milestones and other such procedures to celebrate
success in the long run. In this manner, the firm is able to ensure that the distributed team
remains motivated to perform for the welfare of the organization and that, they are able to
maintain their higher morale. The virtual teams often engage in communication meetings
more than the real time teams and this is the reason, why irrespective of not being present
in front of one another, these teams are able to maintain a strong communication link
(Pearson 2017).
Conclusion
Therefore, the given paper presented an argument for the statement that- Communication
gets better by working in distributed teams. The paper identified four stands in support of the
particular statement and each of the statements presented were supported by a theoretical
references. It was identified that as these virtual teams communicate on a predefined framework,
communicate more often and maintain digitalized records of the same, they are able to ensure
that they will be successful in the long run and that the communication is better amongst them
because they function as per predefined rules and are approachable. Hence, these stands support
the fact that communication is better in the distributed teams.

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References
Berkun, S. 2013. The Year without pants - Wordpress.com and the future of work. Jossey-Bass
Bjørn P., and Ngwenyama O. 2009. Virtual team collaboration: building shared meaning,
resolving breakdowns and creating transluencence. Information Systems Journal 2009, 19,227-
253
Bovée, C.L., Thill, J.V. and Raina, R.L., 2016. Business communication today. Pearson
Education India.
Gupta A., Mattarelli E., Seshasai S. and Broschak J. ,2009. Use of collaborative technologies and
knowledge sharing in co-located and distributed teams: Towards the 24-h knowledge factory.
Journal of Strategic Information Systems 18, 147-161
Kaul, A., 2014. Effective business communication. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..
Mai, R. and Hoffmann, S., 2014. Accents in Business Communication: An integrative model and
propositions for future research. Journal of consumer psychology, 24(1), pp.137-158.
Pearson, R., 2017. Business ethics as communication ethics: Public relations practice and the
idea of dialogue. In Public relations theory (pp. 111-131). Routledge.