Enhancing Teamwork and Communication Strategies in Organizations

This report explores the crucial role of communication in both personal and professional settings, emphasizing its importance in conveying messages and fostering engagement. It delves into communication models like the Shannon Weaver model, various communication skills, and barriers to effective communication such as cultural differences and perpetual distortions. Using the case of John's group project, the report illustrates how these barriers can hinder teamwork and productivity. To address these issues, the report advocates for the application of social learning theory, emphasizing observation, mental states, and the understanding that learning doesn't always guarantee behavioral change. The report concludes by highlighting the significance of consistent learning, feedback, and the development of social relationships to improve communication and overall team performance, ultimately benefiting organizational objectives.

Effective team work and
communication

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Models of communication and the communication skills discussed in class and refer to any
case studies done to show how these helped your understanding...............................................3
Give examples of poor communication in your own or your friend’s workplace.......................5
Suggest how it could be improved by using your findings.........................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Communication plays an important role in both personal and professional life. It is
important as it helps to express and transfer a message from one person to another person.
Without communication it is difficult to determine that what an individual feels and wants to
express. There are different types of communication including verbal communication, non-verbal
communication, written communication visual communication. Communication helps in the
workplace to deliver organizational objectives, the task which is to be assigned to different
individuals, integrating group effort into a same direction and important for overall functioning
of the business organisation without proper an organisation might face difficulty in managing
employees and different business activities. The report revolves around the models of
communication, types of communication skills, examples of poor communication,
recommendations to improve communication (Akhtar and et.al., 2019).
MAIN BODY
Models of communication and the communication skills discussed in class and refer to any case
studies done to show how these helped your understanding
The Shannon Weaver model of communication was coined in the year 1948 by Shannon
Weaver. This model of communication talks how to facilitate effective communication between
the sender and receiver. In the flow of communication, noise is the factor that acts as disturbance
and affects communication process. The Shannon Weaver model of communication has different
concepts like sender, encoding, decoding, receiver, noise.
Sender is the person who wants to communicate and transfer message to another person or the
receiver of the message. Sender is the person who initiate the conversation or from where the
messages been transmitted.
Encoding: encoding is a process of converting the thoughts and expressions into a message that
can be understood by the receiver of the message. Encoding is the process of converting the
message into way easily understandable by the receiver. It also involves converting the message
into binary codes in the computer system transmit the message into virtual platforms (Cardon
and Marshall, 2015).

Decoding: after that the receiver receives the message he/she decodes the message into the
information which is easily understandable by him her. Decoding is a process where in the
receiver decodes the encoded message into a way which is easily understandable by the receiver
of the message.
Receiver is the person who receives the message from the sender. Receiver also responds back
to the message of the sender to encourage two-way communication between receiver and sender.
Noise is the physical disturbance that affects the process of communication between the sender,
such as crowd noise, horn sounds and so on. It disturbs the flow of communication and
misinterprets the real motive of communicational message (Eisenberg, Post and DiTomaso,
2019).
Types of communication
There are different types of communication including verbal communication, written
communication, non-verbal communication. Verbal communication happens when the sender
of the message starts interacting and speaking with others or to the receiver of the message
through a virtual medium or in person.
Non-verbal communication happens when an individual does not speak rather chooses to
express himself/herself with the help of suitable action words. These include special expression,
posture, eye contact, hand movement and touch.
Written communication happens when a sender delivers the information or the
communicational message in writing with the help of an email, a memo, report, a contract et
cetera. Written communication transfers the information in a clear and precise manner. Poor
written communication skills might lead to chaos and misinterpretation of the communication
message (Gray and et.al., 2015).
As seen in the case study of Barry and communication barriers, wherein Barry is working as a
Food service manager in a restaurant delegated for supervising and managing them employees at
work. Barry wanted to communicate food safety issues in the kitchen of the restaurant but due to
large number of employees, lack of training to the new employees because of busy schedules
affects the training and communication to the employees at work. Thus, in order to deliver clear

instructions and communicational message to all the employees Barry choose written
communication in huge signs posted so that each and every individual in the work clearly
understands the instructions. Written communication helped Barry to encourage effective
communication between him and employees where each and every individual can clearly read
the instructions every day and do not forgets to follow them.
Give examples of poor communication in your own or your friend’s workplace
There are certain barriers of communication such as cultural differences, physical
distractions, perpetual distortions, semantic problem and status effect. These barriers of
communication negatively affect the process of communication and leads to misinterpretations
of the communicational message. Taking examples of scenario of John who is a leader of the
group project work delegated by the manager of the organisation. While working in the group
project work, John phased different barriers of communication that made him difficult to engage
and deliver the group project objectives (Harris and Sherblom, 2018). Some of the barriers of
communication that John faced are discussed below:
Cultural differences
As people in the group belonged from different cultural and social backgrounds where some
people didn’t understand English as much, where some people did. People who belong to same
cultures and backgrounds often sat together while isolating the others. These differences of
cultures and social background lead difficulty for John to encourage group efforts and enhance
productivity.
Perpetual Distortions
Other barriers of communication that John faced in the group project was perpetual distortions.
As different people have different understandings to different subject matter. When John
communicated the objective and task to be performed by team members it often caused
confusion due to difference self-concept and self-understanding is where people form a prior
perception for things to be done in a way rather understanding the real objective of the message
(Hassell and Cotton, 2017).
Poor choice of communication channel

It is always important to choose the right communication channels to deliver the
communicational message to the individuals. John uses verbal communication channel to
transmit the information to his team members. The difficulty with verbal communication channel
is that the team members feels lack of interest due to tedious instructions and presentations, the
use of technical jargons and preferably English as a language which is not known by all in the
group, which sometimes disturbs the real message and creates chaos and misinterpretations, lack
of interest due to mental strains other personal issue.
Suggest how it could be improved by using your findings
In order to hasten in the flow of communication in the Workplace it is important that
John addresses the real issue and build one-on-one communication and belongingness with each
employees. Social learning theory can be added in John’s case in order to improve
communication in the group project. Social learning theory states that there are three concepts
first that people learn through observations and experiences. The internal mental state of an
individual plays a very crucial role for defining the behavior (Hoffart and et.al., 2017). Third, it
is not always necessary that if an individual learns something that will result in the behavioural
changes. Social learning theory focuses on integrating the efforts of an individual in the
workplace by integrating learning and satisfaction among the employees so that the overall
employee engagement can be focused upon and facilitate their contributions by delivering right
motivational factors. Social learning theory greatly works in order to hasten communication in
the work with the helps of intrinsic rewards so that the employees feels comfortable and driven
also that brings ways to fasten efficiency and productivity at work.
In John’s case he should deliver proper training in development, learning sessions, guidance,
scrutinize the work of each and every individual so that team members are able to learn through
observations and helps them to gain experience for handling particular delegated task. Apart
from that, John should also actively engage in the team project work so that the other team
members are able to learn through the observations in the project. John should also work on
delivering effective visual presentations, public speaking, reading and writing communication to
deliver right team project work (Komasawa and Berg, 2016).
Mental states play an important role

Defined in the social learning theory which states that an individual should be offered such
motivation factors that positively impacts the mental state of an individual. John should deliver
rewards and appraisal to the team members including financial and non-financial rewards so that
the team Members feel satisfied and engaged in the work. Motivation play an important role for
gathering hundred percent efforts of an individual, most importantly John should deliver positive
feedbacks so that the team members feel motivated and stimulated and rightly knows the areas to
be covered to enhance the performance and encourage productivity at work. Mental state of an
individual is always important because real dedication and determination towards the work does
not comes from external sources but it always comes up from internal self for putting efforts for
a task. John should focus for analyzing the needs and wants of team members that what they
actually want while working in a project, so that it becomes both easier for John and the team
members to integrate efforts and work together. John should use all the motivational factors in
order to ensure that team members are fully satisfied working in the group project so that they
give their best of the potentials at work (Marlow and et.al., 2018).
Learning does not necessarily lead to change
It is important to know that learning does not necessarily brings changes in the behavioural
characteristics of an individual. With the help of social learning theory John Should deliver
effective and proper learning and development the opportunity is to the team members wherein
the learn to enhance their work and improve communication but it is not necessarily important
that it brings changes in their overall behavioural characteristics. Some might even face
difficulties while managing project work, does John should facilitate one-on-one communication
by addressing the concerns and issues faced by each team members and focus for developing a
social relationship between the team members and John, so that the team members feel more
engaged and eliminates hesitation at work. Apart from that, it is always important to build
consistency while learning because it is difficult to say that whether the team members have
rightly understood through learning and training. It is always important to build consistency for
bringing a change in behavioural actions of an individual. John should deliver frequent
feedbacks, group meetings, learning an opportunities and thus build overall learning session to
ensure that the team members are fully engaged in the group activity. It will not only help to
improve the communication but also will help to build social relationships, engagement of

employees is in the work, develop skilled and competent team and will serve other benefits to
John for accomplishing team objectives (Murphy, Curtis and McCloughen, 2019).
CONCLUSION
The above report clearly talks about how communication plays an important role to
deliver and transfer a message from one person to another and important to engage with different
individuals, it is important in both personal and professional lives. Communication is a two-way
process that helps to transfer information from sender to receiver. There are different models of
communication such as Shannon Weaver model of communication which helps to define concept
of information flow to encourage proper communication, different types of communication
skills, the barriers of communication and for the recommendation Supported with cognitive
theory of communication.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Akhtar, S. and et.al., 2019. Antecedents of task performance: An examination of transformation
leadership, team communication, team creativity, and team trust. Journal of Public
Affairs. 19(2). p.e1927.
Cardon, P. W. and Marshall, B., 2015. The hype and reality of social media use for work
collaboration and team communication. International Journal of Business
Communication. 52(3). pp.273-293.
Eisenberg, J., Post, C. and DiTomaso, N., 2019. Team dispersion and performance: The role of
team communication and transformational leadership. Small Group Research. 50(3).
pp.348-380.
Gray, C. M. and et.al., 2015. What Problem Are We Solving? Encouraging Idea Generation and
Effective Team Communication.
Harris, T. E. and Sherblom, J. C., 2018. Small group and team communication. Waveland Press.
Hassell, M. D. and Cotton, J. L., 2017. Some things are better left unseen: Toward more effective
communication and team performance in video-mediated interactions. Computers in
Human Behavior. 73. pp.200-208.
Hoffart, G. and et.al., 2017. Assessing and developing the individual and team work
attribute. Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA).
Komasawa, N. and Berg, B. W., 2016. Interprofessional simulation training for perioperative
management team development and patient safety. Journal of perioperative
practice. 26(11). pp.250-253.
Marlow, S. L. and et.al., 2018. Does team communication represent a one-size-fits-all approach?:
A meta-analysis of team communication and performance. Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes. 144. pp.145-170.
Murphy, M., Curtis, K. and McCloughen, A., 2019. Facilitators and barriers to the clinical
application of teamwork skills taught in multidisciplinary simulated trauma team
training. Injury. 50(5). pp.1147-1152.
Royal College of Physicians, 2018. Team communication. British Journal of Healthcare
Assistants. 12(3). pp.142-147.
Setkhumbong, T., Na-Songkhla, J. and Tantrarungroj, P., 2020. A Literature Perspective of Key
Factors Influencing Creativity and Conceptual Model for Virtual Learning Team
Work. Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Studies (FORMER NAME SILPAKORN
UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, HUMANITIES, AND ARTS). pp.427-
460.