What’s Wrong With Team Communication?

By Gavin Hutchinson.

A lot has been written about one-to-one communication. Some might think that the principles remain the same once you scale up communication within a team. Mostly, they do, but team communication has added complications that need to be dealt with.

Let’s explore why teams add even more trouble to the already complicated communication minefield.

First, teams are going to grow. That’s just how it is in business. There’s always too much work, new expertise is required and so on. As teams grow, communication gets more complicated. If there are two people on a team (the minimum required number for a team), then there is one line of communication. If you add a 3rd person, the lines of communication suddenly jump to three. If you add a 4th, then the lines of communication jump to six. If the team grows to five, there will be ten lines of communication. When it’s six, there are 15 communication lines.

As the team grows, the lines of communication grow exponentially. We’ve got emails and meetings to help improve communication but they often hinder communication. What I usually hear from people is that they’ve got too many emails and too many meetings.

Whatever issues a company, team or person have regarding communication quickly gets multiplied when more people get involved.

So what can we do to cope?

We need to make sure we’ve got the foundations right first. Use all those tips, techniques and training courses you’ve been on. If people aren’t polite and don’t communicate one-to-one well in the first place, then nothing else you do will matter. This is something we all struggle with every day, even so-called ‘experts’ or ‘gurus’.

For example, many people automatically fall back on emails without thinking about it. Most people fire off an email when a quick phone call or walking across the office for a two-minute face-to-face chat would be far better.

In recent years we’ve also gained other technological tools to replace email and meetings in certain situations. Personally, I hate the word ‘wiki’. Why have people as stores of knowledge within an organisation when information can easily be digitised and placed in private online spaces for people to find?

The other day, a friend was lamenting his new job because all the information, systems and processes he needed to know were, as he put it, ‘in one bloke’s head and it takes him an hour to explain something that

should take 20 mins’. Or it would probably take five minutes to look up if it was in an operations manual.

Chat (as it is known nowadays, and by various other monikers depending on one’s age) is a hot new fad sweeping the corporate world. If you haven’t heard of Slack, where has your IT department been hiding? Real-time chat is probably preventing billions of emails from being sent every month. And while if poorly used, it can be just as overwhelming as email, it is another option to add to your communication toolbox.

This isn’t an exhaustive list – you can probably think up several more. Kanban, Agile, countless other systems, software and gadgets are out there. Just getting off autopilot will get you 80% of the way there. 

Before communicating en masse, ask yourself pertinent questions such as ‘do I really have to call this meeting? Who really needs to be there? What is the desired outcome of this meeting? Do I really need to send this email? Do I reallyneed to cc all these people? Can I just talk to someone quickly rather than contribute to their inbox anxiety?’

I once caught myself sending an email to someone who sat on a desk five feet away just to notify him the task he needed to be done was complete. So I just got up, walked over, and delivered the message that way.

In summary, don’t over-rely on meetings and email; people are already up to their eyeballs. Make use of new tools, systems and processes that are more appropriate. It doesn’t matter what tools you use if you’re not using them effectively. 

Gavin started his training career over 25 years ago working in both the public and private sectors.  Gavin is currently a Director of Quarterdeck( Quarterdeck.co.uk), a respected, renowned leadership and business training company based in the UK.

You can contact Gav at: [email protected]