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5 May 2006

Communication plays important part in determining success for today’s organizational teams

Good communication is among the top five characteristics needed by teams and leaders to succeed in a complex working environment.

Recent research has identified good communication along with strong organizational support, high levels of leadership competence, team coaching and clear objectives are crucial to the success of teams working in across a geographical or organizational spread.

And, according to the report, Succeeding in Complexity, published by training consultancy Ashridge, high-performing teams have a clear communications strategy plus focused and developed communication skills that aren’t dependent on meetings, as well as a high degree of trust among team members.

Remote communication not a barrier
It also found a lack of face-to-face working needn’t be a barrier to good communication and working relationships, as 58% of the high-performing teams meet up only annually or less. The telephone is used for a host of activities, including selection interviewing, performance reviews and problem solving.

Qualitative and quantitative research among 300 leaders and members of complex teams working in a variety of sectors enabled the identification of the highest performers* and the factors – in terms of leadership, team development and HR support – that were vital to their success.

Teams becoming more complex
The research pointed to teams being increasingly complex, with 73% of respondents working in multi-disciplinary teams, 70% dispersed geographically and 57% working across organizational boundaries. Nineteen percent worked in five or more separate teams. This creates significant challenges for the team leaders, team members and HR functions that support them.

Pam Jones, co-author of the report and program director at Ashridge, said: “Communications difficulties, changing priorities, lack of time to meet up with other team members as well as working across cultures and time zones, can contribute to unhappy and frustrated employees.”

Matching leadership style to team complexity
The research also identified four leadership styles, appropriate to differing levels of team maturity and complexity, ranging from traditional hierarchical “manager” to “improviser.” High-performing leaders all demonstrated good skill levels, particularly in communication, managing upwards and outwards, agreeing outputs and team coaching and development.

*Identifying high performance
High-performance teams and leaders were isolated and their responses compared to that of the general group. High-performing teams were identified in three ways:
-Interviews with team leaders who stood out as being models of excellence in leading complex teams.
-180° feedback from the team members using the survey questionnaire and focusing on the responses to the question: “How do you rate your team leaders/performance in the following areas?"
-All high-performing teams were succeeding and delivering on their targets.

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