THE KEY ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION
In our research we identified three aspects of communication that affect team performance. The first is energy, which we measure by the number and the nature of exchanges among team members. A single exchange is defined as comment and some acknowledgement – for example, a “yes” or a nod of the head. Normal conversations are often made up of many of these exchanges, and in a team setting more than one exchange may be going on at one time.
The most valuable form of communication is face-to-face. The next most valuable is by phone or videoconference, but with a caveat: Those technologies become less effective as more people participate in the call or conference. The least valuable forms of communication are e-mail and texting.
The second straight important dimension of communication is engagement, which reflects the distribution of energy among team members. In a simple three-person team, engagement is a function of the average amount of energy between A and B, A and C, and B and C. If all members of a team have relatively equal and reasonably high energy with all other members, engagement is extremely strong. Teams that have clusters of members who engage in high-energy communication while other members do not participate don’t perform as well.
The third critical dimension, exploration, involves communication that members engage in outside their team. Exploration essentially is the energy between a team and the other teams it interacts with. Higher-performing teams seek more outside connections, we’ve found.
