Personal and professional communication

Communication is essential throughout our daily life, both personally and professionally. Our tendency to form groups is a persistent aspect of life. Communication skills are vital when working towards a common goal as a part of a team. By observing and evaluating yourself when in interaction with others is one key to learning how to communicate effectively. Group work demonstrates capacity to communicate effectively, share and consider opinions, establish trust, analyse the group process, resolve conflicts and also develop creativity. A group can be defined as two or more humans that interact with one another, accept expectations and obligations as members of the group, and share a common identity. One of the most commonly used methods to assess performance is through reflective evaluation. In this assignment, I have been asked to reflect on my communication patterns whilst working within a group.

This semester we were asked to work in small groups of 4 – 5 students to prepare a 20 minute information session on the completion of documentation and perform a presentation in front of the class. I will demonstrate my understanding of group dynamics and communication skills and briefly explain my contribution to the group presentation.

“Team members are described as having complementary skills, being committed to a common purpose and holding themselves accountable for their performance.” These descriptions make it clear that teams are about working together as a group, and each member of the team has a purpose within the group, in working toward a common goal. Team members share goals and are mutually held accountable for meeting them. To be effective, team members must be flexible and tolerant. “In order for teamwork to be successful there must be open and effective communication between the team members.” Open communication means that all members of the team have their chance to share ideas without being criticized. Establishing such communication between all members is vital for productivity and goal attainment. “If effective, the team is more likely to utilize the full range of diverse knowledge and skills available.” Because the team is held collectively accountable the work of integrating with one another is included in the responsibilities of each member. Unequal levels of participation between the members of the team may also inhibit the smooth running of a team. (Caldwell et al) Group working allows the pooling of people’s individual skills and knowledge, and helps compensate for individual deficiencies.

Working in teams can prove very challenging, with variations in personalities, strengths, and weaknesses, most of these issues are raised face to face with individuals, and can be resolved by finding a room to sit and talk them out.

During the group work activity I learned how to work with different personalities. Everyone approached the topic differently. I think each group member brought a unique perspective to the group, which helped to create ideas and allowed the group discuss each angle with each other.

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Our group decided to divide the topic up into categories with subheadings; each group member was then responsible for writing a paragraph on one bullet point, ensuring we distributed the work fairly among the group. However, we did all of the brainstorming as a group and used group meetings to create outlines for the designated point person to follow. Once a draft was written, each group member edited it and gave comments, but final adjustments were left to the writer’s discretion. This was to ensure that our categories flowed nicely. We then met as a group and collectively created a PowerPoint presentation with the information we had gathered, instead of having one person doing the majority of the work.

All members participated actively, trying to impose their point of view. I think everyone had equal opportunity to voice their opinions and incorporate their ideas into the presentation. I thought working in a group setting was really valuable. We had the opportunity to work in a group, enabling us to expand our communication skills, and become more aware of our behaviour in group situations.

In summary, Teamwork is the interaction or relationship of two or more people, who work interdependently towards a common goal. Team-based methods of working have many advantages. Team working has been viewed as an effective way of improving the performance effectiveness, and quality of working life, in organization. Working in a team requires effective communication. One of the most important points for teamwork to be successful is for every member of the team to have patience or tolerance for the opinions of the rest of the team members. By having all team members respect each other’s opinion, not only will there be an increase in productivity but in teamwork itself.

and increase their understanding of the consequences of their actions in groups.

experience the usefulness of reflection as a learning tool for professional development.

to a communication topic of importance to professional development as a registered nurse

That way, the point person was more of a transcriber of the group’s ideas, rather than having to do the entire analysis himself or herself.

A healthcare system that supports effective teamwork can improve the quality of patient care, enhance patient safety, and reduce workload issues that cause burnout among healthcare professionals.

Teams function differently depending on where they operate. It also highlights the need for a common definition of “team.”

Teamwork is influenced by organizational culture. Teams need training to learn how to work together and understand the professional role/responsibility of each member. A healthcare system that supports effective teamwork can improve the quality of patient care, enhance patient safety, and reduce workload issues that cause burnout among healthcare professionals.

Yet, while many patients, caregivers, health professionals, and decision makers may be ready to embrace collaborative healthcare, current policies and systems issues are acting as barriers hampering the transformation to team-based healthcare.

From these sources the team identified the challenges of building and maintaining effective teamwork. These include the lack of a common definition of teams and teamwork; the relationship between teamwork and collaboration; the spectrum of collaboration in healthcare; organizational factors affecting teamwork; and the implications of current policy, regulation, and legislation on teams.

Teams function better when they are working in an organizational culture that supports teamwork and they have strong leadership and effective administrative support.

Numerous forums and government reports have called for improved collaboration among healthcare professionals as a key strategy in healthcare renewal. Recent initiatives by Health Canada have also called for improved interprofessional collaboration in healthcare. The project team worked in six sub-teams to explore specific components of teamwork including: effectiveness of teams; types of interventions; healthcare team dynamics; and the impact of government infrastructure, patient safety, legislation.

While not all health professionals work in teams, health professionals’ perception as to whether or not they belong to a team varies despite the perceptions of others. For example, in some cases healthcare professionals see themselves as working in uni-professional teams (for example, a nursing team), while others see themselves working in institutionally based teams (such as a stroke team comprised of a range of professions). In addition, individuals receiving care may have their own perception of their healthcare team based on the health professionals they receive care from.

The complexity of the health issue defines the task in which a group of health professionals engages. A task may be an action, decision, or health service performed by a health professional or team in relation to a patient’s health issue. Effective teamwork is achieved when all the levels within the healthcare system can work together.

This fundamental change in the healthcare system will require a collaborative team effort.

There are team units in our lives that we chose to be in, and then there are those that we are simply put in without a choice. It is usually these groups that have we will have the most conflict. I have had the ability to view a lot of different team settings through my work and family life. Being part of a team brings to my mind many things, both the good and bad experiences that I went through while working with team members and others in my life.

Conference calls where members of a team can be divided into small groups to work on different things at different site can all communicate at the same time without the necessity of all being in the same location.

Email is also a great way to create great communication among team members. An individual can use email to keep in touch with team member and is an easy way to get a hold of another member of the team as soon as possible as long as there is an internet access near.

A vital part also comes in the form of a team leader that takes a hold of things and shapes up things to come. Such group leader should be able to make a schedule for what has to be done and also should be able to create deadlines for specific individuals and for the group as a whole.

Along with schedules and deadlines, a team leader should over see that specific tasks are given to specific individuals of the group; certain individuals may be more suitable and/or qualified to complete a certain task than other member of the team. By doing so, efficiency would greatly increase and prove beneficial to the team.

Another beneficial point is for everyone in the group to be kept up to date to where the team is at a specific moment. Periodically doing so lets them find out where they are as a team and therefore lets them decide whether they need to take certain action or not to completing the project successfully.

to avoid any discordance and future altercations among them.

A definition of the term group should strike a balance between being sufficiently broad to include most social aggregates that are true groups and being sufficiently narrow to exclude most social aggregates that are not true groups.

A group of people share a range of qualities and characteristics which signifies it from other groups. One facet of the group’s entity is its emotional characteristics. Just as individuals have moods, emotions and dispositional affects, Groups possess similar attributes which influence aspects such as cohesiveness, performance and group members. These aspects, in their turn, also influence the group’s emotional state

As well as formal groups, committees and teams, there are informal groups, cliques and cabals.

Formal groups are used to organise and distribute work, pool information, devise plans, coordinate activities, increase commitment, negotiate, resolve conflicts and conduct inquests. It has been estimated that most managers spend 50 per cent of their working day in one sort of group or another, and for top management of large organisations this can raise to 80 per cent. Thus formal groups are clearly an integral part of the functioning of an organisation.

No less important are informal groups. These are usually structured more around the social needs of people than around the performance of tasks. Informal groups usually serve to satisfy needs of affiliation, and act as a forum for exploring self-concept as a…

‘… a group of individuals who work together to produce products or deliver services for which they are mutually accountable..’

Effective team building is a dynamic and interactive process that relies on continuous learning.

Many organizations undertake team building activities to improve their performance and help them to move more quickly through these stages.

– particularly important for vulnerable people with multiple and complex needs. Teams that include the user and involve relatives and friends in assessing needs and managing care can provide real partnership care that is focused on the resident as a person.

A team approach provides multiple perspectives within case discussion and enables joint planning to take place, but a sharing of responsibility for care also needs to be balanced by clarification of the lines of accountability.

as well as an understanding of the roles of other professions. The need for pre-qualifying education to prepare students to work as part of a team has been clearly articulated (Caldwell et al)

The use of an interdisciplinary approach can enrich students and health-care team members learning through exposure to a number of different perspectives (Gelmon, 1996). Students’ involvement in an interdisciplinary approach to learning early in their program has been shown to have a more positive outcome on team functioning (Bassoff, 1983). Typically, team members work in a parallel nature, with the only route of direct interdisciplinary communication being through physicians(RODEHORST et al)

Simulations may provide another way of learning that allows students as well as practicing health-care team members to problem solve and identify ways to work as an interdisciplinary team. (RODEHORST et al)

The team is not there to be controlled by a single profession; true interprofessional teams evolve and use all members to find new solutions to difficult problems. (CASTLEDINE)

These include improved planning, more clinically effective services, a more responsive and patient-focused service, avoidance of duplication and fragmentation, and more satisfying roles for healthcare professionals (Caldwell et al)

Team-based models of care have become a major focus in the current health care environment.

All of us have worked in teams at some point in our lives, and we all can recall a time we had interacting with others to meet team objectives.

In today’s work environment, it is not unusual to see people working in teams to accomplish tasks.