Problems of Personal Communication of Scattered Teams

Communication is an issue globally dispersed teams/ groups are facing these days because these teams have quite a few in person discussions and sometimes no face to face meetings because of being present in a distinct geographical location. Al Zain, Vasilache, Cynthia (2018) it is impossible for globally dispersed teams to meet regularly however it is preferred if these teams can meet once or twice to get to know each other. English is usually the global language for virtual teams, but sometimes virtual team participants find it hard to speak in English because it is not the first or the second language in many nations.

Zuofa, Ochieng (2017) Teleconferencing can be intimidating because one team participant may speak more fluently than others which will make it difficult for other team participants to comprehend the context or may result in missing key details. Not having proper arrangement for geographic teams to exchange ideas is also an issue which results in delayed understanding and directly effecting team performance. Less attendance during meetings is a factor caused by employees losing self-confidence in being able to talk to the group which results in impacting the performance of the project.

A case study was conducted by Jarvenppa, Leidner (1999) to analyze how communication can help create trust within globally distinct teams. This case study involved groups from all over the world except Antarctica. Participants were supposed to interact with each other and work on an assignment where they are not present in same location. This case study was conducted with the help of the information technology professors from all over the world. This case study was based on the three factors which were serving as baseline: no past communication existed between the teams; how to develop trust in teams using communications as a medium and practices to improve communication in order to bring teams together. At first, initial emails were exchanged between teams which were more like introductory emails. Surveys were conducted at different time intervals. First survey was taken after the email communication which was an introduction about all the members in the survey. This was the first point of communication between the groups.

The level of trust between groups was found very low. Survey was repeated at time interval II where communication was started through emails, but it was only work related and very minimal. The results were same on the level of trust. Third interval of time was captured weeks after the second one where the team was close to ending the assignment given to them and they were exchanging assignment related communication as well as personal communication (for e.g. how the day is going, what they did for the weekend, their hobbies and plans). The results from the third-time interval proved how personal communication can help build effective relationships and establish confidence which in turn helps the team in reaching the target on time or even before time.

Communication can be improved within teams if few of the team members are multi lingual. In Baldau, Dumitrascu (2017) article appropriate language training throughout the project will also be helpful. In most cases trainings are conducted in English. Formal sessions by project manager should be scheduled where every team member gets a chance to express their views. Writing and sending meeting minutes should be a practice which will help keep all the members of the team on the same page and will also help the team members in understanding the main points of the meeting.

Translation tools can be used to help understand the email if the common language is not same. Jarvenppa et al. (1999), regular chat with the team members not only about work discussions but also some personal communication help add value to the project.