2;

Team decision making can deliver the following benefits:

Increased information and knowledge. By aggregating
the resources of several individuals, teams bring more
information to the decision process.
Increased diversity of views. Team members bring a
variety of view points to the decision process.
Increased acceptance of solutions. Those who
participate in decision making are more likely to support
the decision and encourage others to accept it.
Increasing performance levels. Working in teams can
unleash vast amounts of creativity and energy in workers
who share a sense of purpose and mutual accountability.
Teamwork also has disadvantages. A team may develop
groupthink, the willingness of individual members to set
aside their personal opinions and go along with the rest of
the team members, even if they are wrong. Some team
members may have a hidden agenda—private motives
that affect the group’s interaction. Other team members
may be free riders—those who don’t contribute their fair
share to the group’s activities because they aren’t held
individually accountable for their work. Still another
drawback to teamwork is the high cost of coordinating
group activities. Aligning schedules, arranging meetings,
and coordinating a project can eat up a lot of time and
money.
3
Effective teams have a clear sense of purpose,
communicate openly and honestly, reach decisions by
consensus, think creatively, remain focused, and resolve
conflict effectively. The purpose of developing an effective
team is to get members to collaborate on necessary tasks,
and much of that collaboration takes place in meetings.

4
The key to productive meetings is careful planning of
purpose, participants, location, and agenda.
Decide on your purpose. In informational meetings,
participants share information and sometimes coordinate
action. Briefings may come from each participant or from
the leader. In decision-making meetings participants
persuade, analyze, and solve problems. They are often
involved in brainstorming sessions and debates.
Select participants. Try to invite only those people whose
presence is essential. If the session is purely informational
and one person will be doing most of the talking, you can
include a relatively large group. However, if you’re trying to
solve a problem, develop a plan, or reach a decision, try to
limit participation to between 6 and 12 people.
Choose an appropriate location. Decide where you’ll hold
the meeting, and reserve the location. Also, consider the
seating arrangements.
Set and follow an agenda. Meeting agendas help prepare
the participants. Distribute the agenda to participants
several days before the meeting so that they know what to
expect and can be prepared.

5
The success of any meeting depends largely on the
effectiveness of its leader.
The leader is responsible for staying focused: that is,
keeping the meeting moving along, pacing the
presentation and discussion, and summarizing meeting
achievements.
One way a leader can improve the productivity of a
meeting is by using parliamentary procedure, a
time-tested method for planning and running effective
meetings. The basic principles of parliamentary procedure
can help teams to transact business efficiently, protect
individual rights, maintain order, preserve a spirit of
harmony, and accomplish team and organizational goals.
Some participants are too quiet and others are too
talkative. The best meetings are those in which everyone
participates, so a leader must not let one or two people
dominate the meeting while others doodle on their
notepads.
At the end of the meeting, the leader should summarize
the discussion or list the actions to be taken and specify
who will take them and when. Wrapping things up ensures
that all participants agree on the outcome and gives
people a chance to clear up any misunderstandings.
As soon as possible after the meeting, the leader must
make sure that all participants receive a copy of the
minutes or notes, showing recommended actions,
schedules, and responsibilities.

By understanding the process of listening, you begin to

understand why oral messages are so often lost. Listening
involves five related activities, which usually occur in
sequence:  
1. Receiving: Physically hearing the message and
taking note of it. Physical reception can be blocked by
noise, impaired hearing, or inattention.
2. Interpreting: Assigning meaning to sounds according
to your own values, beliefs, ideas, expectations, roles,
needs, and personal history. The speaker’s frame
of reference may be quite different from yours, so you may
need to determine what the speaker really means.
3. Remembering: Storing a message for future
reference. As you listen, you retain what you hear by
taking notes or by making a mental outline of the
speaker’s key points.
4. Evaluating: Applying critical thinking skills to weigh
the speaker’s remarks. You separate fact from
opinion and evaluate the quality of the evidence.
5. Responding: Reacting once you’ve evaluated the
speaker’s message. If you’re communicating
one-on-one or in a small group, the initial response
generally takes the form of verbal feedback. If you’re one
of many in an audience, your initial response may take
the form of applause, laughter, or silence. Later on, you
may act on what you have heard.
7
Because listening requires a mix of physical and mental
activities, it is subject to a variety of physical and mental
barriers. A large part of becoming a good listener is the
ability to recognize and overcome these barriers.
Prejudgment. People operate on some basic
assumptions. However, these assumptions can be
incorrect or inappropriate in new situations. Moreover,
some people listen defensively, viewing every comment as
a personal attack.
Self-centeredness causes some people to take control of
conversations, rather than listening to what’s being said.
No matter what subject is being discussed, they know
more than the speaker does—and they’re determined to
prove it.
Another common problem is selective listening: letting
your mind wander to things such as whether you brought
your dry-cleaning ticket to work. You stay tuned out until
you hear a word or phrase that gets your attention once
more. The result is that you don’t remember what the
speaker actually said; instead, you remember what you
think the speaker probably said.
The important thing is to recognize these
counterproductive tendencies as barriers and to work on
overcoming them.

8
Effective listening strengthens organizational relationships,
enhances product delivery, alerts the organization to
innovation from both internal and external sources, and
allows the organization to manage growing diversity both
in the workforce and in its customers. Effective listening
requires a conscious effort and a willing mind. To improve
your listening skills, heed the following tips:
Find areas of interest. Look beyond the speaker’s style by
asking yourself what the speaker knows that you don’t.
Judge content, not delivery. Evaluate and criticize the
content, not the speaker. Review the key points. Do they
make sense? Are concepts supported by facts?
Hold your fire. Don’t interrupt. Depersonalize your listening
so that you decrease the emotional impact of what’s being
said and are better able to hold your rebuttal until you’ve
heard the total message.
Listen for ideas. Listen for concepts and key ideas as well
as for facts, and know the difference between fact and
principle, idea and example, and evidence and argument.
Take selective notes. Take meaningful notes that are brief
and to the point.

9
Work at listening. Look for unspoken messages. Often the
speaker’s tone of voice or expressions will reveal more
than the words themselves. Provide feedback. Let the
speaker know you’re with him or her. Maintain eye contact.
Provide appropriate facial expressions.
Block out competing thoughts. Fight distractions by closing
doors, turning off radios or televisions, and moving closer
to the speaker.
Paraphrase the speaker’s ideas. Paraphrase or
summarize when the speaker reaches a stopping point.
Stay open-minded. Keep an open mind by asking
questions that clarify understanding; reserve judgment
until the speaker has finished.
Capitalize on the fact that thought is faster than speech.
Stay ahead of the speaker by anticipating what will be said
next and by thinking about what’s already been said.
10
To be as effective as possible when receiving calls,
observe the following helpful tips:
Answer promptly and with a smile.
Identify yourself.
Establish the needs of your caller.
Be positive.
Take complete, accurate messages.
Explain what you are doing.

11
To be as effective as possible when making phone calls,
keep in mind the following tips:
Be ready before you call.
Schedule the call.
Eliminate distractions.
Make a clear, comprehensive introduction.
Don’t take up too much time.
Maintain audience focus throughout the call.
Close in a friendly, positive manner.

12
Much more than a glorified answering machine, voice mail
lets you send, store, and retrieve verbal messages.
Actually, voice mail is just a part of what is now called
voice processing, which can include an automatic
attendant, automatic call distribution, e-mail and paging
integration, call forwarding, call screening, and many other
features.
Voice mail can be used to replace short memos and
phone calls that need no response. It is most effective for
short, unambiguous messages. Like e-mail, it solves
time-zone difficulties and reduces a substantial amount of
interoffice paperwork.
13
Before recording your outgoing greeting for your own
voice-mail system, organize your thoughts. You want your
message to be accurate and concise. The following tips
can make your voice mail greeting more effective:
Be brief (less than 30 seconds) and accurately state what
callers should do.
Sound professional (businesslike and cheerful).
Keep your callers in mind by encouraging detailed
messages.
Make options logical and helpful.
Keep your personal greeting current.
Check your voice mail regularly and respond to calls
promptly.

14
When you leave a message on someone else’s voice mail
system, think about your message in advance, and plan it
carefully. Remember the following:
Keep the message simple.
Sound professional.
Avoid personal messages.
Replay the message before leaving the system.
Don’t leave multiple, repetitive messages.
Never hide behind voice mail.
15
The most basic form of communication is nonverbal
communication: all the cues, gestures, facial
expressions, spatial relationships, and attitudes toward
time that enable people to communicate without words.
Nonverbal and verbal communication methods differ in
terms of intent and spontaneity. You generally think about
verbal messages, if only for a moment. However, when
you communicate nonverbally, you sometimes do so
unconsciously.
People’s actions often do speak louder than their words. In
fact, most people can deceive others much more easily
with words than they can with their bodies. Words are
relatively easy to control; body language, facial
expressions, and vocal characteristics are not. By paying
attention to these nonverbal cues, you can detect
deception or affirm a speaker’s honesty.
Nonverbal communication is also important because it is
efficient. When you have a conscious purpose, you can
often achieve it more economically with a gesture than
with words. A wave of the hand, a pat on the back, a
wink—all are streamlined expressions of thought.
However, nonverbal communication usually blends with
speech to carry part of the message—to augment,
reinforce, and clarify that message.

16
Your face is the primary site for expressing your emotions;
it reveals both the type and the intensity of your feelings.
By moving your body, you can express both specific and
general messages, some voluntary and some involuntary.
Many gestures have a specific and intentional meaning.
Other types of body movement are unintentional and
express a more general message.
Your voice carries both intentional and unintentional
messages. The tone and volume and your accent and
speaking pace say a lot about who you are, your
relationship with the audience, and the emotions
underlying your words.
People respond to others on the basis of physical
appearance. Because you see yourself as others see you,
their expectations can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Although an individual’s body type and facial features
impose limitations, most people are able to control their
attractiveness to some degree.
Touch can convey warmth, comfort, and reassurance.
Touching behavior is governed in various circumstances
by relatively strict customs regarding who can touch whom
and how. Touching has become controversial because it
can be interpreted as sexual harassment.
Time and space can be used to assert authority. Some
people demonstrate their importance by making other
people wait; others show respect by being on time. People
can assert their status by occupying the best space. When
others stand too close or too far away, we are likely to feel
ill at ease.
17
When communicating orally, pay attention to your
nonverbal cues, and avoid giving others conflicting
signals. You can improve your nonverbal communication
by following these tips:
Avoid giving conflicting signals.
Be as honest as possible in communicating your
emotions.
Smile genuinely. Faking a smile is obvious to observers.
Maintain the eye contact your audience expects.
Be aware of your posture and of the gestures you use.
Use appropriate vocal signals and minimize unintentional
messages.

18
Know your audience. Imitate the appearance of people
you want to impress.
Respect your audience’s comfort zone.
Adopt a handshake that matches your personality and
intention.
Be aware of varying attitudes toward time.
Use touch only when appropriate.
Be aware that people may give false nonverbal cues.