Hut-one, hut-two?
For your team to function well, good communication is absolutely necessary. In my book Ask Power Questions: A Practical Guide to Help You Get What You Want in Business, Life, and Friendship, I share the skills of working with powerful questions to reach goals. I also emphasize the abilities needed for good communication. I included The 17 Strategies to Formulate Power Questions to help you put your powerful quest into action.
Here are four that will help you communicate as team leader:
- Know what you want
- Know what you’re willing to negotiate
- Stay focused on your quest
- Navigate and be a navigator
As team leader you must know what you want, not only in terms of your plans’ goals, but also what you expect from each member of the team.
What role will they play and how are they to perform their tasks? Be specific about the actual duties they are responsible for. Be clear in your communication about what your objectives are for each individual, and the whole team effort.
As team captain it will be important that you can negotiate through the diversity of talent within your team. The style that you use to exchange information will set a standard for the team to follow. Is the tone you’re communicating with appropriate to your goal?
Having a clear objective outlined in a variety of ways will help every player stay on task. If things get off track asking questions of members can redirect efforts towards the goal. What progress are you making on task #3?
Navigation is often overlooked when managing a team and completing a project.
Remember that every scrimmage is crucial to winning the game. Will you drive your team erratically at high speeds or go at a reasonable pace stopping and starting when necessary? How are you speaking to/with them?
When you have clear communication within your team putting together the essential duties of each member, and identifying their role will go smoothly and the team can function and interrelate in good form.
You’re the Quarterback, what’s your cadence? What’s your team’s manner of communication? When does it misspeak creating misunderstandings and confusion? When does it hit the mark? How can you build on your team’s strongest communication style? How can you speak so members can hear and understand? A cadence is a speech pattern that helps the team play well together. How can you use you’r to reach success?
Sandy Nelson is a contributing blogger for JenningsWire Online Magazine.
JenningsWire.com is created by National Publicity Firm, Annie Jennings PR that specializes in providing book marketing strategies to self-published and traditionally published authors. Annie Jennings PR books authors, speakers and experts on major top city radio talk shows that broadcast to the heart of the market, on local, regionally syndicated and national TV shows and on influential online media and in prestigious print magazines and newspapers.
