Matt Moyer COMM 3140 Reading Note 9 Communication That Damages Teamwork 09/25/13 Teams in the workplace have

become increasingly common in the past two decades; much to the delight of managers seeking the application of the latest buzzwords. Although teamwork can be beneficial there can also be a dark side to teamwork. When people work in teams there is often a tendency to get involved in gossip, bullying, and power struggles. I have seen this in my own life at past jobs where I was forced to work with a group of people to accomplish some type of task. More often than not it turned into a bitch fest about everything the company was doing wrong, or things went ok except for one or two people that had a bad attitude about the project. Just one or two people can set the tone for a work environment with a negative view that sets in motion a whole range of unproductive activities as stated before. Of course the converse is true. Positive views can also be contagious. Every group should have a mood or viewpoint physician to diagnose and treat any negativity at its earliest onset. Treat it like Rabies and kill it before it kills everyone else. Teams that function well together often set high standards for themselves and produce high quality work; much like a professional sports team winning a national championship. Small goals are first set and then accomplished with the main overarching goal on the horizon. In this fashion it is easier to reach the ultimate destination, success, by having some goal oriented way points to encourage and keep the team on course or realign if needed. The attributes of the dark side can manifest their selves in team work either intentionally or unintentionally. Often times they are unintentional and appear due to time constraints, homogeneity of the group, or geographical dispersion. The dark side sheds light on the unpotentiated, unfulfilled, and unappreciated domains of human endeavor. It also studies the repulsive. The dark side also focuses on paradoxical aspects of life. To me that says it studies the bad for good reason. The only way to reach the good is to understand where the bad is. If a traveler becomes lost during a trip it would serve them better to stay on a main road then to venture off into the wilderness of completely unknown areas. The traveler may be lost but he still knows where he isnt. He is closer to being on his intended path if doesnt make his situation worse by venturing further away from his last known intended way point.

Subgroups can lead to a tag-team situation where they are most concerned with the subgroup and not the whole. Dyad level includes close or deteriorating relationships. Group level work often results in groupthink. Superordinate issues arise when roles in one group conflict with the roles of another group. Organizational issues appear when there is an absence of well-defined timing, goals, and resources. Problems on the Environmental level are often from issues such as time zones, or difficulty operating in different countries. Understanding vision, roles, processes, and relationships are key in furthering the success of teamwork. With all of the possible failures and shortcomings of teamwork the idea of working alone looks much more attractive even in a rapidly expanding global environment where international business is inching closer to becoming a total necessity rather than a choice. Being part of a global team demands more diversity and skills to effectively work within a group. I fully understand that in concept. Still, I sort of feel nostalgic for times gone by; the days when written updates from distant lands still meant something. A time where communication with Europe was spotty, unreliable, and still half a world away is long gone. Now global communication has reached the point of making us complacent to correspondence. The speed and reliability of communication has spoiled us in the sense that we are almost unable to function without it and in the time we have saved ourselves by using ultra-fast communication methods we seem to have lost that time once again by filling those moments with being further and unnecessarily connected in a cyber-world of information moving about. In this move we have made we have lost the sense of appreciation for the trip that a piece of information went on to arrive at our desk. So it goes with teamwork. It is here to stay. Better to try an understand the best way to operate in a group sense than it is to be miserable working in a team with a negative attitude.