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When working in a team, effective communication is important to ensure that there will be no unnecessary misunderstandings and everyone will finish the project happily at the end of the day.
Mr. Z was part of the project team for an event and he was in charge of a particular segment of the programme. During every meeting, he assured everyone that his segment would be fine and he had an ambitious plan to make his segment a success. When the plan was presented to the team, many members in the team found the plan to be overly ambitious and wanted to make changes to his plan. Furthermore, many parts of the plan were vague and there were very little details about the execution of the programme.
However, being stubborn, Mr. Z refused to change and edit his plan, and he decided to work on the segment alone. From then on, Mr. Z provided very few updates on his segment; even when he did, it was lacking in details and the rest of the team were not able to figure out what he was trying to do. Before the event, he merely gave orders to the members of the team and commanded them around with very little specific instructions. Eventually, his segment of the event turned out to be an awkward moment and he kept quiet and laid low for the rest of the days.
The working experience for both the project team and Mr. Z were very unhappy. From the planning process to the execution, there was very little relaying of the programme details and discussions between Mr. Z and the rest of the project team. The rest of the team had to follow his instructions blindly since they had very little idea about what Mr. Z was trying to do. The project team was further frustrated as the instructions from Mr. Z were unclear. At the same time, Mr. Z was angry with the project team as he thought that they were not helpful during the actual day.
It is often important that instructions should be relayed in a clear manner and sufficient details are provided. In the scenario described above, Mr. Z refused to provide any details and thus communication between the team and Mr. Z broke down. When there are very little details available, it makes it difficult to clarify any possible doubts since there is nothing to clarify about in the first place. In the case of Mr. Z, the team had to guess and figure out his intentions. When instructions are unclear, people often have to depend on their own interpretation and perception to carry out the task and this may deviates from the original intention.
It didn’t help that Mr. Z was commanding the rest of the team, instead of asking them politely. Given the prior frustration from the lack of understanding about the project, the project team was already unhappy with Mr. Z. Right before the event, Mr. Z pushed the team around to get things done and used an aggressive tone when he was relaying the instructions. Furthermore, it didn’t help that the instructions were brief and short, and this further led to the anger of the rest of the project team. The use of the inappropriate tone will also lead to further misunderstanding between people, and in this particular case, the team felt that Mr. Z was being bossy and this made it hard for them to work well together.
Both Mr. Z and the rest of the team could have sat down and discussed about the issue. Perhaps, if Mr. Z was willing to put in more effort in giving more details and state his point of view clearly, the rest of the team might have been more accommodating towards him and more willing to work alongside with him.
However, it takes two hands to clap. Perhaps the team themselves did not try to communicate well with Mr. Z as well and discuss the issues with him. What could have the team done to improve the working relationship with Mr. Z and save themselves from the awkward situation?
Mr. Z was part of the project team for an event and he was in charge of a particular segment of the programme. During every meeting, he assured everyone that his segment would be fine and he had an ambitious plan to make his segment a success. When the plan was presented to the team, many members in the team found the plan to be overly ambitious and wanted to make changes to his plan. Furthermore, many parts of the plan were vague and there were very little details about the execution of the programme.
However, being stubborn, Mr. Z refused to change and edit his plan, and he decided to work on the segment alone. From then on, Mr. Z provided very few updates on his segment; even when he did, it was lacking in details and the rest of the team were not able to figure out what he was trying to do. Before the event, he merely gave orders to the members of the team and commanded them around with very little specific instructions. Eventually, his segment of the event turned out to be an awkward moment and he kept quiet and laid low for the rest of the days.
The working experience for both the project team and Mr. Z were very unhappy. From the planning process to the execution, there was very little relaying of the programme details and discussions between Mr. Z and the rest of the project team. The rest of the team had to follow his instructions blindly since they had very little idea about what Mr. Z was trying to do. The project team was further frustrated as the instructions from Mr. Z were unclear. At the same time, Mr. Z was angry with the project team as he thought that they were not helpful during the actual day.
It is often important that instructions should be relayed in a clear manner and sufficient details are provided. In the scenario described above, Mr. Z refused to provide any details and thus communication between the team and Mr. Z broke down. When there are very little details available, it makes it difficult to clarify any possible doubts since there is nothing to clarify about in the first place. In the case of Mr. Z, the team had to guess and figure out his intentions. When instructions are unclear, people often have to depend on their own interpretation and perception to carry out the task and this may deviates from the original intention.
It didn’t help that Mr. Z was commanding the rest of the team, instead of asking them politely. Given the prior frustration from the lack of understanding about the project, the project team was already unhappy with Mr. Z. Right before the event, Mr. Z pushed the team around to get things done and used an aggressive tone when he was relaying the instructions. Furthermore, it didn’t help that the instructions were brief and short, and this further led to the anger of the rest of the project team. The use of the inappropriate tone will also lead to further misunderstanding between people, and in this particular case, the team felt that Mr. Z was being bossy and this made it hard for them to work well together.
Both Mr. Z and the rest of the team could have sat down and discussed about the issue. Perhaps, if Mr. Z was willing to put in more effort in giving more details and state his point of view clearly, the rest of the team might have been more accommodating towards him and more willing to work alongside with him.
However, it takes two hands to clap. Perhaps the team themselves did not try to communicate well with Mr. Z as well and discuss the issues with him. What could have the team done to improve the working relationship with Mr. Z and save themselves from the awkward situation?
Hey Dayang,
ReplyDeleteI see that it is an awkward situation. As you mentioned, it takes two hands to clap. Though Mr. Z has his own faults, I believe the team could have approached Mr. Z before the event if they had problems with his lack of details in his instructions. Probably they could clarify the intention they had assumed Mr. Z wanted just to make sure? Probably they could more actively approach Mr. Z and asked about how he is doing in the segment along the way, instead of relying on the few updates that Mr. Z gave? Just my two cents worth of thoughts =).