Improve Communication Knowledge and Skills in a Team in a Fast Way

[Anonymous]

One thing I do with all teams that I lead, start up or lead one or several lessons learnt or retrospective sessions in is to do a max 15 min teaching introduction about communication.

Starting with the fact that the researcher John Gottman can predict divorces with a 91 percent probability based on 5 minutes communication between the partners, and some points about his research. That catches people’s attention.

Then I present the 4 team toxins based on Gottman’s research, and that people should try to avoid them.

After that I present a list of about 10 things that enhance positive communication, such as e.g. get to know each other, 5/1 or 7/2 rule (5 positive things for every 1 negative thing), 2% truth (what can you agree with in what the other person is saying or what is it that is true about yourself in what triggers you), view things from the other person’s perspective etc. The list is based on learnings from Gottman’s book: ”The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”, TCI, ORSC and other sources.

The energy in the room usually shifts radically and it is a perfect start before doing a lessons learnt or retrospective exercise, where the team members:
1. individually write post it-notes for what worked well during the last sprint and what could be improved
2. put their post it-notes on the wall and talk about them as they put them on the wall
3. vote on what are the 2-5 most important things to change and come up with actions concerning them

In my experience the effect is that people dare to say more concerning what could be improved and try to say things in a respectful way.

This is a fast way to get people more aware and you can build on that in different situations, in a team, between teams etc, since it is a fast way to get many teams aware in an organisation. I have seen great examples where the cooperation improved a lot between different teams based on just doing this exercise in two different teams that were dependent on each other.

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