In lecture-1 of chapter-2, we have covered the following things:

Team
A team is a unit of two or more people who share a mission and the responsibility for working to achieve
a common goal.

Problem-solving teams and task forces

They assemble to resolve specific issues and then disband when their goals have been accomplished.

Committees
They are formal teams that usually have a long life span and can become a permanent part of the
organizational structure.

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 viewpoints 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.

Characteristics of effective teams:

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.

The following seven measures can help team members successfully resolve conflict:
 Proactive behavior: Deal with minor conflict before it turns into a major conflict
 Communication: Bring all those who were in a conflict and resolve their issues.
 Openness: let everyone open up before dealing with the main issues
 Research: find the facts properly before looking for a solution
 Flexibility: be flexible while taking decision
 Fair play: take a fair solution

Preparing for meetings:

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.

Effective meetings:
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.

The listening process:

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.
Barriers to listening:
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.

Strategies for effective listening:

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.
 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.
 Agenda

A meeting agenda is a list of items that participants hope to accomplish at a meeting. If

the agenda which is a document is given to the participants at least a day before the
meeting then it gives the participants the opportunity to prepare for the meeting in
advance. However, a meeting can be more fruitful if a well thought out agenda given
several days before the meeting.

Purpose of an agenda for a meeting

·        Advice attendees of a planned meeting
·        Communicates important information
·        Advance notice of meeting topics
·        Help meting to be productive
·        Provides a guide for the order of business
·        Ensure discussion stays on agreed topics
·        Manages the time allocated for each topic

All agenda should list the following:

In addition to the purpose or goal of the meeting, also include with your agenda:

 Location and date

 Start time
 End time
 Participants needed in the meeting (Attendees)
 Items for discussion
 Time allocated for each meeting
 Notes of attendees who will lead discussion on each topic
What to Include
An agenda for a regularly scheduled meeting can help produce the results you seek by
including some basic items:

 Warm-up and greetings. Consider a brief ice breaker depending on how frequently

the group meets.
 Review the meeting’s purpose, agenda, and expected outcomes and product.
 Review, correct (if necessary), and approve the minutes of the prior meeting.
 Provide appropriate departmental and company information that the team needs.
 Review progress on action items, action plans, and commitments. Review group
progress on goals.
 Discuss and make decisions about the agenda items for this meeting.
 Identify next steps.
 Identify the purpose, outcome, and agenda for the next meeting.
 At the end of the meeting, the note taker should review the commitments made by
people during the meeting.
 Identify any assistance needed from people not in the group and assign
participants to make contact.
 Determine who outside of the meeting participants needs to know what and decide
how you will accomplish the communication.
 Distribute minutes within 24 hours of the meeting or immediately if the note taker
took them electronically.