Breaking barriers by identifying and resolving communication challenges

Unlocking the teams potential by overcoming the communication barriers within a team

In a team environment, it is not uncommon for individuals to follow the loudest person in the room, whether it’s due to their seniority, confidence, or force of personality. Unfortunately, this can result in the exclusion of valuable perspectives and ideas, as well as an unhealthy dynamic within the team. To know more about this topic, read my article about “Silencing the dominating voice”. This is one of the classic communication challenges many teams face.

The first step towards solving any problem starts by identifying the problem. If a team has communication problems, as a facilitator, encourage them to identify these issues. Then, work together as a team to figure out how to solve them.

The Retrospective template shared below helps uncover communication challenges in four areas - Language, Cultural, Physical and Emotional. It is designed in a way that everyone gets equal opportunity to voice their opinion or perspective. So participants individually identify the challenges they face and present it to the team without any influence, and then as a team they brainstorm how to work together to solve the identified problems. Individual opinions or perspectives, followed by group thinking, this combination enables participants to get the most out of each brainstorming session and collaboratively…