[Home-on-the-range] how we say something is more important than what we say...

[Dianne Hemphill]

Good morning federationists - in reviewing Wednesday's Wichita Eagle's  business section, I found this digested overview of successful team building of great interest and possible usefulness  Since we're always trying to improve our communication to be more effective, how we communicate should  be of interest to all of us...perhaps some of this research based info can help us as we try to get our NFB message out whether to the public or within our chapter...team effective team building is a process that has been long studied - leadership training has also  looked at how to have a more positive role in the group process...here are the elements that this expert conveys:
How we  say something is more important than what we have to say. The tone, choice of words, etc has more impact than the individuals  intelligence  personality,, or  level of  skill in the content being discussed,. 
Key elements in promoting high performance teams, includes; energy- this relates to the number of interactions and the comfort  of all team members participating   in making contributions
Exploration - this refers to a groups willingness to seek information outside their own group. The most successful teams  are willing to seek input outside their own small groups;
Individual talents level of skills, appear to contribute less to the high performance team than earlier thought.
Best practices for leadership, included; the ability to comfortably communicate in the group by engaging others in short, high energy conversations, and listening  more than talking. 
These thoughtful approaches towards communications appear to be the biggest predictors of the successful team.
As we continue to move forward in better communicating our federation  message, perhaps some of these techniques might be worthy of consideration and application...this is another confirmation that two heads (or more) are better than one  but only if we can figure out how we communicate in the most effective manner.  Dianne