Communicating Professionalism

Abstract

A team of six people are tasked to make the decision of how to use a vacant piece of company property located centrally in a metropolitan area. The property has no structures on it and is paved. Approximately 20% of the land is covered in debris and neighbors have filled complaints with the local officials about its state and undesirable gatherings happening there in the late evenings. Although the location is considered prime real estate it is not being utilized and as a result produces a fiscal loss in taxes and basic utility fees each year. The team is to explore and unanimously decide on the best option to manage the property by reducing or eliminating financial loss and improving perception of property with the community.

Scenario

Team communication is critical for making decisions in any aspect of life. Effective communication between team members develops a common ground that helps them to achieve an end goal in a given timeframe. In the given scenario, members have presented their ideas and opinions quite openly regarding what should be done. Although their communication was clear and precise, there were some issues with how they conveyed information.

The team members in the scenario were professional with their communication pattern. Each presented their viewpoint and respected the opinion of others. They showed adaptive thinking, reasoning and compromise towards finding the end goal. One of the members suggested that they should sell the property. This seemed like a viable option but another member pointed out that a 30% drop in market value since the property was purchased. Another team member pointed out that by selling the property there is the possibility of it remaining empty and the community perspective towards their company would remain in its undesirable state. From these combined viewpoints it was agreed that it was in the best interest of the company to keep the property and rectify the problems.

The next idea was to donate the plot to the municipality which would alleviate the occurrences of cost and allow for a portion of the value to be used as a charitable tax credit. This idea was well accepted but it was pointed out that often when land is donated to a municipality nothing is done with it. This triggered a discussion that led to one of the members suggesting the land be turned into a community garden. She explained that in her culture often communities would have a plot that was used like this and the community would take care of the cleanup, maintenance, upkeep and raise funds to pay for the utilities. It was agreed that this would improve the companies’ image in the community. By performing some preliminary research, it was found the company would be able to maintain ownership rights of the property and claim a tax credit each year for using the land to promote environmental and community wellness. A unanimous decision was made that this would be the best resolution.

When communicating what the best use of the property, everyone was able to voice their opinion. This led to logical arguments and the conclusion of how the property would be used. Communication was done in a pattern where one member negated the opinion of the other through logical argument and then presented their viewpoint. This made it possible for everyone to stay on task for what was best for all involved parties.

To bring professionalism to the team, the most appropriate approach is to set a sense of equality between team members. This keeps members from disrespecting each other when communicating. The leader should provide compliments and encouragement to members. There should be open and constructive criticism as this will help develop better ideas and decisions by reviewing them from all possible perspectives (Kumar & Ganguly, 2021). A diverse background of team members is an asset and should be respected (Kumar & Ganguly, 2021). Opinions must be respected based upon personal and professional experiences. These aspects will develop a sense of professionalism within the team which is the ultimate requirement to reach the specific goals.

Communication and personal respect should not be lost due to personal and professional issues between team members. The leaderships’ role is to get team members sitting together while promoting the approach of compromise to move forward. A mutual decision should be made to overcome these challenges so disrespect does not affect other team members working on a similar task. In order to avoid chaos within a team, respect should be maintained and everyone should be given equal chance and opportunity to express their viewpoints.

References

Kumar, N., & Ganguly, K. K. (2021). Impact of professionalism of workplace learning support team on learning outcome. Journal of Workplace Learning.

Imagine You. (2002). imagine_you. Kapextmediassl-a.Akamaihd.Net. Article Link

Team Building Games. (2017, September 10). Decision Making Games - Decision Making #48 [Video]. YouTube. Link

Cover Image

Fauxels. (2019, November 7). Photo Of People Doing Handshakes · Free Stock Photo. Pexels. Link