Effective communication in electronic environments can be vexing to virtual teams. We know intuitively that we need proper communication to achieve high quality and efficient outcomes, but we are not always sure how to best achieve effective communication or even what effective communication is for the task at hand. We have mentioned issues around communication in past posts, such as Betsy’s discussion of the importance of a cooperative mindset and cohesion, Surinder’s post on building social relationships, or my post about the possible value of avatars in virtual world communication. As a research team we are interested in the ability of team members to communicate effectively using computer mediated communication technologies. We conducted some studies looking at the effects of leadership and communication media on the incidence of supportive and critical communication in virtual teams and how the incidence of such communication can effect cohesion, consensus, and group efficacy.

We conducted experiments in which students were formed into ad hoc virtual teams in order to solve a management related problem together. Teams performed their task using either instant messaging or Second Life to communicate with one another and they were led by either a transactional or a transformational confederate. Our goal, in part, was to understand how communication technologies affected the incidence of supportive and critical communication within the team and how communication in turn affected the team’s cohesion, consensus, and efficacy. We examined comments made by team members during their team discussion and identified the occurrence of supportive and critical communication. Supportive communication was defined as that which expressed support for team members’ ideas or position. Critical communication was that in which disagreement with others’ position or ideas was expressed.

Results pointed to a trend of teams with more supportive communication having higher levels of cohesion, post-discussion consensus, and group efficacy, especially when teams were given the opportunity to get to know one another before the task through an ice-breaker exercise. On the other hand, critical communication led to lowered cohesion in the group. The results about the effects of communication media and leadership on the incidence of supportive and critical communication were not as simple or clear. Suffice it to say that Second Life was not associated with higher incidence of supportive communication or lower incidence of critical communication relative to instant messaging.

So what does this mean for a virtual team leader? Our results clearly suggest that increasing supportive communication and reducing critical communication can improve performance of a virtual team. Improve the communication environment by being more supportive and less critical yourself and being a role model for others. Provide team members the opportunity to get to know each other or spend some time building social bonds (see ‘Building Social Relationships in Virtual Teams‘ for ideas). This may help team members understand others’ perspectives better and be more supportive of their ideas. Also help team members express their disagreements in a way that does not harm team performance.  Help them phrase their point not as a simple contradiction or disagreement, but rather by being supportive and offering a counterpoint or alternative — this will help the team function better.

We will be presenting the results of our study next week at the Mardi Gras conference in Baton Rouge. This year’s conference will focus on virtual worlds. If you’ll be there, please look us up!