Team Interaction Patterns: Who Talks Most and to Whom

Patterns of team interaction during meetings greatly affect communication and, in turn, the creativity of team members.

A True Story

I discovered the impact of team interaction patterns when I served on a committee I found particularly frustrating. I disliked the meetings but could not figure out why.

I asked one colleague what he thought. He said, "I wish he (the team leader) would stop talking so we could talk." Yet we both agreed that the team leader did not talk that much. His timing was the problem. He followed an interruptive pattern, making a short comment whenever anyone else said anything. This stopped free discussion.

I asked the team leader how he viewed the meetings. "It's like pulling teeth to get that bunch to talk," he said.

How remarkable. We wanted to talk, and he wanted us to talk, yet we had allowed an unproductive interaction pattern to prevent open discussion.

I asked what he would prefer. He described an ideal interaction in which each team member talks freely to move the team closer to its goals.

When I asked how we could achieve that pattern, he said he would stop talking. He realized that he was partly responsible for what happened. I suppose he thought an interactive pattern would emerge if he stopped talking.

When he did stop, a long silence followed. Finally, someone asked if he felt okay. At his insistence, the discussion continued without his usual short comments. Very quickly, however, the old interruptive pattern returned as another person took over the role of team leader. Apparently, we liked this dominant team leader pattern.

Thus I learned the power and effects of team interaction patterns. These patterns can produce good results in the right situation. They become anti-creativity when a team uses one pattern almost exclusively or uses a pattern at the wrong time.

Team Patterns

Teams use many interaction patterns, including:

• Spray and Pray: One person talks in a long-winded monologue and hopes, in the absence of feedback, that people remain interested and understand.
• Tinkers to Evans to Chance: Three people form a dominating clique and exclude others from the discussion.
• Endless Dialogue: The team leader and one person engage in an extended dialogue, often with little apparent substance.
• The Outsider: One team member uses silence, doodling, reading, or facing away from the team center to show a lack of attention.
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Your team's interaction patterns can tell you a lot. Are they useful? Do they move the team toward desirable goals, or do they waste valuable time? Are they anti-creativity? Worse yet, do you contribute to the problem?

Share this concept with your team and discuss it at the end of a meeting. Ask everyone to identify at least two interaction patterns that occurred during the meeting and assess their helpfulness. Were they anti-creativity? Discuss ways to improve your team's interaction patterns so you can achieve your goals and increase team creativity. What creativity triggers might you employ?

Consider this an important part of self-directed team building and one way to help your team move toward creativity and excellence.