How WhatsApp Can Make You A Better Team! - FocusU

Ahead of a terrorist attack – the “chatter” in the air increases!

Have you wondered why? Though it’s a very wrong example to be taken while talking about “team work”, the underlying human dynamics is similar. Any task that needs a lot of co-ordination, collaboration and team work amongst its members – necessarily needs a huge amount of communication between its members.

Good communication then, is like a lubricant that ensures that the different engines in a team keep chugging on smoothly. Reduce the communication and very naturally, the friction between team members starts increasing. We have seen this dynamic come out very clearly in many of the challenges we offer participants in our workshops – especially the Mobile Adventure Challenges! Teams that communicate a lot between themselves, seem to have a natural advantage over ones that don’t. The interesting thing in this is that, when it comes to teams, there is really nothing called, “too much communication”. Considering how easily communication between members is apt to be misinterpreted, jumbled and confused – the more members in a team communicate, the higher the chances that all such confusions get eliminated. In this sense, communication acts as a foundation for trust and bonding within a team.

On the contrary, “Bad communication” or “No communication” is often the main cause of chaos and heartburn in a team. Those of us who are married would know what it means to be given, “the silent treatment”. If you think about it, the same thing holds true for dynamics in a team too.

Our work at FocusU, takes us all across the country – something that we enjoy! The flip side of it though is that we would often not meet some team mates for as much as a fortnight at times! Soon, we started seeing the fallouts – many goof-ups, many gaps in execution – several instances where we felt better communication would have saved us the blushes!

That’s when we had an interesting twist in our story – one smart bloke in our team created a WhatsApp group for us. In one stroke, all of a sudden – the “chatter” within the team shot up exponentially! What first started as a forum to share jokes and funny incidents, soon became a medium to keep everyone updated about official stuff too. A team that was having a rocking program in some other part of the country would take a snap and WhatsApp it to everyone else, building a shared sense of achievement and joy in all. There were all kinds of photos that started doing the rounds – some team members in a train, some others wearing a very serious, funny expression. Without doubt, the leg pulling and “embarrassing-moments-captured-on-camera” increased too…. But all in all, it was as if someone had suddenly zapped our team & re-energized it again!

From a first-hand experience of the transformational power of this simple technology, here are some distinctive advantages of using WhatsApp as a magic wand to improve your team:

Mobility:

Since it is right on our mobile handsets, there is no dependency of getting back to the computer to communicate – as in emails!

Availability:

We love to keep our mobile phones with us at all the times (Even when we sleep!). So there is a very rare possibility of any team member missing a communication. Secondly unlike any other computer device, most people, normally don’t shut down their handsets!

Affordability:

Imagine doing the same kind of ongoing communication via SMS? Most of us would find ourselves sweating about a fat mobile bill at the end of the month. Since it uses wireless data networks that are ubiquitous, expense in WhatsApp goes virtually unnoticed.

Flexibility:

Although the most frequently used way to communicate in WhatsApp is via text, its extremely easy to share photos and video. This gives amazing flexibility in communication – as it is said, “A picture can speak a thousand words”.

So, there it is people – the easiest way for you to build cohesiveness and bonding in your team. Just create a WhatsApp group out of them – and then sit back and watch the magic unveil! We would love to hear, if you have tried this too. Do share with us!