• Ei tuloksia

Being part of an organization and accepting its way of doing business builds responsibili-ties and fosters loyalty among employees. Commitment is built on trust, involvement, and role knowledge (Holtz 2004, 26). Mishra and Morrissey (1990, 444) defined trust as providing advantages for improving communication, increasing employee confidence and dependability, and providing predictability. Furthermore, it decreases employee turnover (Mishra & Morrissey, 1990, 454; Meng & Berger 2012, 350), fosters openness and will-ingness to listen (even when negative feedback is given), brings in new business, and reduces the friction between employee relationships. The core benefits of building trust between employees have increased productivity and personal growth, improved corpora-tional credibility, loyal customers, increased sales to existing customers, improved over-all decision-making, and more efficient collaboration between employees and employers.

(Mishra & Morrissey 1990, 454-455.) However, giving feedback from poor performance may shake the trust in teams; for that reason, the performance input needs to be done with deep thought and care (Jaakso, Reino & McClenghan 2019, 41-42). Furthermore, a team that operates with members that have multicultural backgrounds are very verbal in com-munication when sharing and expressing their feelings, but their heritage does not affect trust build in the team (Jarvenpaa & Leidner 1999, 812). Involvement of employees in the organization's communication supports employees' internal hunger to be involved, be part of decision making, and establish their need to be valuable. Thanks to the internet and

28

digital communication tools, employee involvement has improved and provides instant knowledge sharing, enhancing decision-making. (Holtz 2004, 29-30.)

In the industrial era, experience and education started to play a significant role in labor markets; in the post-industrial age, the teams and personal orientations became vital in assigned work criteria. Nowadays, employees with a considerable range of different abili-ties are more beneficial to groups. (Belbin 2010, 10, 18.) The role of knowledge is based on the ultimate satisfaction of employee's tasks and that the results make a difference.

The immediate supervisor and compensation for work are two powerful motivations for satisfaction. The supervisor acts as the translator and brings the higher vision and strategy into the day-to-day work tasks in micro-level communication. (Holtz 2004, 30-31.) Belbin (2010, 4) represents the senior principle by giving older employees advantages to carrying all the needed wisdom and feel confident in their performance. Also, she adds that with team role behavior comes multiple aspects that affect the action: who you are as a person (introvert or extrovert), mental abilities, personal motivation and values, envi-ronmental factors, previous experience, and cultural factors lastly learning your role in the team (Belbin 2010, 29).

Belbin (2010, 22, 56) identifies nine team roles that contribute to the team and express their weaknesses (see Fig. 4). She explains how the variety of different people in groups allows for compensating each other's faults and thriving on communication with people who matter. Teams can find support in their team role profiles and encourage each other for success; for example, shaper and implementer, plant and monitor evaluator can thrive on each other's faults. (Belbin 2010, 57.) Amabile (1988, 128) defines the plant's qualities (problem solver) who promotes creativity; their personal traits include being persistent, curious, having energy, and honest. They are also self-motivated, special cognitive abili-ties, risk-oriented, have expertise in the area, bring synergy in the group, have diverse experience, excellent social skills, intelligence, and naive in seeing things from a new perspective (Ambile 1988, 129).

29

Figure 4. The nine team roles and their weaknesses (Belbin 2010, 22, 56)

30 2.3.1 Internal communication process

Each process starts with proper planning. Planning for communications is the most vital part of the process. It needs a satisfactory background check and explaining how work has been done, then moving to analyze phase where the issues and causes are specified.

Furthermore, goals for the accomplishments need to be set; they help the employees fo-cus and engage. Messages that will be presented need to be audience-specific, and em-ployees can relate and understand the language. There is a need for communication, stra-tegic planning, set objectives, and tactics for execution in more prominent organizations.

The planning phase would benefit the most if it could be measured and evaluated. (Holtz 2004, 57-65.) We can say that communication is a two-way process that begins with one side acting as a message sender and the other part is acting as a message receiver (Par-dillo 2019, 5).

Quirke (2008, 18) continues with the planning phase: content contribution to team partic-ipants, including "data, information, ideas, and concepts." This all should be nicely in-serted into context to ease the information processing and bring relevant context to the participants. Participants are open to comment on the context and create meaning. Brand strategist's (BS) responsibility is to represent the bigger picture. During the next phase of conversations and questions, the participants can test and show their perspective of the challenges that will face them. The last step is feedback to ensure the information gained and what results can be drawn from it. (Quirke 2008, 8.)

Mallia, Windles, and Broyles (2013) emphasize the importance of communication in this process and recommend the creative director (CD) to take part in brand strategy work from an early stage. The CD's participation would increase gathered information sharing productivity in the next phase of brand visual identity work and improve the customer experience process. However, the amount of collected data may lose its focus on the cli-ent's real needs and drift from the original challenges (Mallia et al. 2013).

Communication between divergent employees could present various amounts of perspec-tives on the challenges and lead to conflicts; however, it may provide an extensive range

31

of possible solutions. Employees' different backgrounds (ethnic, educational, previous work experiences, etc.) may cause conflict in the long run on client challenges because the challenges can be interpreted differently. For that reason, it is essential to recognize and measure the diversity in the team. Team leaders should give a realistic estimation of the team members' abilities to solve problems and interact with each other. This would reduce the knowledge gap between the members, provide an efficient workflow, provide opportunities to learn from each other, and improve members' competence in their field.

(Frigotto & Rossi 2012, 793, 816-817.) West and Wallace (1991, 312) explain innovative teams to be experimental in a controlled environment, be tolerant to a diversity of ap-proaches, and support the initiated ideas and develop these further. It is also about main-taining a team member and accepting the team's values and goals with perceiving efforts for the whole team.

When talking about teams and team communication, there might be a time when employ-ees may face interpersonal and intra-personal barriers that need to be overcome to nor-malize the workflow. The obstacle is weak and temporary, and most of the team can overcome it. Overcoming those barriers the creative leadership is essential to have as facilitators. All tighter seven factors need to be aligned to overcome the challenges; the first needs to be created is the platform of understanding. The creative leader is responsi-ble for expressing how the team can benefit from shared knowledge, beliefs, and assump-tions. The second factor is shared vision, including the team's shared perspective; it is easy to demolish by changing the habits and destroying assumptions. The third factor: the team's climate needs to be encouraged to be and stay positive. (Tuckman & Jensen 1977;

ref. Rickards & Moger 2000, 277-280.) It enables the employees to collaborate in a safe environment and find ways to challenge each other (Fine & Hallett, 2014, 1788). The fourth factor is resilience, where a creative leader enables the team to seek different per-spectives when primary expectations cannot be reached. In the fifth factor of idea own-ers, the creative leader supports the unique ideas based on the employee's expertise. Also, visionary leaders are expected to find solutions in their network, and they work as net-work activators in the sith factor. The last element is learning from the creative leader's experience to gain the current position as a leader. (Tuckman & Jensen 1977; ref.

Rick-32

ards & Moger 2000, 277-280.) As we can understand, transformational leadership needs to extend in many ways in teams to encourage each individual for their abilities and ef-forts while stay positive and inspirational; not forgetting emotional balance and empathy towards each team member. It has been shown that this kind of leadership fosters team commitment and trust in the team. (Schlechter & Strauss 2008, 43.)

Organizational culture is dependent on its employees and how the team within the organ-ization share stories and collectively respond to the information gained (Fine & Hallett 2014, 1779). Earley and Moskowiski (2000, 36) suggest that when creating a multicultur-al team's team culture, it is essentimulticultur-al to set standard rules and individumulticultur-al responsibilities for each team member and establish high team goals. Leaders' communication skills can benefit the whole team by igniting enthusiasm, solving problems more efficiently, en-hancing motivation in the group, and being needed in the promotion (Padillo 2019, 12-13). For that reason, the team leader needs to be chosen with care; in the long run, it can affect the team performance and successful outcomes (Schlechter & Strauss 2008, 51).

Furthermore, investing efficient communication in teams and different styles for conflict management fosters the development of a united identity. However, when team members

"lack cross-cultural empathy and understanding," it might affect the teams' abilities to function (Earley & Moskowiski 2000, 36). To improve multicultural communication in groups, Padillo (2019, 207) recommends focusing on clear pronunciation of foreign words, ask for language-wise feedback from the listeners, think sentence structures ready before speaking, and avoid interrupting others' speak.

This shows that the internal information sharing process is between two or more partici-pants. Information shared starts with identifying relevant team members and clarifying the roles in the upcoming working project. Propper planning and open communications play a significant role in information sharing and learning opportunities.

33 2.3.2 Types of communication

Business communication can happen verbally or non-verbally. Verbal communication is dependent on vocabulary and can be limited by the development of the language. Oral and written communication in verbal communication can be identified, where oral com-munication depends on the speaker and written comcom-munication depends more on clever thinking and preparation. Non-verbal communication includes "signs, signals, expres-sions, and gestures." Pardillo (2019, 7-9) divides business communication into external and internal communication, where internal communication is divided into a more com-plex division between formal and informal communication. Formal channels have differ-ent directions in communication – upward, downward, horizontal, and diagonal. Upward communication is focused on a corporation's hierarchical order from lower management to higher management and contains information on ideas, personal job satisfaction, feed-back, and changing thoughts. Downward communication is the opposite of upward com-munication. The content shared is information sharing, guidance, open discussions, in-forming new arrangements, motivational speeches, encouraging moral actions, seeking cooperation, improving efficiency, and gathering feedback. Horizontal and diagonal communication is for solving challenges, task accomplishments, improvement of team-work, encouraging efficiency, and establishing goodwill. (Pardillo 2019, 7-9, 50-51.) One efficient way to communicate and share information is to conduct an internal team meeting or, so to speak, face-to-face discussion (Quirke 2008, 21; Pardillo 2019, 56;);

creating awareness, understanding, and acceptance among employees (Linke & Zerfas 2011, 344). This way, information can be transmitted simultaneously and allows each team member to ask relevant questions regarding their expertise in their work tasks and previous work experience. As Hirvonen (2019, 448-449) points out in his research, meet-ings are tightly connected to employee positions and positioning. In the meetmeet-ings, the information presenter acts as an expert in the field and is obligated to share the relevant information with essential participants. Assuming that all the participants are somehow connected and need the data transmitted, or they abound by their role in the organization.

Others are positioned as members who urge for the information relevant to their

upcom-34

ing work tasks or hold the power of decision making over the organization. Hirvonen (2019, 454) also points out the importance of the team members' social relationships to decide on delicate matters and create open communication opportunities. Internal meet-ings can be used to initiate inspiration and motivate employees (Pardillo 2019, 53-54).

Whatever form of communication is chosen, it needs its own strategy. Quirke (2008, 55) notes that an internal communication plan starts with defining strategy and purpose for the company, then it takes a closer look at its needs from employees (thoughts and feel-ings towards the company). Then, they will identify where the workers' brand belief is, clarify their role in internal communication, and establish constant communication activi-ties. (Quirke 2008, 55.) Also, the openness of the communication, information sharing, and trust among the team members to dissolve merging conflicts are the innovative team's key characteristics (West & Wallace 1991, 312).

2.3.3 Creatives' roles in communication

In some cases, clients and creatives work together at the beginning of the process in workshops; this is when all the roles and responsibilities should be defined. It helps to create a team mentality and keep clients accountable for their duties toward their actions.

From the client's perspective, a co-scripted brief should inform with clarity and direction.

(Laurie & Mortimer 2019, 240.) Another option for the collaboration process to start with clients and agency relationships is through a client's brief. In this case, it is vital to deter-mine the client's level of experience when working with marketing agencies. If they lack the expertise, creatives need to focus more on the mutual understanding of the problem that clients want them to be solved to have a successful outcome for the client. If the ex-perience is high from the client's side, then a long-lasting relationship can be built be-tween the creative agency and the client. (Díaz-Méndez & Saren 2019, 13, 22.)

According to Blakeman and Taylor (2019, 40), a creative brief's purpose is to inform in-sightfully with detailed information, easy to follow, and focus on strategy. Also, it should inspire and excite the creatives in the team – art directors (AD), copywriters (CW), and

35

creative leaders. However, its creative brief should cover only essentials based on the research and client's perspective and focus on insights that matter the most. (Blakeman &

Taylor 2019, 40, 45.) Hughes, Vafeas, and Hilton (2018, 1340) enhanced the previous research and defined information that creatives need from clients for the brief. They found that it is vital to understand how the clients' organization operates, its products, distribution channels, logistics, profitability, and commercial operations. Also, gaining a deeper understanding of the organizational structure, decision-making process, limita-tions, information about their competitors, collaborators, and market operations in their field. Furthermore, more perceptive knowledge about the client's customers is relevant, their segments and customers product benefits and their actual needs. (Hughes et al.

2018, 1340.)

Creatives' task is to find innovative solutions to client's communication problems. Com-munication should be continued through the process between creatives, account execu-tives, and clients; it helps prevent misunderstandings and conflicts. (Blakeman & Taylor 2019, 50.) Through that process, mutual trust and understanding are built that fosters a long-lasting relationship in collaboration (Hughes et al. 2018, 1349).