Effective team Communications
Written By: JMW aka Maker

The following is a community-submitted editorial and as such does not necessarily reflect the opinions of GotFrag or its advertisers.

The most valuable trait that virtually no team has bagged is effective communication with fellow teammates. From in game comms, to critiquing the team’s performance, online teams, for the most part are lacking in this necessary trait. In this article I will outline how communication works, why it is important for every player on your team to have effective communications, and how to improve your team's communications.

THE BASICS of two-way communications

I’m going to explain the fundamental scientific ideas behind communication. Its important that you understand these basics, so if you don’t understand, ask someone to read this and explain it for you. Communication is the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, by speech, signals, writing, or behavior between a sender and a receiver. Effective Communication is goes two ways meaning it is sent correctly, and comprehended fully.



When a message is sent the sender passes on more than just words. In fact, 60% of the message is derived from the volume or tone of voice the message is given in, 22% represents body language, 10% the situation involved, and only 8% of the idea is extended by words. For example If I raised a shoe and screamed with the tone of anger “I’m going to kill you.” You would assume that I was angry and I meant harm to you. But if I was laughing and raised my shoe uttering the same words, you would assume that I’m a goofball and just joking around. People have selective hearing, understanding, and retention. What truly matters in a message are its meanings. Meanings aren’t found in words. Meanings are conceived by people. Words have definitions. It’s the tone, body language, and situations that give them meaning. The sender encodes his message with the desired tone, body language, and word selection then sends it traveling through the air. The listener than accepts the message through visual and audio senses. The listener then decodes all the parts of the message and provides some kind of feedback. During its travel between senders and receivers the message encounters barriers. Some examples of these barriers are: loud noises, accents, levels of education, ping, and predetermined values of words (EX Ketchup, catsup). It is very important to try and limit or contain these barriers. Once past these barriers the message is sent and received and the receiver provides feedback or action.

How to improve your sender communications: try this acronym to help eliminate some barriers.

E = Express how you feel but remember to use no baggage words, words that don’t have connotations which misconstrue your meaning. Feelings come first.
EX: “You need to practice stacking on cat”
BAD EX: “Your Terrible on cat, work on it”

A = Address the situation. Don’t begin with “Because you…..” Deal only in specifics. Always follow up with the facts second.
EX: “next time camp outside the b halls, don’t push. Because they pick you every time you push”
BAD EX: “Next time don’t push idiot, god, you're ruining my life”

S = Say what you want to happen. Be specific and be reasonable. Be direct. Pass all available information with out overcrowding.
EX: “Three pushing b-halls, AK’S, no bomb”
BAD EX: “OMG LONG A OMG I NEED BACK UP”

Y = yet sometimes you just need to ask direct questions that can only be answered with a yes or no. You can make it happen!
EX: “do you see the bomb?”
BAD EX: “Where is the bomb”



Improving your receiver communications

A receiver is just as important as the sender. To be a good receiver just listens with the HEART to eliminate communication barriers.

H = Hush: Listen first, don’t just wait for your turn to talk. Focus on the message being sent

E = Empathy first, evaluate second: Don’t just listen to what’s being said try and understand or level with the message and than put things to your terms

A = Ask questions: If you don’t understand, ask questions to clarify. It’s your duty as the receiver to notify the sender he’s not being clear.

R = Reflect, then paraphrase: If the message is still not clear, think deeply about what’s being said and then paraphrase the message back to the sender

T = Tone and body language: Reestablish and understand the tone and body language of the person. Body language is obviously not possible online.

Applying this to Online Gaming:

The entire course of a match could and usually does come down to communication. Entire teams are disbanded because of communication issues. Once you understand the basics of two-way communications you can apply them in the dealing with your teammates to resolve performance or attitude-based issues. While in game pass all available information to your teammates. Make the communication clear and concise. Remember that sometimes less is more. Keep your transmissions short but full of content. Work on shooting and talking at the same time. A lot of people wait too long to talk, and die holding important information. Which brings us to another issue

Ventrilo, teamspeak, ETC
I personally disdain the use of this kind of third party software. But if your team has the discipline to not talk after death except in important circumstances, these might work for you. The idea is that overloaded communications are just as bad as no comms at all. If your teammates don’t have the discipline not to say 'OMG WHAT A HACKER' etc. after they die, while your trying to listen for important in game sounds you probably shouldn’t be using ventrilo or its equivalents. If you have to scream “OMG” that bad, or talk with dead team mates about non round relevant stuff, do it on MM2. But the ability to talk after death could be useful to pass numbers of people attacking, there relative positions, and other information after death.

Critiquing performance:

It is of utmost importance to comment on people’s performance. But you must make sure that you pass the good with the bad. The person critiquing should provide the feedback in a professional, and non-threating manner. Any personalized comments should be done in a group, so everyone learns from the mistake, but certain tact is required. Don’t attack someone’s persona, comment on there performance. State the problem the person faces. Tell them why it is a problem, and then let them know a suggestion to correct it. Let them give you feedback, listen and then respond. Make Sure the Critique is E.A.S.Y. and that you listen with H.E.A.R.T.

Pro-words and codes:

Everyone needs to be on the same page when in game. Everyone on the team should know what the different positions on the map are called. Develop a standard list of positions and disseminate it throughout your team. This includes place to nade, bounce off a flash, peek, so on and so forth. Most people don’t like using the game voice GUI’s to answer a call or pass information. When you use the game voices it displays for everyone in text as well as dictates it for you. This is helpful when the in game leader calls out a play or strat. Once the call is given to go a certain way if you say use game voice to say “roger that” so the leader can look to see that everyone’s name pops up with a “I understand the plan.” If you continually use the game voice to pass information it will get easier and easier.

That concludes my idea of effective communications. I hope you find this useful. If anyone else has any other ideas feel free to post.

The following is a community-submitted editorial and as such does not necessarily reflect the opinions of GotFrag or its advertisers.