it isn't surprising that the identified communication patterns correlate well with team being successful. Yet it is somewhat doubtful that such good communication can be enforced, ie. good communication seems to be a manifestation of a good team not what makes it.
The article discusses some different interventions that were used to improve communication on teams:
1) "Every day for a week, we provided team members a visualization of that day’s work, with some light interpretation of what we saw. (Keep in mind that we didn’t know the substance of their work, just how they were interacting.) We also told them that the ideal visualization would show members contributing equally and more overall contributions. By day seven, the maps showed, the team’s energy and engagement had improved vastly, especially for the two Japanese members, one of whom had become a driving force."
2. "The manager wanted to raise energy and engagement in lockstep. We suggested instituting a common coffee break for each team at the call center. This increased the number of interactions, especially informal ones, and raised the teams’ energy levels. And because all team members took a break at once, interactions were evenly distributed, increasing engagement. When we mapped energy and engagement against AHT afterward, the results were clear: Efficiency in the center increased by 8%, on average, and by as much as 20% for the worst-performing teams."
They did mention about using tactics to encourage better communication (with the visual feedback and such), which showed that those efforts led to better team performance; so, for me, that shows good communication creates a good team environment instead of vice versa (since the communication was the variable that was changed during the experiment).
People often forget that communication is a skill that can be honed. Certain behaviors - body language, active/passive, talking versus listening, etc. - can be adjusted to make you a better communicator.
