Innovate or Perish: Managing the Enduring Technology Company in the Global Market

Team Communication

Communication is an actor of impact in the successful innovation process. Both quantity and quality appear to have significant impact on creative output. Jan Kratzer reported in his PhD thesis “Communication and Performance—An Empirical Study in Innovation Teams” in 2001 that three underlying performance dimensions determine team performance as critical success factors (CSFs): team dissensus, individual creativity, and individual commitment, all strongly influenced by structures of communication. Kratzer investigated the CSFs as related to three types of team communication—problem solving, managerial, and friendly communication—and he shows how it is possible to use network theory and simulation to analyze team performance and the importance of managing the quality of the three communication streams.

In March 2004, Kratzer published another paper together with his thesis professors Roger Leenders and Jo van Engelen in the publication Creativity and Innovation Management,^[4] in which they reported that the frequency of communication was found to be a significant factor in creative output. It was also found that if teams overcommunicated and became “ingrown,” it could lead to group-think mentality, which stifles originality.

^[4] Kratzer, Jan, Leenders, Roger Th.A.J., and van Engelen, Jo M.L. “Stimulating the Potential: Creative Performance and Communication in Innovation Teams,” Creativity and Innovation Management, March 2004.

The team leader has an important role ...