Communication in team working is one of those things everyone says they value – but few really know how to do well. We hear it all the time: “We just need better communication.” But what does that actually mean?

For some teams, it’s missed messages and crossed wires. For others, it’s the feeling that ideas aren’t landing – or that people aren’t really being heard. And for many, it’s simply not knowing how to speak up, or when.

At Farleigh, we see communication in a team as more than just talking. We’re not here to hand you a list of fluffy tips. We’re going to unpack what real communication looks like – with all its challenges, its nuance, and its power. You’ll get practical tools, examples that feel familiar, and ways to make your team feel more human, connected, and effective.

What Really Makes Communication in Team Working?
Communication Styles – Why They Matter
Communication in Remote and Hybrid Teams
How Communication Drives Collaboration and Performance
Communication in Team Working: A Farleigh Case Study
How Farleigh Approaches Team Development
What Strong Communication in Team Working Really Means

**What Really Makes Communication in Team Working?**

If you’re relying on more meetings to fix things, it’s probably not working. Communication in teams doesn’t come down to higher volume – it relies on meaning, timing, and trust.

You’ve seen it: teams where everyone’s “communicating” all day, but no one’s aligned. Tasks fall through the cracks, updates get buried, and people stop sharing ideas, because they’re not sure that they’ll land.

That’s not a messaging problem. It’s a human one.
At Farleigh, we see strong communication as less about having the “right” tools and more about creating the right conditions. These conditions need to foster honesty, challenge, creativity, and clarity to show up in the room (or in the call).

**So, what does good team communication actually look like?**

Good communication in team working feels different because it is different. It’s not about getting everyone talking more – it’s about making sure what’s said actually goes somewhere. It’s what people feel able to say when it matters, and what they trust will happen next.

And crucially, it needs to be built around your people:

What they value.
How they like to communicate.
What makes them speak up (or switch off).
Whether they’ve learned that silence is safer than honesty.

This kind of communication comes from noticing how your team shows up, and what gets in their way. When those conditions are in place, you stop firefighting, and start anticipating.

You’ll recognise it in moments like these:

Someone flags that they don’t understand a key part of the project – and it’s treated as progress, not a problem.
A missed deadline gets unpacked properly, not brushed aside or pinned on one person.
A team member interrupts a meeting to say, “This isn’t landing – can we take a step back?”, and the conversation actually shifts.
A new starter offers a challenge to the status quo – and people don’t just nod politely; they engage.
The team doesn’t just report on what happened, they talk about how they worked together, and what needs to change next time.

These aren’t ideal scenarios, but they’re necessary ones – and they don’t happen by change. They’re the product of a team that’s been set up to speak honestly, listen properly, and course-correct without drama.

Communication Styles – Why They Matter

Every team has a mix of communication styles. That’s not a flaw – that’s the default. The risk is when one style dominates and the rest of the group quietly adapts, or checks out.

Some people build ideas as they speak. Others think it through first, then come in with something precise. Some skim for detail. Others go deep and get stuck in the nuance. Some avoid challenging feedback because they were taught not to rock the boat.

These differences shape who gets listened to, whose ideas gain traction, and who slowly disengages because the room was never designed for them in the first place.

Here are some of the most common clashes we see in communication throughout organisations:

Common Communication Clashes

Communication Style Clash	What It Looks Like in Teams	What You Can Do (as a Leader or Team Member)
Fast-talker vs Reflective processor (classic communication styles)	One dominates early in meetings; the other shares too late or not at all	Build in reflection pauses: give space before responses, or follow up with async input after the meeting
Direct feedback vs Indirect delivery(feedback, clarity)	Feedback feels harsh to some, vague to others; tensions build under the surface	Set ground rules for how your team gives and receives feedback. Clarify intent. Ask, “How do you prefer to receive input?”
Verbal communicator vs Visual/structural thinker(verbal communication, clarity)	Long conversations drift; some struggle to stay with it or contribute meaningfully	Combine spoken updates with written summaries, diagrams, or key takeaways. Use visuals to ground discussion
Big-picture thinker vs Detail-oriented member(team members, performance)	One talks about the big picture, the other gets stuck in logistics. Both feel frustrated – momentum stalls.	Pair up complementary styles. Let one lead vision, the other clarify next steps. Keep team performance in focus
Challenge-first vs Harmony-first(conflict resolution, empathy, groups)	One person pushes for change, another avoids disagreement. The group either leans into friction or tiptoes around it.	Normalise healthy tension. Create space for disagreement as a sign of care. Use retrospectives to explore team conflict safely

🛠️ Use it now:

In your next team meeting, run a quick poll or check-in:

“Which of these clashes have we felt lately – and what’s one change we could try?”

And if you’re ever unsure where to start, go back to this: the importance of communication in a team is about unlocking the full range of voices, thinking styles, and ideas in the room. When you can work out how to make those differences useful, communication starts becoming your team’s biggest advantage.

Communication in Remote and Hybrid Teams

Remote and hybrid work didn’t invent communication problems – it just made the cracks harder to ignore.

Suddenly, the habits teams relied on in-person (reading body language, spontaneous clarifications, overhearing quick decisions) weren’t available. And in their place? Silence, confusion, and the feeling that things were being decided somewhere else.

This is where communication in team working takes on a whole new level of complexity and importance.

Where It Breaks Down

Collaboration struggles in hybrid or remote teams are often down to mismatched communication styles without structure or awareness.

You’ll know it’s happening when:

A few team members dominate meetings, while others barely speak
Messages land differently than intended, because there’s no verbal communication to soften the tone
The same decisions get made twice, because channels weren’t clear
Feedback gets delayed, diluted, or vanishes entirely

When your setup makes it harder for people to contribute, they stop trying.

What to Shift – And How

You don’t need a new platform. You need better habits across the ones you already use.

What Often Happens	What to Try Instead
Key decisions get made informally and others hear about it later	Create a “decision log” that’s shared after leadership or project calls. Visibility builds trust and clarity.
Silence in meetings is mistaken for agreement	End calls with one prompt: “What might we be missing?” and invite written follow-up for those who need time to process.
Cameras off = disengaged?	Ditch camera-on pressure. Ask what helps people stay focused – not what looks good on screen.
Passive attendance in virtual meetings	Share the agenda beforehand. Assign different roles: note-taker, timekeeper, question-raiser. Give people a reason to engage.
Communication leans too heavily on Slack/email	Use the right communication channel for the job. Video for nuance, async for updates, docs for decisions. Name the purpose of each.

Why is communication important in a team – especially now?

Because remote and hybrid setups magnify everything: the gaps, the assumptions, the unspoken tension. And that lack of direct contact means that these issues are rarely brought up, and are easier to ignore.

We see it all the time: leadership noticing dips in performance, frustrations between teams, things not clicking – but no one can explain why. Because no one’s asking. And no one feels safe enough to speak up.

That’s what poor workplace communication costs you in hybrid or remote teams: real insight, real connection, and often, real results.

🔗 Want to explore this further?

Check out Remote Working Challenges – our guide to strengthening collaboration and connection, even when you’re not in the same room.

How Communication Drives Collaboration and Performance

You can’t separate communication in team working from how a team performs; it’s the infrastructure behind everything that works (or doesn’t).

When teams communicate well, decisions get made faster. Ideas get shared earlier. Feedback feels useful, not personal. And tension, when it shows up, is something the team knows how to handle – not something they avoid until it explodes.

Why is communication important in a team?

Because without it, performance becomes patchy and reactive. A handful of people carry the weight, others drift. Team meetings get quieter. Creativity takes a hit. And problems show up way too late, if they even show up at all. And this isn’t just noticeable internally, your clients can also take a hit due to this:

What clients and customers see (even if you don’t)

When communication breaks down behind the scenes:

Timelines slip due to misalignment
Clients get vague or conflicting updates
Teams give different answers to the same question – causing confusion
Mistakes creep in, and trust starts to crack

But when communication is strong:

Clients hear one voice, not five conflicting ones
Work feels like it follows a consistent pattern
Delivery runs cleaner, faster, and with fewer surprises
Your people feel clear, focused, and in sync – building trust

That’s the business case. Strong team communication doesn’t just improve the workplace – it builds credibility, keeps clients close, and protects performance where it counts.

🔗 Looking to go deeper on this?

Read: How to Develop Team Working Skills – a guide to what makes teams actually click, not just coexist.

Communication in Team Working: A Farleigh Case Study

There’s no better way to showcase the importance of communication in a team than through a team we’ve actually helped transform.

🏭 Aston Manor: Improving Collaboration to Support Growth Ambitions

Aston Manor Cider is the UK’s second-largest cider maker – with 350 people across three sites and big plans for growth.

But before they could move forward, something had to shift internally. Teams were stuck in silos, conversations were surface-level, and a culture of blame was quietly replacing ownership. On the outside, the business looked strong – but inside, collaboration was stalled.

That’s where Farleigh stepped in. We provided time, listening, and a human-first approach to rebuilding clarity, trust, and shared ownership. This wasn’t a one-day workshop. It was a process – co-created, intentional, and designed to make communication feel like something teams wanted to do, not just had to.

What we focused on:

Helping leaders and teams talk more honestly and more often
Creating space to challenge each other safely
Breaking down silos through shared understanding, not forced alignment
Strengthening relationships across roles and sites

And it worked. What changed?

“We talk better, we understand each other better. It has brought us closer together.”

That’s the importance of communication in a team – not just smoother projects, but deeper trust, more ownership, and a team that actually feels like one.

✅ Key takeaway:

If your team avoids the hard conversations, don’t be surprised when the easy things get hard.

Performance issues are rarely about capability, they’re about communication no one’s owning.

How Farleigh Approaches Team Development

At Farleigh, we know that no two teams are the same. What’s driving poor communication in one group could be completely different in another. That’s why every team development journey we design is co-created, built with the people it’s for, and focused on real, lasting change.

We start by listening. Not just to what’s being said, but to what’s not. We work with team leaders to understand what’s getting in the way of performance, then help the entire group explore the habits, assumptions, and mindsets that shape how they work together.

Our approach goes deeper than surface fixes:

We focus on building trust before jumping to strategy
We surface unspoken tensions and turn them into productive feedback
We help people understand their own role in how the team communicates
And we build the communication muscle – the skills that make challenge feel constructive, not combative

This is how we make communication in team working actually stick: by embedding it into how your people think, talk, and make decisions together.

🚀 Want to stop guessing and start fixing?

We offer two hours of free consultancy – we come to you (if location allows), to work through the real issue holding your team back.

If you’re stuck in circles, if something feels off but you can’t quite name it, this is where we start.

Get In Touch

What Strong Communication in Team Working Really Means

If you’ve made it this far, you already get it: most communication problems aren’t about words. They’re about safety, trust, timing, clarity, and attention.

They’re about teams that want to collaborate – but can’t quite get there. Leaders who feel the pressure to fix it, but aren’t sure where to start. Organisations that look fine on paper, but feel stuck in the day-to-day.

And through it all, one thing’s clear: the importance of communication in a team isn’t theoretical. It’s about culture. And whether people feel they’re part of something worth showing up to, or just another cog in the machine.

If you want stronger delivery, clearer decisions, and fewer quiet frustrations – start with how your team operates. Because that’s where things actually change.

And if you need a helping hand?

At Farleigh, we work with organisations who are ready to do the real work. Here’s how we do it:

Book an Appointment

Communication in Team Working: Fix What’s Not Being Said

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