How to Build Cohesive Teams
Imagine a football team methodically moving the ball down the field. The coach delivers the play call. After the snap, each offensive lineman blocks a defender to ensure that they can’t reach the quarterback. The wide receivers run the exact routes of the play call, allowing the quarterback to time their throw so that it reaches their intended target and gains yardage.
Individuals’ performing their duties in tandem results in the type of group progress that only a cohesive team can deliver. However, cohesive teams don’t solely exist in athletics. They’re also found in organizations of all sizes throughout every industry, including technology, retail, healthcare, and manufacturing.
Considering their many benefits, managers should learn how to build cohesive teams in the workplace. The best way to do this is by leveraging the leadership skills that develop cohesion and promote teamwork—they can learn these skills in a certificate program that focuses on building and leading resilient teams.
What’s Team Cohesion?
The term “team cohesion” refers to how connected and unified coworkers feel as they strive toward a common goal. Typically, cohesive teams have a deep working relationship that makes them feel bonded through interpersonal connection. This bond facilitates the mindset of thinking in terms of “we” rather than “I,” an essential shift when taking on complex group projects with many moving parts. A cohesive team works in harmony, enabling them to accomplish more together than they ever could alone.
For example, Steve Jobs is remembered as the creative force behind innovations such as Apple’s iPod, iPhone, and iMac computers. These products not only disrupted the music, communications, and computing industries but also were pop culture and technical phenomenons. However, Jobs didn’t singlehandedly create Apple’s most innovative products. It took a tight-knit crew of engineers, designers, analysts, and creative thinkers to conceptualize and create them.
According to Ken Kocienda, one of the original iPhone’s principal engineers, the teams were made up of small cohesive units working in a secret facility. Nobody could talk about the iPhone outside of work or to friends and family; this made the iPhone team members feel like they were on a secret mission together, Kocienda has said.
What Are the Benefits of Team Cohesion?
Similar to how a football team can methodically progress down the field as a cohesive unit, team cohesion can be used in several business scenarios to achieve success. Managers who learn how to build cohesive teams find the following:
- Communication improves among team members.
- Employees are more effective and work with greater efficiency.
- Company goals are more easily met.
- Group collaboration is more productive.
- Employees require less direct oversight because they’re overseeing themselves.
- Employee morale and job satisfaction increase, leading to reduced turnover.
- Employees genuinely care about their work and are supportive of one another.
- Workplace conflicts decrease and are more easily resolved.
- Miscommunications and mistakes are mitigated because everyone is on the same page.
- Team members trust in each other’s ability and that they’ll deliver their part of the project.
- The team rallies around an employee who needs help to lift them up.
How to Build Cohesive Teams in the Workplace
Creating a cohesive team doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, it can take managers months of meticulous coaching and reinforcement before they begin to see their team come together. Below are some best practices and tips that managers can use to facilitate team cohesion.
Facilitate Communication and Trust
Create an environment that encourages open communication between employees. This is especially important in a hybrid or fully remote work model with limited face-to-face time.
Focus on building a universal sense of trust among your workforce. Employees must trust each other and their manager to become a cohesive unit. Foster trust by being honest and transparent, showing appreciation, creating an inclusive culture, valuing the opinions and ideas of others, being accountable and consistent, showing empathy, and using interpersonal communication skills that build meaningful relationships.
Team-Building
Organize team-building activities that encourage collaboration and social interaction. Team lunches, group volunteer work, networking events, and team games are great ways to bring everyone together. Pay attention to what team members like—their interests, hobbies, and so forth—to help create team-building ideas.
Structure team-oriented goals so that coworkers know they’re part of a group effort. For example, in addition to individual goals, a sales team can have an overall sales goal that results in a group prize.
Development and Recognizing Success
Provide the necessary training to develop employees into team players. Employees who are used to working by themselves may require coaching on soft skills—and, more specifically, how to work as part of a unit.
Always focus on the team’s success rather than an individual’s success. Celebrating an individual’s accomplishments can make employees feel devalued. However, celebrating the entire team creates a shared sense of success.
Managers and company leaders who are just starting to learn how to build cohesive teams must also consider how new hires will mesh with current employees. A clashing personality can quickly overshadow their merits in terms of education and experience. New hires should be thoroughly vetted to ensure that they’re a good fit for the team and can work in a group dynamic.
Learn the Skills That Help Create Cohesive Teams
Cohesive teams yield numerous benefits in terms of productivity, efficiency, and overall workplace culture that can elevate their respective organizations. Taking the time to create a cohesive team also mitigates issues such as employee turnover, workplace disputes, and low morale. However, cohesive teams don’t come together by accident. Companies that want to know how to build cohesive teams need skilled leaders to properly guide and reinforce their employees.
Those who wish to develop their leadership skills should explore their educational options, such as the Building and Leading Resilient Teams certificate program offered at Suffolk University’s Center for Continuing & Professional Education (CCPE). During this seven-week program, students will learn how to raise morale, boost teamwork, motivate employees, and create a positive work environment, among other valuable leadership skills and competencies.
Learn more about the program so that you can see how a professional certificate from the Suffolk CCPE will support your long-term professional goals.
Recommended Readings
How to Write Your Career Roadmap
How to Build an Inclusive Workplace Culture
Legal Technology: Trends and Case Studies
Sources:
Achievers, “9 Tips for Building Trust in the Workplace”
Corporate Finance Institute, “Team Cohesion”
Indeed, “6 Different Types of Teams (With Teamwork Examples)”
Indeed, “10 Ways To Improve Team Cohesiveness in the Workplace”
Podium, “Team Cohesion: What Is It & How to Build It”
Quartz, “What It Was Like Working at Apple to Create the First iPhone”