#132 - How to Create a Cohesive Team

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I'm Lewis Hatch here and in this episode I'm going to be talking about how to create a cohesive team So I'll talk about what cohesion is the bonding that it creates within a team some of the positive outcomes that you may find and Then also how to build it some of the reasons behind having culture of values and behaviors within a team So if you are a part of a team or perhaps even coaching a team and in charge then this could be a podcast for you So let's just get straight into it So cohesion I think this podcast is not only something that I'm keen on talking about because I've been studying it quite a bit and working with whether it sports teams businesses But I've also been a part of teams that have been cohesive and I've also spoken the podcast previously about how I haven't been a part of teams that are cohesive or If you don't really like the word cohesive perhaps bonding together Unified those might be words that are Might resonate with you a little bit better But for the purpose of this I'm going to be talking around cohesion and that is really the bonding that you get between people within a group So I think to start it off I want to talk around some of the models the frameworks of it where it sort of stemmed from the definitions and That will then clarify before we get into like how you build it where you go from there So cohesion has had many different definitions of leading up to From people talking around it being the resistance to group disruptors or just simply the forces that attract Someone to a group so that could be being attracted to a group because You enjoy the QdOS of being a part of that group the success that comes with it and the definition that I liked To end up on was around The fact that a cohesive group has the tendency to stick together they remain united in the pursuit of their objective So what they're going after and also Create satisfaction for the members needs that within it. So looks after the individual within it and then There was a framework that I've been looking at around and it's a Framework conceptual framework called By Karen and colleagues and it was done in 1985 and they look at essentially the different forms of cohesion that create and and they come up with concept of four parts to cohesion and ultimately it's two parts that are split into and It is one being the individual attraction to the group so the a individual themselves being their level of attraction to the group And that's just split into into task or social so whether they're attracted that individual is attracted to the group through Perhaps the task and the the actual what the group does or whether they're Attracted to that group through the social side through the people and the bonding and and that part of it and then the other Half of that is group integration so the integration of the entire unit and that again is split between task and social So is the group integrated through through the task that they do on is that group integrated through social so those four parts create what the idea of cohesion and In order to get to that that's what another Model that was brought through a throughput model of basically talking around How do you get to the outcome of a cohesive team? So if we know that these four parts help create a cohesive team if you get all four right What are some of the factors you need to input into that those four factors to get the outcome which is cohesion and a team working together and they found that the four factors that To consider our environmental factors personal factors leadership factors and group factors So I won't go into those but ultimately that is just thinking about your environment The the personal factors around that are going in their leadership within the group and the group's factors itself so that Plus creating that cohesion in all four areas Hopefully gives you an outcome now these are just concept these are frameworks that people can use and it just helps guide this Perhaps later part which I'll talk about around Creating cohesion so team building so how would you do it? How would you find a way to bring people together? You would start to look at what are the factors that are being Input into the group so what is strong? What is perhaps needs a little bit more work? What? Areas of cohesion is the group currently at and there's a questionnaire that you can you can give Pete give the group in order to find out where they perhaps Lacking are they perhaps low in individual attraction to the group on the task side or maybe they're low on the group integration as a whole on a social side like whatever there might be areas to Strengthen there'll also be areas that they're really strong and you want to try and get that combination of all to create that full cohesive team It's also worth noting that sometimes people get caught up in the idea of cohesion and teamwork so the difference really is that teamwork are the actions the behaviors the roles the actual doing of things that Creates teamwork so doing things together whereas cohesion is the bonding so you could have a team that really works well together But they're just not very cohesive because they just don't get on they don't they're not unified in what they're doing They don't have purpose they they don't really get on you could have a team that are super cohesive and Really get on but their teamwork is the shambles and they just don't get anything done. They don't have structures in place So with that being said there was another model that Karen and spink created and another conceptual framework for team building to create cohesion so Again based off the idea that you have an input You have what's called a throughput which is the processes that go on and then the output being group cohesion and again in Attraction to the group and group integration So the inputs in their model were simply group environment and the group structure and then the middle once you Put those in you would create group processes that would then give you the output of cohesion And this framework can be used to create a lot of team building methods in order to create cohesion. So you might be trying to use and that there are many different ways in which you can create cohesion through team building. So it is interventions or workshops or what it might be that you put forward in order to bring that team together. And using this framework, you can figure out what you need to use for that team, depending on where their strengths and weaknesses lie, if that makes sense. But there have been studies to show that there is no real benefit to having someone do it from within the group. So whether that's a coach or whether it's someone else leading it, it's all completely contextual. So these workshops, they can be led by someone else, they can be led by a coach. For example, in sport, there have been times where people have mentioned that having a coach run it can make it seem like that person is putting on their spin of what they want. So ultimately trying to lead a horse to water and they're trying to push you down a way in which they want you to behave. Whereas what you want to try and create when you're building cohesion is the group to come up with themselves for them to be intrinsically motivated in order to create that cohesion. You want them to figure it out themselves. So being able to do that is by asking questions and that's where I'm going to get onto what I think is the real important part to this podcast, which is how do you build team cohesion? What can you do in order to do that? So like I've said, I've been a part of teams that have been cohesive. We have had teams where people where they've worked together. They've been united around perhaps a team or a community that want to play well in their sport and that has unified them enough in order for them to come together and everyone to get on. And then that hopefully, it doesn't necessarily guarantee success or outcomes, but it allows people to enjoy being a part of something. The other ones where I haven't necessarily had cohesion were based around people having their own agendas. People being fragmented, they're being lack of communication. People not sacrificing enough in the group in order to to feel like they're giving their end of the bargain. And that creates those fractured feelings within a non cohesive team. I'm sure a lot of you would have experienced being in a part of a team that is working together, common in their goals and a team that perhaps isn't and it's perhaps individualized and it just feels that fractured feeling. So how can you do it? Like I mentioned, there are there are a lot of different ways in which you could find a way to bring cohesion. But ultimately, there are the way I do it and the way I have seen it being done is through a lot of meetings and workshops that allow you to understand the group and dive into some of the structures, the processes, the environment, the behaviors, what's being said and get to know the people. So there are two that I will talk about that you can perhaps use. First off is a group goal setting intervention or like a workshop. And this could be simply bringing the group together to find out what are some of the common group goals that you want to create. So this could be something like creating a common goal around achieving success in say like a tournament or if it's a business achieving certain numbers. And then from that, you can start to create the processes together that would allow you to get to to that place. And just by simply doing that process, you'll start to learn about some of the ideas from the group. You'll start to learn about what others want to do. Maybe don't want to do where there's strengths for some people and you'll be able to work your way towards being a more cohesive team. That's one way of doing it. But the way that I really enjoy is a much more personal approach. And this is through a personal disclosure, mutual sharing intervention. But essentially it's telling your story. It is telling the group who you are. And then figuring out who the team is and what the team are about and what are some of the attributes that you want to see in that team. What are some of the characteristics that you believe you can bring to the team? So the way this model, way this form of intervention works is that you basically get the group to sit around in a circle. You get to sit around in a sharing circle. And you can prepare the players, the individuals in the group to share a personal story about themselves. And this could be predetermined questions. So for example, some of the predetermined questions you could use would be something around like what does it mean to be a part of this team? What is one of your proudest moments for being a part of this team? Why do you play this game? Why do you do what you do? And ultimately drill down into some really personal parts of that. Now depending on who's running the session, whether it's the coach or a consultant that's come in, it's really important that those people set the tone for the room because there is going to be an anxiety around sharing. There has been shown to be less willingness to share their stories when perhaps coaches are around because coaches are associated with selections. So if I share my story, am I going to get selected? Am I not? And that can have an impact. So it's really important that, for example, if I'm running a session that I'm actually telling people some of my stories as to why I do what I do, opening up and being vulnerable in those moments because that's where you find the good stuff. That when you're able to open up to your team and tell them more about you, you find out more about not only yourself, but then you allow them to see it and you give them permission to talk openly about themselves. So I encourage you when you are doing something like this to share yourself in a very open and honest way because then it will inspire others to do the same. So you go around, you're telling your stories and then that will allow the group to feel like they start to understand each other. There's studies to show that once we do this, we understand each other's needs are motives for doing something and that brings us closer together. It creates an understanding for what people are going through or perhaps why people are doing something and that gives you an understanding of your team. So essentially a much better, stronger social cohesion of the group. Then the second part to this would be about going into the team itself. What does the team stand for? And this is where you can start to drill into the culture of the team. And you can do this by asking questions of like, what do we want the team to be known for? So what do you want if someone is talking about your team, what do you want people to say about that team? What are some of the characteristics you want to be known for? What are some of the behaviors you want to be known for? If someone is joining the team, what do you hope them to be like? And then really it is going into that and just throwing as much at the wall as you possibly can. So if I'm running one of my workshops, it is where we would split out into groups. And those groups start to come up with ideas about what the group should look like or they feel it could look like if someone was to describe someone from this team or business. What do you hope for them to say? And then you write all that down and because there's so many different ideas, you're going to get loads of different ones, but then eventually bring them together and you can decipher through all of that and figure out which ones are most common. Perhaps there's some similarities in some, perhaps some differences in others and have an open and honest discussion about which ones mean more to individuals. So which ones do you want to pursue with? Which ones do you want to actually have and write down? And here I would only really encourage you to find maybe five max values that you think best describe the group. So you don't really want to shoot for more than five because it can become too confusing. So these can just be singular words. They might be things such as you want to be known as honest, respectful, always striving for excellence. They don't necessarily always have to be single words. They can be phrases. Sometimes those phrases are really tangible. They can be something that later on you can make into action a lot easier. So think about what they are. You bring them together, but you want to have a group discussion. You want to have a group vote on this that these are actually things that we believe are valuable and we want to carry on with. Once you've created those cultural values and you've got those, you then want to look at the behaviors. So what are the behaviors that can bring these to light? This is the important bit. This is the bit that I think people miss the most. They create their values. They create what the culture should look like. But then they misalign the behaviors and the rituals that bring it to life. It's the rituals, the little idiosyncrasies that make teams unique, that bring to life who you are and what you're about. So if one of your values could be respect, very open ended word because because it means different to one person than what it means to the next. So it's really important that you come together as a group and how are we going to show respect? So it could be things like, I wanna use respect and we're gonna wear the same kit. We're gonna wear the same outfit as a team. It might be we're always gonna turn up on time when we are going to text if we are late or we are going to always respect the officials and if you're a business, it might be respecting everyone in the business, whatever, or respecting the clients, whatever that might look like. But you'll start to understand that you can create behaviors, tangible things that you can be held accountable for. And that's super important for being able to see how you bring this to life. So you're starting to describe that characteristic, that person that you're trying to become or the people that you're trying to become. Now this, as we start to do this, this starts to become really clear that you'll start to recognize who you do and do not want in your team. And that's super important. It's very important that teams are strong in, if you do want to create a strong cohesive team, you gotta protect it. You gotta protect it by being strong enough to say, like you're not fitting this unit, what we're about our purpose, our unity. So you either come on board and you actually mold yourself or adapt to this group. But if you're not comfortable doing that, then we may have to part ways. We may have to see you leave and we may have to just go in a different direction, whichever way you wanna phrase it. So it's really important that you recognize that you are trying to build that cohesive team, but you do have to protect it because you'll start to understand what that person is going to look like. So great if you're bringing people in because you'll start to recognize, yeah, they fit our culture, they fit our values and what we're about and our behaviors, I see it in them. That's awesome. These actions and rituals can be anything. And I think like I said, the part to which most people miss out on, and this is so important for teams to be able to use as accountability factors because you want to be able to later on make sure you're upholding your values. One common mistake is that people go through this process and then probably about three months down the line, they've gone back to old ways, they're not aligned with these values that they've created. So creating something that is perhaps maybe measurable and that you know that you can hold people to account to, you can genuinely see it and then you can see this night and day between who is aligning with it and who isn't aligning with it. And then finally, once you've done that, it's really important to create the leaders and find out who is leading the group to be able to bring this together. So you might have recognized that when I mentioned this model of cohesion, that there's group environment, group structure and group processes. So the group environment is really about these values, this culture like what is that purpose behind the team? The group structure will be these leaders, the roles and responsibilities you have within that team to keep that cohesion going. And then the processes are those behaviors and the rituals. So to create that structure, it's important that leadership plays a role here. Now this is not necessarily where the executive leadership, so it could be the coaches, owners or it could be even in a business like the founders, the CEOs. It's important that this leadership comes from within that again, it is autonomous, it is intrinsic. It is built from yourself and you are coming up with it rather than having it come top down. It's coming from bottom up. And to do that, the way I do it is once you've created these cultures, create these values and the behaviors, you ultimately have a description of a human being. You have a description of someone. And then from that, you can start to put out a voting system in the group. And it is a very quick system. You just simply see that this description is of a personality. And this personality is ultimately someone you think is aligned with who you want your team to be, what a person in a cohesive team looks like. So you then vote on who in your group is ultimately closest aligned to this description. Now it's important to know that it's not necessarily the big money player, the best player, the longest serving player, or even in a business, the highest ranked person in the group and the best performer. It could literally be the person that is from day one, the newest member of that team. They could be upholding those values. It's not built off performance. It's not built off how good you are at what you do. It's built off who you are as a person. So it's important that that person, whether they are an expert in their role, or perhaps a novice in their role, and a fresh learner, if they are aligning with those values in that culture and those behaviors, that person can be a leader. That person 100% can be a leader. So they can be voted for. So when you go through this voting process, it's important to know that you're not just looking for the best, the strongest, the fastest, the longest serving person of your team, that you actually look at, who is this person? Are they aligned with this culture and then vote for them? I recommend trying to choose five that creates a little tight unit within the group that can help then manage the culture within the group. These guys are designed to help sustain, maintain, develop the culture within the group. They can then hold the people in the group accountable when you're falling astray. It's very hard if it's just one person because that person can create friction within the group. It's very easy for just a group to dismiss one person, if they're trying to police people in the moment, because let's face it, we're human beings, we suck at things a lot, and we end up regressing. So it's important that there is a group that can hold the larger group accountable. And to do that, that requires a mini bond between those cultural leaders. So I encourage definitely getting more than three, if not more, so that you have people that can figure out what they need to do within the group in order to maintain it. So it's not just left for one person, it's all five of them working together to help maintain it. And it gives them value, it gives them purpose. So once that's all done, you have hopefully created a good structure for what I believe is creating a cohesive team. So I really enjoy that process, as you can probably tell, that's the process I much rather go down. The goal setting version, you can definitely use, and maybe you can integrate it into there because goal setting, you just set the goals of what you're doing and goals, obviously, always moving. But I think it's really important that you gain a strong understanding of the people. We're bound by stories as human beings. We love hearing stories of each other, whether it's of ourselves, but mainly each other. And when we can bring those stories to each other and bring them to life, we understand each other, we understand what people are going through. And that brings a level of closeness that we're all striving for and that we can eventually obtain to. So there you go, hopefully this has helped you out and given you some ideas in perhaps how you can build a more cohesive team for yourselves and the team you're in. But if you perhaps want to develop this and you're not sure where to start, then you can head over to my website, which is LewisHatchit.com, but head over to LewisHatchit.com/teamstrong to check out the offering that we have where we can develop your culture, your values, your behaviors by doing this process for you and helping you get to the bottom of creating a cohesive team. So if you're interested in that, then just head over to LewisHatchit.com/teamstrong. As ever, do check out the website, do just head over to LewisHatchit.com and check out all the different programs whether it's performance, mindfulness, mind strong or even just come and interact on social media. So head over to @LewisHatchit on Instagram and also @Lewis_Hatchit on TikTok. So thank you so much. Subscribe to the podcast, follow it. Let us know how you get on. Leave a review, leave a rating. As always, it's been a pleasure and I'll see you guys later. (upbeat music)