Team cohesion is a critical factor in determining the efficiency of a business. Indeed, studies show that team cohesion directly impacts the efficiency of every aspect of an enterprise. If you want your business to run effectively, you must make each team in your company as cohesive as possible. Hiring the most talented or learned individuals alone is not a guarantee of business success.
Is having skilled staff members essential? Yes. But getting the perfect personnel for various jobs is only the first step. The next is to turn these unique individuals into a high-performance, high-efficiency group of co-workers. In other words, you have to build team cohesion.
A strong, cohesive team can achieve optimum performance faster (and maintain it), while also enjoying a sense of belonging and satisfaction. Now, here’s the million-dollar question — how do you get your team cohesion from where it is now to where you want it to be?
In this article, we’ll share some sure-fire strategies to help you improve team cohesion and boost efficiency. You’ll also discover some practical ways you can apply this knowledge to your business. But first, what is team cohesion?
What is Team Cohesion?
Team cohesion (or cohesiveness) is the ability of a team to work effectively toward achieving a common aim or goal. That is, each member of the group contributes meaningfully to the team’s working capacity. Unfortunately, the ability to work cohesively in a team doesn’t come naturally to everyone, but there is a bright side; team cohesion is a skill you can help your employees to develop.
Without adequate team cohesiveness, the team falls apart, functions ineffectively, and is unable to achieve business goals. For instance, imagine calls keep dropping in a communications department because a team member is unwilling to pick up the slack for a swamped colleague.
That is a lack of team cohesiveness that can be detrimental to company goals. Although a better business VoIP system may conveniently solve such a problem, you still need team members working together to help the system run smoothly.
More often than not, a team will be comprised of people with different talents and from diverse backgrounds. Therefore, what brings team members together and births cohesion is a strong identification with the organization and its goals. Cohesion within a team breeds respect, trust, and support — crucial requirements for efficient work.
That said, let’s dive into our tips for improved efficiency and cohesion within your teams.
Our Top Five Smart Strategies for Better Team Cohesion and Efficiency
Before you start trying to implement the strategies you find in this article, there’s something you should know. Team cohesion will not happen right away. However, with the right tips, a proper order management system, and time, soon enough, you’ll find yourself with a much more cohesive team.
1. Define Your Values and Goals
Having a clear picture of your company values and the goal you want for your team is a critical step in achieving cohesion. If your company doesn’t currently have a mission (or you need to change it), this is the time to do so.
By continuously reminding team members of the company mission, values, and goals, your employees have an ever-present image of what they’re working towards, why they’re doing it, and how they should do it.
It’s up to you to manage the goal and value-defining process, but we recommend asking team members for their perspectives. You’ll find your employees may have different views, which could help to finetune your ideas. Furthermore, team members are more likely to work together to achieve a common goal when they know they helped shape it.
2. Devise an Effective Means of Communication
Excellent communication creates a proper foundation for effective and efficient cooperation. It’s also one of the essential routes to better team cohesion. Therefore, our next strategy to achieve a more cohesive team is creating and implementing effective communication channels.
Even if team members are not always within proximity of one another, it’s essential they still maintain effective communication. Thankfully, technological solutions such as web conferencing tools have made distance less of a barrier to communication.
However, it’s not only about communication. You should encourage transparency, clarity, and respect when communicating with teams by embodying these values yourself. This way, positive and constructive communications can take place within the group.
Pro tip: Try to observe the behavioral patterns of each team member to devise the best way to communicate with them.
3. Practice Team-Building Exercises
A common mistake many team leaders make is focusing on team objectives and aims and neglecting the team’s needs. Try as much as possible to avoid fixating on goals. If you want to achieve the ultimate cohesive team, members must have a good relationship. Employees will find it easier to work together on projects when there’s a camaraderie between them.
Good interpersonal relationships between team members will boost self-esteem and morale and help to build positive bonds that aid the completion of goals. While you cannot force solid interpersonal relationships between team members, there are several ways you can encourage cordial relationships in a group.
Team-building exercises that promote team cohesion while eliminating back office vs front office issues include:
- Periodic team outings
- Team lunches
- Scavenger hunts
- Circles of appreciation
- Volunteer projects
- Team games
4. Learn How to Manage Conflicts the Right Way
It may be impossible to eliminate conflicts within the office. Indeed, when diverse personalities and outlooks on life come together, it’s understandable that disputes will arise. What matters is how you as a team leader respond to and deal with these conflicts.
Conflict management is a complex skill set that has quite an extensive range. Many people (including entrepreneurs) spend their whole life brushing up on and honing their conflict management abilities.
One essential way to manage and resolve conflicts is dialogue. Even if parties are not in the same location, you can use video calling online to hold a conversation that hopefully fixes the issue.
Always listen carefully to both parties and make fair, objective decisions. Also, ensure each party knows where they went wrong and provide suggestions to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
5. Celebrate Successes Together
The final tip we’d like to leave you with is to celebrate wins as a team. There is no better motivation to work together than celebrating individual as well as team efforts publicly.
Celebrating successes encourages the team to work harder and surpass previous results. Highlighting wins (individual and mutual) creates stronger bonds within the group and promotes overall cohesion.
While tools like robotic process automation undoubtedly make the work more streamlined and efficient, it’s the individuals who make up a team that are responsible for its successes, so celebrate them when they achieve their goals. Appreciation works like a charm to boost team cohesion.
Achieve More of Your Business Goals with a Cohesive Team
The success of a company is reliant on having cohesion among its various teams. Therefore, you must help your teams to become more cohesive and consequently more efficient. The strategies in this article will help you along the way. Do let us know how it goes.