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Team cohesion

Team cohesion is crucial to an organisation's success.

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Team dynamics

The challenges of team cohesion

In every organisation, there are different forces in tension, both vertical and horizontal, formal and informal, central and local. These forces come and go based on ephemeral compromises. What brings them together? The corporate culture and its value system.

But no lasting transformation is possible unless the corporate culture itself is compatible with change. Let's take the example of a merger between two entities. Just because they are now fully merged does not mean that they function as one.

How does your company's culture enable change while maintaining team cohesion?

  1. Effective collaboration is possible when team members are well integrated and have good relationships, enabling them to work on a common collective project. Good teamwork means better communication, real decision-making and problem-solving along the way.
  2. Good team dynamics often lead to improved motivation and commitment at work. With good cohesion, employees are more likely to be engaged because they feel valued. Team building can be a useful tool for this.
  3. Team cohesion can help retain team members by providing a more positive and enjoyable working environment. Employees then tend to stay with the organisation for longer, generating a virtuous circle of retention.
  4. Team cohesion encourages creativity and collective intelligence by creating an open and stimulating working environment.
  5. With a well-integrated team, in which members listen to each other and work together to find solutions, conflicts are less frequent and conflict resolution is easier. That's what we call team spirit.
  6. Ultimately, a cohesive and committed team fosters collective performance, because team members are more motivated, more creative, more collaborative and less prone to conflicts that could get in the way of their work.
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Our approach to supporting team cohesion

Executives and managers are on the front line of change and are therefore the guarantors of its successful implementation. It is up to them to communicate with their teams about the reasons for the transformation. But also on the effects that will reverberate through the organisation if the change is not carried through. The aim is therefore to mobilise teams so that employees become active throughout the change process.

The absence of a climate of trust and poor group dynamics will have a negative impact on overall team performance. 

Read also : why is it so difficult to motivate a team to change?

To promote cohesion within the company, we work on the following themes

How do you mobilise your teams?
1
How can habits be changed?
2
3
How can you foster team spirit and facilitate collaboration (internally and externally) to develop cohesion?

The benefits of my group coaching to improve cohesion

It should be noted that these team coaching sessions can be effectively combined with an individual approach for certain team members, which may include a personal development component, for example.

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Coaching & Coaching can support you every step of the way with tailor-made solutions.
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Support schemes linked to this theme

Team dynamics
embracing change
cohésion d'équipe - personnes bras dessus dessous - coaching & coaching

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Find out more about team cohesion and team coaching

A team coaching Successful team coaching enables a team to work together more effectively to achieve its objectives. This obviously requires new practices, but here are a few key characteristics of successful team coaching:

  1. Successful team coaching starts with a clear definition of the team's objectives. Objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART). The coach helps the team to identify and clarify these objectives to ensure that all team members adhere to the objectives, and to the resulting changes.
  2. Successful team coaching must include an honest and constructive assessment of the team's current situation. The team coach must help the team to identify its strengths and weaknesses, to stimulate what we call good team dynamics.
  3. The team coach must help the team to draw up a concrete action plan to plan and implement actions, detailing tasks, responsibilities and deadlines.
  4. Skills development can include training sessions, team-building exercises and communication enhancement activities.
  5. Team coaching can include regular monitoring and evaluation of the team's performance. The team coach can help the team to measure progress against defined objectives and identify opportunities for continuous improvement.

Team cohesion is fostered by a combination of fluid communication, trust, shared objectives, recognition, diversity, good conflict management and team-building activities to create a close-knit team.

More specifically:

  1. Communication is key to building strong relationships between team members. It is important to encourage every member of the team, whatever their level of responsibility, to communicate as openly and honestly as possible with each other.
  2. Trust is crucial to building strong relationships between team members. Everyone needs to feel safe to share their opinions and ideas without fear of reprisal.
  3. Team members need to have a clear understanding of how the organisation's objectives are to be achieved. This helps to align individual and collective efforts, and to create a shared vision around a common project and objectives.
  4. Team members need to feel valued for their contributions. Recognition can take many forms, such as encouragement, rewards or constructive feedback.
  5. The diversity of team members can be a considerable asset for team cohesion. Team members with varied backgrounds can bring unique perspectives and experiences that enrich the team's work.
  6. Conflict is inevitable in any team. The way in which conflicts are managed can have a decisive impact on team cohesion. Open communication, active listening and mutual respect are key to effective conflict resolution.
  7. Team-building activities, such as outings or social events, can help team members get to know each other better and strengthen their working relationship.
Transactional analysis is a tool that can help to improve team cohesion by identifying communication patterns (good communication, lack of communication, poor communication) that can hinder collaboration and helping team members to change their behaviour to work better together.
Participative management is a management style in which employees are involved in decision-making and in defining the company's objectives and priorities. A unique motivational lever, it is based on the idea that employees are active partners in the company and that they can contribute to the company's success by contributing their expertise and point of view. Team motivation is expected to increase tenfold, and participative management is an excellent way of encouraging employees to develop their skills.
Resistance to change is an inevitable process, whether individual or collective. And it has nothing to do with the relevance of the project or the strength of the change. Resistance to change is natural, because it involves moving away from a known and mastered situation towards an unknown and not yet mastered situation. It is encouraged by a lack of team cohesion.

There are two main reasons for this:

The first is that support for change is often limited to simple training, for example in new tools, new processes or new internal procedures. This is a first step, but it does not take sufficient account of the way in which people approach change, or of their natural reluctance to change. First and foremost, we are all looking for a balance - and any change calls this balance into question. This is what Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg develop in their book L'acteur et le système, Le Seuil, 1977. "Resistance to change is the reasonable and legitimate expression of the risks that change entails for those involved.

The second is managers' resistance to change. Some managers I meet think that only their teams need to change. Or they don't realise that they themselves are resisting change. They don't realise that, as leaders, they too need to evolve if they are to manage change. Because the absence of intention condemns change to failure. This is what differentiates change of the "applying a new organisation" type from the desire for genuine transformation. Organisational change cannot succeed without leadership support.

The most common are :

  • Loss of sense of mission
  • Loss of confidence in the company
  • Reduced motivation and commitment to work.

In his book, Managing Transitions, William Bridges explains that transition is a psychological process in 3 phases:

  1. The end - it's time to abandon the old perspectives
  2. The neutral phase - a sort of 'no man's land' between the old reality and what the future holds for us
  3. A fresh start - Starting afresh with a new energy, a new vision, a new identity.

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So as not to make my texts too heavy for the site as a whole, I've chosen to write in neutral/masculine forms. In my practice, I work with both men and women.