by Amon Karagara

Created on: April 16, 2009

A team is said to be cohesive if its members can work together and unite in achieving its goals and objectives. It is easy to build a team. What is usually difficult is ensuring that members remain united in performing their duties. Yet this is the most crucial part of any team. Productivity and team cohesiveness are positively related i.e. a less cohesive team means less production, and vice versa.

It is therefore the duty of the team leader to create and maintain cohesiveness in a team. What keeps a team together may not be the same across all groups and organizations. However, by doing the following, most team leaders will begin realizing better results in their team's cohesiveness:

1. Identify and define the goals of the team and ensure that members focus on fulfilling them without looking at their interpersonal issues. A team that does not have clearly defined goals usually tends to stray away from work-related issues, into personal ones. When teams think about achieving the ultimate goal, they attach more importance to their work and hence remain more united for that purpose.

2. Encourage some form of competition amongst teams. If you have large groups of people, you can subdivide them into different teams and have each one of them compete with each other towards a certain goal. Or, if you have outside competition, inform them that their success is important towards to the organization's strength in the competitive world.

3. Be fair across the board. Do not show favoritism to one group or person over the other. This will create further division when the other party feels marginalized. So, when dealing with issues, make sure that you treat everyone the same.

4. Create avenues for interaction, such as office parties, weekend/after work get-together or any other non-work related function that brings your team together. This will encourage them to mix and laugh and get to acquaint themselves with each other. When they return to work, they will see each other as friends and end up working as one team.

5. Encourage face-to-face and open communication. Do not let members backbite and gossip about each other. Instead, let members interact in person, even when solving issues. If there is some kind of conflict, deal with the affected parties at the same time. The more they face each other, the more they will eventually get used to working with each other.

6. Choose team leaders who can act as good role models to the rest of them. For instance, you can identify some members whose behavior is excellent, as well as those who always appear to work to encourage harmony amongst co-workers. Then empower them to lead others. By so doing, the rest of the team will always look up to them and thus promoting harmony and unity in the team.

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