My framework for a High-Performing Team has 4 pillars:
1️⃣ Build Cohesion within the team
2️⃣ Get them Aligned on a common goal
3️⃣ Create and protect Psychological Safety
4️⃣ Build Transparent Processes which facilitate focus and execution
I’ll use a couple parables to illustrate the first three of these pillars.
First some rough definitions:
1️⃣ Cohesion:
This means everybody knows each other on a personal and professional level. They understand what makes each other tick and their strengths and weakness.
2️⃣ Alignment:
There is a shared problem statement the team are working towards, both near term and long term. The team is also aligned on the team norms, and how collaboration will work
3️⃣ Psychological Safety:
In the absence of safety, individuals feel “Interpersonal Fear”. Fear that their ideas my be met with cynisim causing them to feel ignorant, incompetent, or disruptive. Private knoweldge is as good as no knowledge. When the individuals feel safe, they will share what they know. They will be vulnerable with each other and say “I don’t know.” They will collaborate (argue constructively) to get it right.
On to the parables!
Cohesion without Alignment:
Cohesion is not friendship, its something else. But friendship is cohesive.
For simplicity, I’ll use friendship in this example:
Imagine two friends – one wants to go to the Mountain, one wants to go to the Mall.
They have cohesion, they’re long time friends. But they do not have alignment on the day.
Unless they get aligned, they will not spend the day together. They will not appear in each other’s story when they talk about this day.
Teams not aligned are not working towards the same goal.
If their energy were coming from a hose and the project a bucket, only some of their energy is being captured by the bucket, the rest is wasted.
Alignment without Cohesion
Imagine two people who happen to be walking up the same mountain.
They do not know each other, they have no Cohesion.
Without cohesion, they are walking in parallel, not together.
If they never say hello, they will never mention the other in a story about their day.
If one of those people can show vulnerability “I’m lost, where now?”, and the other helps – some magic will happen. They will begin to build cohesion.
Psychological Safety is the absence of interpersonal fear. It is a believe that you can express your ideas or concerns, to admit a mistake, or to admit you don’t know something without fear of repercussions.
It takes Psychological Safety to say “I’m lost, where now?”
If the other will proves safety by not making the first regret this expression, they’ll help each other get to the top of the Mountain. And they will appear in each other’s story.
A team that lacks cohesion probably also lack psychological safety. They’re all headed up the mountain, they may lose their way in the trees (project details), and make a wrong turn.
They are following each other like sheep, but no longer in the right direction. And no one feels safe enough to speak up: “Hey, aren’t we going the wrong way?”
I hope you can see why a team needs all three of these characteristics to be high performing. If they are not aligned, they aren’t working towards the same goal. If they do not feel safe, they will not collaborate. If they are not cohesive, they don’t care enough about each other to build alignment or to build safety.
But if they have all three and the right management techniques (processes), they’ll achieve great results.
Ciao,
Evan
1 thought on “Understanding Cohesion, Psychological Safety, and Alignment”