Teams success doesn’t rest upon individual ability—it is based upon members’ ability to act in concert. The companies that place emphasis on harmony of teams, team confidence, and team coordination are more efficient, have increased communication, and work better overall. But there are times when it’s just not possible to develop an authentic cohesive team.
The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team, developed by Wiley in collaboration with Patrick Lencioni, provide a proven framework for creating high-performing teams. Based on Lencioni’s bestselling book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, this model helps teams develop trust, engage in healthy conflict, commit to decisions, hold each other accountable, and focus on collective results.
This article discusses how Wiley’s Five Behaviors can change the team’s function, improve collaboration, and be long-term sustainable.
What Are the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team?
The Five Behaviors model sets the building blocks necessary to build an effective team. One sets the foundation for the next, which provides a good foundation for team working and collaboration.
1. Building Trust
Trust is the key to every successful team. Vulnerability is trust in this case, and therefore the team members feel no fear of sharing their strengths, weaknesses, and struggles. The team members are:
Honest regarding their weaknesses and struggles.
Safe to seek help.
Give and receive constructive criticism without fear.
Without trust, group communication is problematic, groups won’t come forward with new ideas, and teams work individually rather than as a unified team. Trust is built over time, but it’s the only way to actually be able to work together.
2. Getting to Healthy Conflict
Conflict was not meant to be a virtue, but even in the best teams, conflict triggers imagination, creativity, and sound decision-making. Healthy conflict arrives through open disagreement, though with integrity.
Healthy-conflict teams:
Trade ideas rather than verbally attacking one person.
Sensitive topics are debated without retaliating.
Conflict as a tool to make the solution more powerful.
Whereas other teams tend to cover up tensions, passive hostility, and sub-standard decisions. Open conversation ensures all of the suggestions are examined prior to a move being made.
3. Securing Commitment
Commitment occurs after open communication. It is not necessarily that everybody is ever satisfied but everyone in the team is at one with the decision that was reached, though it was not his/her preference.
Commitment is reached when:
All the members have a chance to contribute their opinions.
The group makes a clear-cut decision and direction.
Members are bound by the decision.
There is uncertainty, tight deadlines at the last moment, and delaying action where there is no commitment. When teams are committed to decisions, they take responsibility and act confidently.
4. Taking Accountability
An effective-set group of individuals looks out for each other—both for personal responsibility but also for team projects and objectives. That is where members call out one another as an individual on assignments and will not hesitate to do so for peer colleagues when necessary.
Accountable teams:
Call out dysfunctional behaviors or broken promises.
Afford positive reinforcement to encourage looking out for one another to be better.
Take ownership instead of fingers.
Unaccountable teams are weighed down by bad performance, frustration, and no progress in the future. Holding one another accountable reminds everyone of success within the team.
5. Prioritize Team Success
The last habit of high-performing teams is team success over individual achievement. When teams prioritize team performance, they:
Set common goals and track improvement as a result.
Witness team achievement more than individual achievement.
Make decisions that benefit the company as a whole.
If success of individuals outnumbers the success of a team, teambuilding fails, and motivation starts degrading. One attempt towards a goal comes by the application of effort through an apparatus in which effort is delivered on the assumption of teamism.
How Five Behaviors Model Transforms Teams?
Five Healthy Behaviors of a Team enable organizations to convert toxic team culture into highly effective teams. Following are the ways the values implement responsible influence:
1. Improved Communication and Teamwork
Five Behaviors teams freely communicate more effectively. Being trusted, they never feel reluctant to disclose issues freely, ask for help, and share ideas fearlessly without fear of criticism. This results in improved problem-solving and quicker, more effective decision-making.
2. Increased Employee Engagement and Satisfaction
When workers are listened to, valued and loved, happiness is higher. Interdependence of senses, conflict and shared responsibility provide a platform where workers can work more effectively and give their best.
3. Better and Quicker Decision Making
With positive conflict, teams make quicker decisions better. Rather than evading conflicts and over-thinking decisions, they make them with decisiveness, leading to less delay and miscommunication.
4. Enhanced Productivity and Performance
When a team owns each other and is gathering to align goals, it gets better. Less time wasted, fewer non-contributing behaviors, and more enthusiasm to accomplish things are the dividends. Organisations applying the Five Behaviors see tangible gains in effectiveness and efficiency.
5. A Culture of Trust and Continuous Improvement
By imitating these behaviors, organisations generate lasting excellence, trust, and teamwork culture. Openness, respect, and responsibility in solving problems emerge by practice years after years among members, and sustainable success ensues.
Applying the Five Behaviors to Your Company
Organisations ought to follow the following steps when employing Wiley’s Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team to be effective:
Enable a Team Assessment – Have the team undergo the Five Behaviors assessment to gauge the existing team culture and identify areas of improvement.
Provide Leadership and Training – Educate team members on the Five Behaviors model via training, workshop, or coaching.
Build Vulnerability-Based Trust – Leaders must lead by example and be vulnerable, open, and honest in order to foster trust.
Foster Healthy Conflict Conversation – Give teams the tool sets and abilities they need to apply healthy conflict conversation.
Make Clear Commitments – Write down decisions and give each team member clear knowledge of what he or she is responsible for.
Set up Accountability Processes – Create peer-to-peer accountability by using clear expectations and measurable rates of performance.
Align Goals to Organizational Excellence – Align goals to organizational success instead of to personal performance measurement.
Organizations applying this model have more effective teams, more cooperation, and better overall performance.
Conclusion
Wiley Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team offer a powerful model to create more effective, better-performing teams. Through trusting relationships, healthy conflict, decision-making, personal accountability, and driving collective results, teams can change the way they work together.
When these behaviors are invested in by organizations, they build a high-performance team culture where people are valued, encouraged, and working together towards common goals. In large companies or small groups, such values result in improved communication, improved relationships, and long-term success.
