What is the Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team program
about?
The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team program, based on the work of Patrick
Lencioni, addresses how a team is currently performing within the five key behaviours
of the model: trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results. By providing
teams with an awareness of their current performance in these areas, the Five
Behaviours program is able to then build the team’s competency in these key
behaviours to improve their cohesion and effectiveness. The program is powered by
Everything DiSC, a model that helps individuals to understand themselves and others
better. Using these results, participants will be able to create a better, stronger team.
Trust
While most people think of trust as predictive trust, knowing how a person will behave
or think, this kind of trust isn’t the most effective in a working team. The most effective
form of trust within a team is vulnerability-based trust. Vulnerability-based trust exists
when team members are willing and able to admit when they need help or don’t
know the answer, or when they make a mistake and need to apologise. Vulnerabilitybased trust creates an invaluable dynamic for a team when the whole team can
commit to this, but if even one member of the team cannot be vulnerable, it will
spread through the team and prohibit them from achieving the base behaviour of a
cohesive team. The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team program takes teams through
exercises to create vulnerability-based trust and open team members up to be
vulnerable with each other, to ensure that can effectively engage in the following
four behaviours which underlie cohesive teams.
Conflict
Once a team is able to demonstrate vulnerability-based trust, it opens the team up to
truly understand and benefit from conflict. When conflict is productive, ideological,
and focused on ideas, it is a great thing for teams. When a team has developed
vulnerability-based trust, it allows conflict to move from what can be seen as negative,
interpersonal conflict, to healthy conflict debating ideas and actions, as team
members will feel comfortable to speak up. When teams possess vulnerability-based
trust, conflict becomes a tool for productivity. The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team
program utilises tools and exercises such as DiSC profiles to help teams understand
how to have healthy conflict to produce ideas and outcomes to reach the best
possible solutions.
Commitment
Sometimes, when teams do not have vulnerability-based trust and the ability to
engage in healthy conflict, there can be a tendency to avoid conflict in favour of
one person making a decision on behalf of the whole team. This is where healthy
conflict becomes crucial, because if people do not weigh-in on a discussion, they are
not going to buy-in to the outcomes or actions which come from this. Healthy conflict
should not lead to consensus but should ensure that everyone on the team has the
opportunity to be heard. This ensures that even if their idea is not the agreed outcome,
everyone has had the chance to have their say and can therefore buy-in to the
outcome. Without commitment or buy-in, team members can go forward acting
contradictorily to the agreed outcome of the discussion as they did not feel they
contributed to the decision. The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team program helps
teams to understand the importance of clarity and buy-in and how these contribute
to commitment and utilises tools such as DiSC to help team members understand
each other’s’ approach to commitment.
Accountability
Accountability can often be the hardest of all the five behaviours for teams to adopt.
A critical part of forming a cohesive team is to build a dynamic where the members
of the team can hold each other accountable for their actions and behaviours, rather
than the leader solely being responsible for doing so. Peer pressure on a team is a
valuable behaviour as it ensures that the commitments the team makes are seen
through. In order for team members to feel comfortable holding one-another
accountable to their commitments, these commitments need to have been reached
through healthy conflict, based on vulnerability-based trust. When team members
hold each other accountable, while it may be challenging and uncomfortable, it
ensures that team members have the clarity they need to improve and do their job
well. The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team program helps teams to understand the
link between accountability and productivity and provides tools to help team
members effectively hold each other accountable.
Results
When team members are able to hold one another accountable, they ensure that
each member is focused on the collective results of the team, rather than on results
for themselves. When people understand that they will be held accountable if they
do not behave in ways that align with the goals of the team, they will remain focused
on doing that which benefits the team and drives them forwards toward their
collective goals. The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team program helps teams to
develop a common understanding of the team’s expectations, and create tools and
process for monitoring progress, to ensure that, going forward, team members will
have measures to hold one another accountable to.
Sara Redman was one of the first consultants in Tasmania to be accredited in this
well-proven program. More information on this model is available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs7bPNslSuc