Editorial
If you have ever been part of a team that truly gelled, you know the feeling. Ideas flow freely. Decisions happen quickly and tend to have longer-lasting impact. When someone stumbles, others step in to pick up the slack without being asked. Work feels less like work and more like solving problems with people you trust and respect. There is a unique energy, a rhythm, a sense that the whole team really is greater than the sum of its parts.
Once you experience that kind of team chemistry, you spend the rest of your career chasing it, because teams that gel deliver results that seem almost impossible. They innovate faster, execute better and weather crises that derail other groups. They make hard work look easy.
Research from Gallup found that top-quartile teams are 18% to 23% more productive and profitable than their peers.
Sadly, most teams never gel at this level. According to a recent survey of 1,000 U.S. office workers, only 8.7% rated their team as high performing. The vast majority settle for functional without striving to be exceptional. They deliver results but leave significant potential on the table.
The gap between good and great is not defined by talent or resources. The difference lies in understanding and practicing the behaviors that create team cohesion. The good news? These behaviors can be learned, measured and improved.
Table of Contents
- The Foundation: Psychological Safety
- The Power of High-Trust Teams
- How High-Trust Teams Behave Differently
- The Team Performance Spectrum
- Building Team Cohesion: A Practical Roadmap
- The Manager's Critical Role in Hybrid Environments
- Moving Beyond Good Enough
The Foundation: Psychological Safety
Google's Project Aristotle study of hundreds of teams revealed that how a team works together matters far more than who is on the team. And the single most important factor for team success is psychological safety, not skill, tenure or IQ of team members.
Teams with high psychological safety feel confident they will not be punished for speaking up, admitting mistakes or offering new ideas.
Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, who pioneered this research, defined psychological safety as "a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking." When teams have this foundation, all other behaviors flourish. Without it, even the most talented groups struggle to coordinate effectively.
The Power of High-Trust Teams
So, what other qualities do high-performing teams share? McKinsey found that teams with above average trust scores were 3.3 times more efficient and 5.1 times more likely to achieve their goals. Trust becomes a performance multiplier that accelerates everything else. In hybrid and remote work environments, this foundation becomes even more critical as team members collaborate across time zones and communication platforms without the benefit of face-to-face interaction.
The benefits extend far beyond productivity metrics. Research from Harvard Business Review showed that people at high-trust companies report significantly better outcomes across multiple dimensions:
- 74% less stress
- 106% more energy at work
- 50% higher productivity
- 13% fewer sick days
- 76% more engagement
- 29% more satisfaction with their lives and
- 40% less burnout compared with people at low-trust companies.
Additional research from MIT Sloan Management Review found that employees who trust their leaders are 260% more motivated to work, have 41% lower rates of absenteeism, and are 50% less likely to look for another job. High-trust teams are not just more productive. They are healthier, happier and more profitable for their organizations.
How High-Trust Teams Behave Differently
On top of psychological safety, Harvard Business Review's 2024 study of 1,000 workers identified five key behaviors that distinguish high-trust teams from their peers:
- They do not leave collaboration to chance. Instead of hoping trust will form organically, they intentionally design how they will work together, establishing clear norms (a.k.a. team charters) for communication through tools like Slack, decision-making processes and conflict resolution approaches before diving into work.
- They keep colleagues in the loop. Rather than hoarding knowledge in private channels or side conversations, they establish transparency through regular updates in shared spaces, ensuring no one is blindsided by changes or decisions. This behavior has become increasingly important as teams juggle asynchronous work across different schedules and locations, leaving them susceptible to siloed work approaches.
- They share credit. Success is celebrated as a team achievement in public forums, team meetings and company-wide communications. Members readily recognize each other's contributions, creating a culture where everyone feels valued and safe to contribute to overall goals. This practice counteracts the natural tendency in remote work to feel invisible or undervalued.
- They believe disagreements make them better. Instead of avoiding conflict in video calls or letting tension simmer in private messages, these teams embrace constructive debate. They view diverse perspectives as a strength, not a threat, and create structured ways to surface and discuss disagreements openly.
- They proactively address tension. When issues arise, they uncover and resolve them quickly rather than letting problems fester in side conversations or passive-aggressive Slack exchanges. They have established protocols for bringing concerns to light and working through them constructively and collaboratively.
The Team Performance Spectrum
Understanding these behaviors in practice requires analyzing how they manifest across different performance levels. Research reveals that team behaviors exist on a clear spectrum:
Behavior | Underperforming Team | Most Teams | High-Performing Team |
Communication | Team members keep things to themselves. Updates are unclear or inconsistent. Key information does not reach the right people until it is too late. Problems get glossed over. When someone speaks up, it is seen as disruptive. Meetings are quiet and no one follows up after. | People communicate often, but not always clearly. Most updates are status, not signal. Important information lives in side threads or one-on-ones. Tension shows up as vague language or long pauses. People are polite but cautious. Real concerns get raised after the meeting, not in it. | Communication is fast, direct and useful. Everyone shares what others need to know before it is requested. Problems are surfaced early and clearly. Meetings are focused. No one waits for permission to speak honestly, and leaders don’t punish team members for doing so. |
Decision-Making | No one knows who makes decisions or they assume all decisions are made by the team leader. Most decisions take longer. Some get made too fast, others drag on for weeks or months. Projects move forward on assumptions, not clear alignment. When something breaks, no one takes ownership, often reverting to blame shifting. | Most decisions eventually get made, but the path there is not linear and often fraught with challenges. People weigh in, but they aren’t clear who makes the final call. Managers often step in just to prod people into action. After decisions, people often revisit or second-guess them in side conversations. | Decision roles are clear. Everyone knows who is leading, who is contributing, and what the process is. Once a decision is made, the team moves forward. No revisiting. No confusion. Everyone aligns, even if they don’t fully agree. |
Collaboration | People stay in their own lanes. There is little cross-talk or shared planning. Handoffs are awkward. Work is often duplicated or incomplete. When something falls through the cracks, team members point fingers. It feels like everyone is busy, but nothing substantive is getting done. | The team wants to collaborate, but does so inconsistently. People check in before big deadlines, but day-to-day, theywork solo. When roles or priorities shift, coordination can be confusing. The team pulls together in crisis, but not in the normal flow of work. | The team works like a unit. Roles are crystal clear. Handoffs are smooth. Everyone knows who is doing what and why. If someone is overwhelmed or behind, others step in to support and alleviate pressure. |
Follow-Through | Deadlines are missed. Some tasks are forgotten. People say they will do something and then lack follow-through. Others pick up the slack or let it languish. The team learns to lower expectations or to double-check work. | Most things get done, but there is some friction. Some team members are consistent, others aren’t. Tasks get lost in tools or long threads. When someone drops the ball, it gets fixed quietly or escalated to the manager. | Follow-through is expected and visible. If someone commits, they ensure it happens on time. If things shift, they communicate early and thoroughly. The team tracks and closes open loops. No one wonders if something will get done. They know who owns what, and it gets handled, efficiently. |
Feedback | Feedback does not happen or it happens too late, when the damage is already done. When someone under-delivers, people either avoid them or go around them. Praise is rare or vague. Team members are uncomfortable saying, "This is not working." | Feedback is mostly manager-driven. It comes up occasionally in one-on-ones or annual performance reviews. Teammates are overly careful when providing feedback. Small problems get worked around. People are kind but not always honest. | Feedback is integral to how the team functions. People clearly say what is working and what is not. They name issues before they spiral out of control. And when something goes well, they say it clearly and directly. |
Trust | People do not trust each other to follow through or speak up. They double-check each other's work. They hold back in meetings. Everyone is waiting to see who drops the ball next. | People get along, but there is an undercurrent of reticence. Trust is based on relationships, not reliability. Some team members are trusted more than others. The group avoids risk and each other when it counts. | Trust is earned and visible. People rely on each other. They bring up issues early, take each other seriously, and expect high standards. No one is micromanaging or managing around anyone else. The team is effective because they have purposefully built, earned, and repaired trust, systematically. |
Building Team Cohesion: A Practical Roadmap
Improving your team’s performance on this spectrum requires deliberate action.
Establish a Team Charter
You can start by creating a team charter within the first two weeks of working together. But even if you’ve worked together for years, it’s never too late to clarify who owns what, which decisions each team member can and should make, or how to clarify expectations.
Use this exercise to define communication expectations (response times for Slack messages, core collaboration hours across time zones), decision-making processes (who approves what level of spending, how the team will handle disagreements) and working norms (meeting etiquette, how to handle interruptions, preferred feedback styles). Document these agreements in a shared space where everyone can reference and update them as the team evolves. Ask each team member to align with and follow them. Remind people when you see them veer off track, but don’t chastise.
Leaders: Model Vulnerability
Model vulnerability from day one as a leader. Share a recent mistake you made and what you learned from it. Admit when you do not know something in team meetings. Ask for help publicly when you need it. This creates what researchers call the "vulnerability loop" that builds trust. When team members see their leader being imperfect and human, they feel safer to do the same.
Establish Structured Feedback Loops
Establish structured feedback loops that go well beyond annual reviews. Implement short weekly retrospectives where the team discusses what worked, what didn’t, and what to try differently next week. Schedule weekly one-on-ones focused on performance and development, not just status updates. Conduct project post-mortems within 48 hours of completion to capture lessons while they are fresh. These regular touchpoints prevent small issues from becoming large problems.
Create Clarity Around Decision Making
Clarify decision rights using frameworks like RASCI (Responsible, Accountable, Supported, Consulted, Informed) or DARE (Decider, Advisor, Recommender, Executor). For each major decision type, explicitly define who has what role. Create a simple document that outlines decisions, spending authority thresholds, hiring decisions, product feature choices and strategic direction calls. When everyone knows their role, teams move faster and avoid the paralysis that comes from unclear authority.
Reframe Failure as a Learning Tool
Celebrate learning from failure systematically. When mistakes happen, focus the post-mortem conversation on systemic improvements rather than individual blame. Ask questions like "What processes could we change to prevent this?" and "What early warning signs did we miss?" Share these lessons with other teams to reinforce that taking calculated risks is safe and necessary for innovation.
Address Problems Quickly
Address issues within 24-48 hours rather than letting them fester. Create multiple channels for raising concerns: anonymous feedback tools for sensitive topics, regular office hours where anyone can bring up issues, and escalation paths for urgent problems. Train team members to distinguish between personal conflicts that need mediation and process problems that need collaborative, systematic solutions.
The Manager's Critical Role in Hybrid Environments
Managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement, according to Gallup research. Effective leaders cultivate the conditions for trust and collaboration, especially in hybrid environments where traditional relationship-building has become more challenging.
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Proactively Practice Inclusion
This means being intentional about inclusion. Rotate meeting times to accommodate different time zones. Use techniques like having everyone join video calls from their own device, even if some people are in the same office, to level the playing field for remote participants. Encourage virtual coffee chats and informal check-ins to replace the spontaneous conversations that happened naturally in physical offices in the hallway or around the water cooler.
Recognize Good Work Frequently
Recognition requires more effort in distributed teams. Celebrate contributions in multiple forums: team meetings, company-wide Slack channels and written updates to leadership. Be specific about what someone did well and how it helped the team. Make recognition timely, giving feedback within days rather than weeks.
Reconnect with Your Mission
Maintain focus on purpose during stressful periods when team cohesion typically frays. Regularly connect daily work to the larger mission through storytelling, customer impact data and progress updates. During crises, frame challenges as opportunities for the team to grow stronger together rather than problems that divide them.
Moving Beyond Good Enough
The path from functional to exceptional is not mysterious. Most teams have the talent they need. What they lack are the daily behaviors that create cohesion.
By systematically focusing on psychological safety, trust, communication, decision-making, collaboration, follow-through and feedback, any team can move up the performance spectrum.
Start by honestly assessing where your team stands using the framework above. Pick one behavior to focus on first. Communication often provides the biggest early wins because it enables everything else. Model the change you want to see, measure progress weekly and be patient. Trust builds slowly through consistent actions, not grand gestures.
When teams truly gel, the results speak for themselves. Better outcomes, yes, but also a team that enjoys working together, learns from setbacks, and innovates because they know they have each other's backs. In a complex, fast-changing world, that kind of team cohesion is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Editor's Note: Read more about how to set your team up for success:
- Don't Leave Teamwork to Chance: Why Collaboration Design Matters — Here’s how to make collaboration a teachable and repeatable practice.
- How Leaders Can Clear the Path to Collaboration — Collaboration should come naturally, right? Unfortunately that isn't always the case. Here’s what leaders can do to make it happen.
- Want to Encourage Collaboration? This Change Model Shows the Way — Creating a workplace where collaboration flourishes is a tough nut to crack. But by making it possible, easy, normative, rewarding and required, it can be done.
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