Why ‘Team Cohesion' Is Killing Your Organization's Culture
Elena Sarango-Muniz is the Founder and CEO of Sarango Executive Coaching, a leadership executive coach, HR consultant and keynote speaker.
I've spent more than two decades building what I thought were perfect teams—aligned, cohesive and rowing in the same direction. I even claimed to be a super-skilled interviewer for finding these people for my and others' teams. But I was dead wrong, and it cost me many headaches, innovation, creativity and a truly healthy organizational culture.
When leaders obsess over team cohesion and alignment, they're actually suppressing the very diversity of thought and approach that drives healthy cultures and breakthrough results.
For years, I enforced "my way" of thinking, leading, hiring and problem-solving, unknowingly creating teams of people who looked different but thought the same. I confused uniformity for unity. I exchanged process alignment for genuine collaboration. I mistakenly idealized my ideal culture versus a "we" culture.
What company executives can discover through consultants and coaches is that true team excellence and healthy cultures emerge not from minimizing differences but from deliberately exploring and leveraging them.
As Cass Sunstein and Reid Hastie write in their book Wiser, "When minority voices are heard, well-functioning groups are likely to be jolted out of their routines, and fresh solutions, even a high degree of innovation can follow."
Every team member, including the leader, brings hidden dimensions shaped by their:
When leaders fail to understand these internal complexities, they're essentially repressing their team's most valuable asset—their uniqueness. Let's not forget: We hire whole humans but only utilize the parts that fit our predefined mold or playbook.
The most successful cultures don't emerge from everyone following the same playbook—they come from creating environments where divergent approaches can safely collide, challenge each other and combine into something greater than any single perspective could produce.
Many of my corporate coaching clients feel misunderstood. They feel like they do not belong in their teams and work environments, and to me, this is clearly a potential misalignment and lack of embracing their uniqueness and human-like dimensions.
It's not that I am advocating for chaos or confusion; it is indeed a complex and very difficult leadership responsibility. Rather, I am suggesting that effective leadership means creating a safe space and enough structure for these differences to productively interact rather than forcing everyone into the same box.
Many of the personality assessments used in organizations, usually implemented due to a team crisis or a one-time HR initiative, do not bring to the surface these deeper levels of cultural understanding, these dimensions that are so hidden in each individual. The competitive advantage companies should be searching for isn't in alignment and clarity of personality types—it's in the deliberate integration of the differences found after these assessments have been applied.
In order to create thriving creative teams, organizations will need to embrace the idea that there is more than just team alignment and a clear structure. They must create first the ideal environment and culture, one person at a time.
The most successful organizations of tomorrow won't be built on employee engagement charts and personality tests that fit people into quadrants. They'll be led by those brave enough to embrace the beautiful mess of human diversity and transform it into unprecedented value.
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Harvard Business Review
02-05-2025
- Harvard Business Review
To Make Your Workplace Fairer, Take Charge of Its Norms
Think of all the times you started a new job. You probably learned about key policies and formal processes around things like vacation time. But employee manuals don't teach other things, like whether you should advocate for a promotion or wait to be asked, how quickly colleagues expect email replies, or if meetings start on time or three minutes after the hour. Norms shape both individual and collective behaviors and serve as symbols of organizational culture or 'how we do things here.' Employees pick up on these norms over time by noticing what people around them do and inferring what would be acceptable (e.g., 'Is it okay to disagree publicly with colleagues?'). Being intentional about setting and collectively valuing norms is key to removing ambiguity for employees—and it's especially critical for leaders in times of uncertainty and upheaval when employees need a North Star at work. Fostering a fundamental norm of fairness—where all employees play on a level field where they can succeed, support is offered equitably, and rewards are allocated justly—can create a virtuous cycle. As fairness breeds fairness, with employees reciprocating with higher productivity and a stronger commitment to their employers, fairness is a norm that builds on itself and grows stronger over time. Of course, the reverse is also true, and unfairness can lead to a self-perpetuating cycle with bad outcomes, which is why it's crucial for leaders to foster the norm of fairness. To do it, you can become a 'norm entrepreneur' for fairness—and create an environment where employees can do the same. Originally coined by legal scholar Cass Sunstein, norm entrepreneurs shape what we perceive to be normal, acceptable, and expected. Norm entrepreneurship is a potent tool in leaders' toolboxes because, in some cases, norms trump formal policies and processes as influencers of behavior. For example, a corporate policy such as unlimited vacation time isn't worth much if employees don't feel empowered to make use of it in practice because long leaves are frowned upon. Likewise, organizations proclaiming a 'speak-up culture' will not succeed in encouraging employees to raise concerns if they see colleagues sidelined, discredited, or penalized when they do. To create truly fair and high-performing workplaces, we must work on what we want to accept as normal. Here are three ways leaders can influence workplace norms and encourage employees to act as norm entrepreneurs to build a fairer environment for all to thrive. Change perceptions of 'how we do things here.' Our perceptions of what others around us think and do are not always well calibrated, leading to inaccurate beliefs about what is acceptable or desirable—in other words, what the social norm is in a given context. For example, recent research reveals that a majority of Americans are in favor of diversity and inclusion initiatives, but they tend to underestimate the level of support among others. At work, such 'pluralistic ignorance' often happens because we don't have complete information about people's private beliefs, and the information we do have—observations of other people's outward behavior—is not necessarily reflective of how they truly feel. However, mistaken beliefs should not keep people from utilizing opportunities at their disposal, so fairness entails providing the information people need to act. Take parental leave, something that has only relatively recently become available to men in some countries. As such, the social norm regarding uptake is still evolving, and men might not avail themselves of the parental leave they're entitled to because they fear negative reactions from their colleagues. At Santander bank in the United Kingdom, for example, a survey revealed that only 65% of male employees expected their colleagues to be supportive of flexible work—even though when asked about their personal opinions, almost every man at Santander was in support of flexible work. When some men were informed in an experiment of their peers' support for flexible working, their intentions to take between five and eight weeks of parental leave increased by 62%, or nearly 13 percentage points, compared to men who did not receive the information. Correcting inaccurate beliefs through information helped many men to behave more in line with their personal values and preferences. Because humans have an innate drive to fit in and go with the herd, correcting inaccurate beliefs in this way is a potent lever for changing behavior and keeping flawed norms from taking hold. In addition to informational interventions, norm entrepreneurs can decrease ambiguity by role modeling desired actions to show they can be done successfully. Former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian are examples of norm entrepreneurs who took parental leave and were vocal about their positive experiences, helping to dispel the myth that men do not or cannot take leave, at least in organizations where parental leave is available. While senior leaders may have more privileges, influence, and power to make change, employees don't need to be in the C-suite to change norms in the workplace. Often, the people who shape our expectations the most are the ones closest to us, as equities sales trader Ronak Patel explained about his 16-week parental leave: 'The more men that do it, the less of a big deal it becomes.' To change perceptions of prevailing norms, ask yourself: What data might you be able to collect or share that could challenge employees' existing beliefs about an issue? What behaviors can you role model that will shift your organization's culture in a positive direction? What is something you're already doing that you wish more employees did as well—and how could you make those actions more visible in your workplace? Find the right audience. While everyone can be a norm entrepreneur, our efforts are particularly effective when we tailor them to the right audience that sees us as credible and compelling messengers. The case for fairness can be especially compelling when made by someone who benefits from the status quo—or, on the flipside, by someone who challenges stereotypes by succeeding in spaces they weren't expected to. 'Unusual suspects' can be the best norm entrepreneurs precisely because they're counter-stereotypical. Research shows that when white male executives and top managers hired more women and people of color, they were rewarded with higher performance evaluations; women executives and executives of color of all genders did not receive the same credit. Similarly, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan, the protagonists of the film Hidden Figures, became famous not only because they were brilliant mathematicians, but also because they were 'firsts' in many ways at NASA in the 1960s. They started to change norms by breaking glass ceilings and paving the way for others. In both cases, people became credible norm entrepreneurs because they did something counter-stereotypical: white men hiring women and people of color and Black women climbing up the career ladder in STEM. To find the right audience for your norm entrepreneurship, ask yourself: In which spaces, conversations, or contexts might I be an 'unusual suspect' for a cause? Are there people different from me whom I could purposefully support or advocate for? What are my sources of credibility (e.g., experience, authority, ability to inspire), and which colleagues do I have credibility with? Whom could I tap as an unusual suspect to help advocate for my cause? Leverage collective action. Fairness is not an individual sport but a group effort. Often, for fairness to become a norm, coordination is required. Norms spread when more and more people take them up. A company we worked with wanted to decrease ambiguity in hybrid meetings and decided that virtual participants should speak first, before in-person participants. Like many of us since the pandemic began, they had noticed that once in-person participants got into the flow of conversation in a room, it was very difficult for virtual attendees to get a word in. These leaders also knew that the new 'virtual-first' norm could not simply be mandated from above. So they recruited a group of meeting organizers to pilot the new approach, share feedback, and serve as role models. After a while, word about the new practice started to spread, and the company could shift its messaging to say that 'virtual-first' was an increasingly popular practice. BBC journalist Ros Atkins followed a similar approach when he started scaling 50:50 The Equality Project, which aims to equalize representation of women and men in media coverage. After honing his data- and goals-based methodology—whereby journalists count the number of women and men featured in their content, aiming for parity— Atkins started sharing his approach with strategically selected, influential BBC colleagues. Given the grassroots nature of the project when it began in 2017, Atkins had no power to compel or even incentivize anyone to join him. But he had a proven track record of equitable results on his own show and credibility as a fellow journalist to make the simple pitch: 'We've found this helpful in our work, so maybe you'll want to give it a go, too.' Seven years later, more than 750 other BBC content creating teams had joined the 50:50 Project. You may think that one person cannot change the norms of a large organization. But these examples show that when people start with what they can control—their own daily work—and recruit a small circle of colleagues to join them, even a single individual can spark meaningful action. This is what happened when students from randomly selected American middle schools were encouraged to publicly advocate against bullying as part of an anticonflict intervention. Reported conflicts decreased dramatically, especially when the students who happened to be part of the intervention were socially influential. These so-called 'social referents' tended to be closely watched by their peers for cues on how to behave, and when they took a stance against conflict, their actions had outsized influence in shaping other students' perceptions of the norm. Try it. Confer with your team to create a set of norms that you collectively agree to uphold, such as starting and ending meetings on time, scheduling social events during work hours, or doing weekly feedback check-ins. Then, make those norms visible and top-of-mind, such as by documenting them on posters in meeting rooms (for in-person meetings) or sharing them in email reminders for weekly feedback check-ins to create momentum. Team members could even take turns being the 'norm champion' who helps everyone uphold the norms and steps in when violations are about to occur. If you land on an approach that works, share it with a few other teams or units and encourage them to join you. 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Forbes
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Why ‘Team Cohesion' Is Killing Your Organization's Culture
Elena Sarango-Muniz is the Founder and CEO of Sarango Executive Coaching, a leadership executive coach, HR consultant and keynote speaker. I've spent more than two decades building what I thought were perfect teams—aligned, cohesive and rowing in the same direction. I even claimed to be a super-skilled interviewer for finding these people for my and others' teams. But I was dead wrong, and it cost me many headaches, innovation, creativity and a truly healthy organizational culture. When leaders obsess over team cohesion and alignment, they're actually suppressing the very diversity of thought and approach that drives healthy cultures and breakthrough results. For years, I enforced "my way" of thinking, leading, hiring and problem-solving, unknowingly creating teams of people who looked different but thought the same. I confused uniformity for unity. I exchanged process alignment for genuine collaboration. I mistakenly idealized my ideal culture versus a "we" culture. What company executives can discover through consultants and coaches is that true team excellence and healthy cultures emerge not from minimizing differences but from deliberately exploring and leveraging them. As Cass Sunstein and Reid Hastie write in their book Wiser, "When minority voices are heard, well-functioning groups are likely to be jolted out of their routines, and fresh solutions, even a high degree of innovation can follow." Every team member, including the leader, brings hidden dimensions shaped by their: When leaders fail to understand these internal complexities, they're essentially repressing their team's most valuable asset—their uniqueness. Let's not forget: We hire whole humans but only utilize the parts that fit our predefined mold or playbook. The most successful cultures don't emerge from everyone following the same playbook—they come from creating environments where divergent approaches can safely collide, challenge each other and combine into something greater than any single perspective could produce. Many of my corporate coaching clients feel misunderstood. They feel like they do not belong in their teams and work environments, and to me, this is clearly a potential misalignment and lack of embracing their uniqueness and human-like dimensions. It's not that I am advocating for chaos or confusion; it is indeed a complex and very difficult leadership responsibility. Rather, I am suggesting that effective leadership means creating a safe space and enough structure for these differences to productively interact rather than forcing everyone into the same box. Many of the personality assessments used in organizations, usually implemented due to a team crisis or a one-time HR initiative, do not bring to the surface these deeper levels of cultural understanding, these dimensions that are so hidden in each individual. The competitive advantage companies should be searching for isn't in alignment and clarity of personality types—it's in the deliberate integration of the differences found after these assessments have been applied. In order to create thriving creative teams, organizations will need to embrace the idea that there is more than just team alignment and a clear structure. They must create first the ideal environment and culture, one person at a time. The most successful organizations of tomorrow won't be built on employee engagement charts and personality tests that fit people into quadrants. They'll be led by those brave enough to embrace the beautiful mess of human diversity and transform it into unprecedented value. Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
Yahoo
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- Yahoo
The FCC and Its Private Taxman Go to Court
There are seismic tremors rocking the U.S. regulatory state. Chevron deference is dead, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is attempting to make large cuts in federal spending and hiring, and President Donald Trump has brought "independent" agencies to heel with increased presidential oversight. Also notable—though it has received little fanfare—is that late last year, the Supreme Court agreed to hear FCC v. Consumers' Research, a case that could shake the foundations of the modern administrative state. Congress routinely passes vague, open-ended statutes, leaving major elements of policymaking to unelected bureaucrats. Unfortunately, courts have been reluctant to rule that Congress has delegated too much power to an agency since the New Deal. Cass Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard, once quipped that the so-called nondelegation doctrine "has had one good year"—1935, when the Supreme Court struck down two vague laws—and over 200 "bad ones." However, a few years ago, several justices signaled a willingness to revive the nondelegation doctrine, and FCC v. Consumers' Research involves one of the most egregious examples of congressional abdication to an agency in modern memory. After breaking up AT&T for holding a monopoly on local and long-distance phone service, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Section 254 of that law instructs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to create a financial "support" system to subsidize telecommunications services for favored constituencies, including rural households, schools, and libraries. Congress left it to the FCC to determine how to fund this subsidy program. Notably, the law does not cap the amount of money the FCC can raise. Eventually, the FCC settled on collecting a fixed percentage of phone companies' long-distance service revenues and cutting checks to tech and telecom companies. But the FCC doesn't actually exercise those powers. Instead, it delegates its rate-setting and disbursement functions to a private nonprofit called the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC)—an entity Congress never authorized in the statute. Comprised largely of industry insiders and subsidy recipients, the USAC has exploded the size of the universal service fund, from $753 million in 1996 to $8.4 billion in 2023. The USAC's regular exactions from phone companies and customers operate on autopilot. Indeed, it appears the FCC's passive approvals of USAC tax rates would continue even if the FCC lacked a quorum to conduct normal agency operations. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rightly struck down this accountability-shrouding subsidy program. The problem is simple: The Constitution grants the people's elected representatives in Congress "all legislative Powers," including the power "to lay and collect taxes." Representatives' obligation to stand for election constrains them from recklessly raising taxes, but the USAC—a private, unaccountable, and self-perpetuating nonprofit—faces no such restraint. The stakes are high, and it is promising that the Supreme Court wants to weigh in. Its decision is expected this spring or summer. The Constitution does not permit Congress to delegate its legislative powers, nor does it allow the government to empower a group of private citizens to exercise the sovereign power of taxation. Suppose Congress can offload its constitutional taxing and spending duties onto the FCC and USAC. What stops it from empowering grocers to set the food stamp budget, hospital executives to set the Medicare budget, or defense contractors to set the defense budget? Under the Constitution, Congress must make such difficult decisions itself—and face the people's judgment. The Cato Institute authored an amicus brief in FCC v. Consumers' Research, supporting Consumers' Research. The post The FCC and Its Private Taxman Go to Court appeared first on
