Jason Kulpa, CEO, Shares 6 Strategies for Building Truly Cohesive Teams

Group cohesion is essential for individuals to work together efficiently and achieve a common goal. Increasingly, we find more and more division of beliefs, values, and goals across teams. Leaders need to be able to build a cohesive team to drive growth in their business while maintaining and increasing employee productivity.

Jason Kulpa, successful CEO and entrepreneur, shares six strategies business leaders can utilize to help build a cohesive team that delivers results.

1. Establish a direct connection between the purpose of your team and how it ties to the greater organization

Sometimes when working towards a bigger goal, individuals get stuck and can’t see the forest for the trees. Finding a way to help team members understand how their efforts tie directly to the bigger picture of the organization is a great way to help build cohesion amongst a team. Individuals can easily find meaning and dedication to their efforts, but understanding how their teammates contribute and work together helps get everyone on the same page.

2. Real-time feedback is vital to helping teammates perform

For a team to be successful, a leader should foster an environment that encourages frequent feedback from all levels. Team members should be open and accepting of input from peers, not just management. The group as a whole should become collaborative and open to helping each other improve and work towards the end goal.

3. Respect the process

Often, team leaders continuously seek ways to improve or innovate. For an organization to truly come together, team members must respect the learning process and view failures as learning opportunities. Bumps in the road are only opportunities to learn about oversights and gaps in understanding.

4. Empowering team members to make decisions helps build trust

While it may seem like a small thing, delegating specific decision tasks to team members is a powerful way to build trust. Empowering members to make decisions that directly impact them shows that leaders trust them and that they are supported regardless of the outcome.

5. When conflict arises, make sure it is not personal

We have seen an increase in conflicts across the nation recently; the key to ensuring conflict drives change is in the workplace is not to make it personal. Conflicts must focus on the issue at hand, not attacking other members on the team. A successful team needs to be able to welcome support and opposition on all sides to arrive at the best tactics to achieve a shared vision.

6. Ensure strong lines of communication across all levels

Teams can’t perform effectively when information is kept bottled up or is only shared with a select few. Open communication lines help all members perform to the best of their abilities, which brings a team closer to the common goal.

About Jason Kulpa

Jason Kulpa is a serial entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of UE.co, San Diego’s Fastest Growing Business multi-year award winner, and a Certified Great Place to Work multi-year winner. Mr. Kulpa is a San Diego’s two-time winner of the Most Admired CEO Award of the San Diego Business Journal and also a semi-finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur award.

Under Mr. Kulpa’s leadership, in 2018, his teams volunteered at over 24 events and worked side-by-side to improve the San Diego community. They hosted a gala dinner benefiting individuals with autism, cheered on Special Olympic athletes as they broke their records on the track, and brought school supplies and cold-weather gear to students impacted by homelessness. Jason Kulpa‘s mission is to bring awareness, support, and inclusion for special needs causes.