On paper, your team has everything it needs to succeed. Sharp brains. Clear roles. Training plans. Regular check-ins.
And yet even with these structures, bottlenecks emerge. Feedback weakens. Friction grows. Decisions slow.
Soon, tensions simmer, team bonds begin to break – and you worry about which high-performing team member will leave next.
So what’s really going on? And what do truly cohesive teams do differently?
We sat down with Shannyn Merlo, business coach, consultant and CSA trainer, to unpack why some teams struggle – and why others build lasting cohesion.
Meet Shannyn: A seasoned consultant and behavioural specialist
For almost three decades (working in and with teams), Shannyn’s seen the good, the bad – and the deeply dysfunctional.
‘Most people are never taught how to work in a team,’ says Shannyn. ‘They’re just expected to figure it out. Even leaders – especially leaders – are often making it up as they go.’
Qualified in project management and coaching, Shannyn’s experienced firsthand how team culture shapes wellbeing, performance and retention. It all informs why she draws on proven, data-backed principles – but rejects one-size-fits-all solutions.
‘You can’t take a cookie-cutter approach to solving complex challenges. You’ve got to start with where your people are at and take them on a journey from there.’
The tactics she uses to build cohesive teams centre around shared intentions, developing adaptability and reinforcing the need for humility to challenge the status quo.
When teams struggle to work well together
In her work to resolve team tension, Shannyn sees a predictable set of forces at play. (And many stem from communication patterns that were never properly learned or modelled.)
Teams tend to become corrosive when these signals bubble to the surface:
- Leaders dodge difficult conversations: What could have been resolved quickly a long time ago becomes an ongoing drain on time, energy and morale. The longer it’s left unaddressed, the more disengagement – and quiet quitting – sets in.
- High performers lose faith in fairness: When underperformance is tolerated, high performers see that standards don’t matter. So they either lower theirs to match – or they leave.
- People don’t feel safe to speak up: Mistakes get hidden and repeated. Honest feedback disappears. And no one dissents. Even when the team desperately needs it.
- Feedback is stressful (or non-existent): For many teams, feedback is a once-a-year ‘download’ at performance review time. So leaders might avoid it altogether – weakening accountability and limiting growth.
What cohesive, high-performing teams do differently
High-performing teams aren’t perfect, notes Shannyn. But they often share a few default settings: they treat growth as normal and they don’t collapse into defensiveness when challenged.
‘They were ready,’ says Shannyn, reflecting on a healthy team she recently worked with.
‘They were willing to be challenged. Each team member was open to the training and there was no defensiveness whatsoever.’
That lack of oversensitivity is more than a nice-to-have. It’s a cultural signal: We can talk about what’s not working – without making it personal.
And when teams bring that baseline? Everything improves: feedback, decision-making, accountability and how people recover after mistakes.
‘High-performing teams see there’s always an opportunity for improvement. And they embed that in their shared narrative: We’re not perfect. We’re always learning. We’re always growing.’
These healthy traits create a powerful feedback loop.
When growth is normalised, team members admit what they don’t know, ask for help and contribute ideas openly.
Trust, self-awareness and psychological safety
A cohesive team begins with trust and what they believe they can say safely out loud. Organisational research is clear that team trust is built through daily actions that reinforce psychological safety.
‘When trust is low, people hide mistakes. They pretend they don’t have weaknesses. They fear giving well-intentioned feedback.’
Building that trust requires self-awareness, says Shannyn. And the good news is, it’s learnable.
When people can recognise their own defensiveness or discomfort, they can pause and choose a better response. That’s the difference between hard conversations that strengthen teams and ones that fracture them.
Here’s the big takeaway for leaders: To build a cohesive team, you need to create conditions where people feel safe to be honest. Where mistakes are celebrated as learning opportunities and uncomfortable questions are welcomed.
‘Psychological safety is being able to admit our mistakes and feeling comfortable to say: I don’t know the answer. It’s knowing that if I raise an issue, I’m going to be okay.’
Small shifts that can improve team cohesion – fast
Strengthening team cohesion doesn’t require a dramatic reinvention. It often springs from small, consistent shifts that nurture and nudge how people contribute to the team.
Here are four practical moves your team can trial:
- Name the unspoken – early: Don’t wait until frustrations blow up. Leaders can model this by gently surfacing patterns: I’m noticing we’re going quiet on this topic. What are we avoiding?
- Frame feedback as care, not criticism: Criticism triggers self-protection. Care invites reflection. The difference determines whether feedback shuts people down – or helps them open up and grow.
- Embrace differences: Don’t just tolerate different approaches. Lean into them. Strong, resilient teams are built on complementary strengths.
- Replace defensiveness with curiosity: Build a habit of asking: Tell me more. What am I missing? How can we grow from this? Curiosity lowers tension and builds trust.
These shifts will help your team talk about issues earlier, recover faster and spend less energy on internal politics.
Turning insight into practice
In many workplaces, good intentions evaporate the moment inboxes fill up again. Shannyn is blunt about that gap between insight and action. It’s why her training focuses so heavily on implementation.
‘If you think you’re going to create change with good intentions alone, it’s not going to happen. That’s why I build implementation planning into every session. Teams must be clear on how they’ll bring their agreed changes to life when they leave the room.’
In CSA’s Creating a Cohesive Team workshop (led by Shannyn), teams define, practise and build a plan to embed a healthy culture back at work. That might mean roleplaying scenarios, live problem-solving or working through real team challenges together.
‘We first teach them how to fish. Then take them to the pond to fish. And then ask them: How are you going to get your team to fish with you?’
Ready to resolve tensions and build accountability? Creating a Cohesive Team is for leaders and teams who want cohesion to become part of the culture.