Cohesion Culture™ CORE
Communicating Open-minded Real-time Engagement
The Cohesion Culture™ CORE program creates an energetic hands-on team building adventure, combining the principles of the bestselling book, Cohesion Culture: Proven Principles to Retain Your Top Talent, with experiential activities for immediate application. Dr. Troy Hall and Ben-Jamin Toy teamed up to combine proven leadership principles with team building activities to form a one-of-a-kind learning experience for individual contributors of an organization.
CORE is a versatile program that can be adapted to meet the needs of any organization and produce real results that keep front-line or assembly employees engaged and productive.
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Without cohesion, companies can fail to realize up to a 50% increase in productivity and creativity. Cohesion is a causal phenomenon that positively impacts performance and engagement.
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Cohesion Culture™ CORE is a dynamic experience in Communicating Open-minded Real-time Engagement between peers, colleagues, and teammates.
In the CORE program, participants are challenged to forgo their workplace facade in the face of comfort stretching challenges, with real-time responses to stressful situations. Through CORE activities and exercises, employees are guided to apply leadership principles to real-life scenarios. Because of its multifaceted approach to problem solving, decision-making, and relationship-building challenges, the program can meet the unique needs of any organization, delivering tangible results that keep employees engaged, productive, and aligned.
Each activity consists of a debriefing session that further reinforces leadership concepts and the three strategic elements of cohesion: belonging, value, and commitment. Plus, valuable cohesion-infused Culture Cheat Codes are shared throughout the program. These culture cheat codes give participants a way to "power up" their leadership much like cheat codes in games give players an edge in successfully maneuvering throughout the game until a player wins.
Culture Cheat Codes support the concept "experienced today, implemented tomorrow."
Leaders and individual contributors alike have appreciated the learning that takes place during the activity debriefs. It is from these open-ended, non-leading questions, and the rich dialogue that ensues the real learning occurs.
Ben-Jamin Toy is known to quote Benjamin Franklin, "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."
How can organizations cultivate connection and collaboration among team members?
Successful relationships are built from a sense of belonging and inclusion that often comes in the form of a greeting or getting to know another person through questioning. There are two possible openings for the CORE program depending upon the client. Both choices provide for what Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin call "Connection before Content."
- One option showcases teams sharing their pre-work assignment to build a CORE ID through a team name, function, goal, and cheer or song. This lively and oftentimes entertaining series of team presentations generate laughter, cheers, camaraderie, and a little healthy competition.
- The second option opens with the participants teaming up in pairs with people they do not know from other parts of the organization. They are given a series of greetings to perform and a Cohesion Culture™ Connection starter.
Once the concepts of belonging and inclusion are set in motion, the group transitions to thinking about communicating and collaborating. A CORE activity favorite, Eyes, Body, Voice, is a unique look into how individuals perceive their roles, the challenges they face with communication, and what it takes to build a collaborative environment. Through the experience, participants realize that collaboration operates smoothly when two criteria are met. First, each person is needed to complete commitments, assignments, or tasks. Second, people are trusted to do their jobs. When employees adopt a collaborative mindset, they are engaged. These engaged employees are helpful, active, vested, and eager.
During the activity, only one person can see the playing field while another is the only one who can speak. The third player is the only one that can move as directed (by the voice). All in all, the goal is to accomplish the shared mutual commitment of finding a ball on a cone placed somewhere within the playing field. Oh, and one more thing … two of the three are blindfolded and the one who moves is turned around several times to change their perception and orientation of the playing field. These fun and quirky limitations make for as much fun for the observers to watch the activity as it is for the participants to play.
How can teams communicate effectively?
REAL-TIME ENGAGEMENT
The final activity of the day is "All Connect." Using a series of laminated cards, participants describe what they see on the card without showing it to anyone. The goal is to demonstrate how everyone can be connected to a single image (or task) when the original picture is zoomed out and zoomed in. Participants will eventually form a large circle where the beginning and the end of the story are side by side.
Participants must describe what is on their card all the while keeping the image only to themselves. They can use descriptors of what the image is, sing parts of a song, express their image through shapes and colors, or offer analogies of what they are seeing. Everything is fair game in helping the participants "All Connect."
Other participants may choose to ask clarifying questions instead of waiting for one of the participants to describe their card. Oftentimes, the process of forming the circle from start to end is riddled with chaos, frustration, and lots of people trying to be in charge.
Teams successful in completing this activity take into consideration everything they have learned throughout the day and apply their newfound knowledge. There is no right or wrong way to approach the exercise, yet when calmness and order are present and individuals begin working as a unified team instead of a group of individuals, they are more apt to solve the "All Connect" story well before teams that go about it haphazardly without a plan.
The "All Connect" activity is the perfect exercise to bring the elements of Communicating Open-minded, and Real-time Engagement together at one time.
What is the best way to transform toxic team dynamics?
Cohesion Culture™ CORE at-a-glance
This transformative program is a dynamic experience in Communicating Open-minded Real-time Engagement between employers and their stellar teams of individual contributors. The CORE creates a gamified approach to company concerns, turning challenges into solvable puzzles and fostering a Cohesion Culture™ where employees feel a sense of inclusion, meaningful work, and share in collaborative opportunities to achieve mutual commitments.
Challenging participants to shed their workplace facades and respond in real-time to comfort-stretching challenges, Cohesion Culture™ CORE provides applicable insights and learning opportunities that extend beyond the office. It acts as a powerful catalyst, injecting energy into your team dynamics and rebuilding your people into a high-functioning unit.
By focusing on leadership style, communication, and situational responses, we guide individuals through defining critical aspects of professional and team cohesiveness. This program transforms teams from merely meeting standards into highly motivated squads that exceed expectations.
Elevate your team's potential with Cohesion Culture™ CORE—a powerful catalyst for building strong, engaged, and cohesive teams that thrive in any professional landscape.