Team Cohesion

Eu Jin has recently been appointed as head of the nine-person accounting department in a large oil company. The accounting offices are located on the 6th and 3rd floors of head office. The three accounting employees on the 3rd floor use extra office space in the purchasing department. Two accounting employees were hired a few months before Eu Jin took over the unit; one was offered a job at the time she summated her application form (i.e. hired without an interview or careful review). The employees posses the skills and resources (e.g. new computer systems) to perform effectively if they work together as a team. However, Eu Jin senses that this department lacks the necessary esprit de corps that would help it achieve the highest performance. Describe five distinct strategies Eu Jin would use to build the accounting department into a more cohesive unit and explain how these strategies would increase cohesiveness.

Team cohesion refers to the degree of attraction people feel toward the team and their motivation to remain members. Eu Jin needs to influence the accounting team to become more cohesive. The factors that influence the team cohesion are member similarity, team size, member interaction, somewhat difficult entry, team success and external competition and challenges.
Member similarity – Eu Jin needed to set a goal to attract her team members to work together. Everyone will have the same value and motivation to work together. Member similarity tends to encourage member to work in high cohesion because all the members have similar goal and will work to achieve the goal although their office at different level.
Team size – The smaller the team size, the higher the member cohesion because they tend to agree with the job’s goal and motivate to work perfectly. However, the small team must have enough members to perform the required job. Eu Jin’s team is small enough for her to control and lead the team towards success.
Member interaction – Higher cohesion