Team Chemistry is a Myth: How to Create Team Performance Instead

Most leaders treat team chemistry like Led Zeppelin’s first jam session in 1968: magic that either happens in the room or doesn’t. Tim and Junior argue that story is the exception that proves the rule. Cohesion, the technical term for chemistry, can be engineered, and thirty years of research puts it at the top of the list of predictors of team performance.

The reason chemistry feels un-engineerable is that most of us aim at the wrong four targets: friendship, individual competence, uniformity, and compliance. This episode corrects the definitions — social, task, identity, and commitment cohesion — pairs the human system with the work system through the IPO model (inputs, processes, outputs), and makes the case that as AI drives the cost of execution toward zero, coordination becomes the bottleneck and cohesion becomes the differentiator.

Transcript

0:00

Junior: Welcome back everyone to The Leader Factor. I’m Junior, here with my co-host, Dr. Tim Clark, and today we’ll be talking about Led Zeppelin. Yes, we are. We were talking about- A little bit … team chemistry- Yeah … and the idea of a process that we can work through to achieve higher team performance through cohesion.

0:00

Tim: We’re gonna be talking about the four types of cohesion. It’s the backbone to one of the training products here at Leader Factor, and we got into this Led Zeppelin conversation. Yeah, Uh, where did that come from? Well, we did because I’ve been reading this book called What To Make Of A Life by Jim Collins, and may remember Jim Collins.

0:00

Tim: He wrote Good to Great, Built to Last. his books have been solid, and he hasn’t published a book in many years, uh, think more than a decade, and he recently released this book, What To Make Of A Life, and he does profiles of different people, and then he compares… He takes, he takes them in pairs, and then he does profiles and…

0:01

Tim: And so he takes, uh, he takes Jimmy Page and Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin, and he talks about first time… Well, as part of the profile, he talks about the first time that they came together, um, with bassist, John Paul Jones, and their drummer, John Bonham, and they played together, I guess.

0:01

Tim: And I’m not, I’m not an expert in Led Zeppelin, but I did grow up with them. But the first time they came together, they played a gig or maybe, uh, they were just jamming, 1968. And apparently when they came together for that first time, it was magic. There was a chemistry that was created by these particular musicians coming together that you just never find, and you can bring genius musicians together, but you, they can’t create that normally.

0:02

Tim: And, uh, and then of course, that led to long and illustrious career. So I just thought… I was, I was mentioning that to you, right, Junior? Yeah. And you said, “Well, hang on a sec. That kind of flies in the face of what we’re, what we’re gonna talk about when it comes to chemistry.” So- Yeah, which is the exception-

0:02

Junior: that proves the rule. This is the exception. It proves the rule. Led Zeppelin is the exception that proves what rule? Well, that you have to be able to engineer team performance, and the cohesion that drives team performance has to be able to be solved systematically through process, otherwise we’re all doomed.

0:03

Tim: think that that’s the conclusion you have to arrive at. If you thought the only way we can achieve that level of chemistry is through providence, through happenstance, uh, through just pure good luck, then we’ve got a big issue on our hands. Yeah. So then what are the chances? Very low. Very low. What are the chances that you’re going to have a Led Zeppelin-like experience- create that kind of chemistry Almost zero Almost zero And I think lot of what’s counterintuitive about team cohesion is that it’s very independent of personality, and that’s one of the things that people misunderstand, I think, out the gate, is we often think that cohesion, which is a technical term- Yeah

0:03

Tim: that we’re going to be using, uh, talk about we’ll use chemistry and cohesion interchangeably, cohesion being the technical term, but that that’s engineerable. A lot of people think that that’s just a function of personality, and if you have some charismatic people who get together or people with aligned interests, that magically you’ll have this cohesion.

0:04

Tim: But that’s also not true. You could have very complementary personalities and a team that doesn’t get along. So what really lurks behind the surface- Hmm … lurks might be the wrong word, but what underpins team performance, there are these four pieces of cohesion. But why should we care about this to start?

0:04

Tim: Why is cohesion an important thing? This is really the spine of the whole argument and the whole episode, is that there’s this gap because of increasing resilience on the machine. Mm-hmm. The machine. The machine. The machine. We’re going to talk about the machine as technology. More specifically, we’ll talk about the machine as AI.

0:04

Tim: But over the last few months, really last couple of years, we’ve seen an increasing reliance on this, what we’ll call the machine, which has decreased the attention that we have been giving team. Mm-hmm. And we’re finding that the outcomes are actually not great. So tell us more about that. Well, goes back to the premise, can the machine take the place of a team and the cohesion that a team needs in order to perform?

0:05

Tim: And we’re saying no Because of execution. The difference between execution cost and coordination. And this is where I get jazzed because I think it’s, it’s very interesting. If execution cost were the only thing that needed solving for, then that will quickly approach zero, and it would follow that we can outsource everything to the machine.

0:05

Tim: And as AI becomes increasingly able to execute in whatever our domain is- Yeah … that we can just delegate all of that to the machine. machine does it all. And that’s fine. The inevitable end, if that were true, is an army of solopreneurs. You would have no need for organization, but we’re not…

0:06

Tim: We don’t see that. There will be occasions where that’s true, but we still need teams and organizations. Why? Well, there’s something interesting that’s happening inside complementarity of people’s not only skill sets, but personalities and these things that match up to create cohesion. And so we’re better as two or three or four, even with low execution cost, than we would be if it was just us with an unlimited ability to execute.

0:06

Tim: And even the machine, can do a lot, but there’s certain things that it can’t do right, Junior, and that goes back Oh, sure … what is irreducibly human. Sure. that goes back to the team being basic and fundamental unit of performance, and then the magic that happens when the team coordinates, collaborates, and has that coherence.

0:06

Junior: Yeah. Is teamwork assumes interdependency. Mm-hmm. And if we’re, we’re not moving away from that, that’s a basic operating principle for all of humanity, is that this is a collective effort at some level, is you’re gonna be two or three or 5,000 of us, and together we’re going to be able to achieve these outcomes, and it’s still the case that we can’t do that alone.

0:07

Tim: We can’t do that without high-performing teams. So what we’ve done is we’ve racked focus away from team performance into using the machine as well as we can to the neglect of the team cohesion, and we’re finding that teams are not performing at a high level. We’re— They’re not performing the way that we would expect them to given the access they have to these incredible tools.

0:07

Junior: So what do we do? Junior- I wanna mention, I just saw a news program the other day, and they were interviewing solopreneurs who were, who were technologists who had created businesses using AI. So this is a one, this is one-person company. And in some cases, they were achieving revenues of up to between one and five million dollars a year with one person just using AI agents.

0:08

Tim: Sure. And that’s incredibly impressive, and they’ve got their agents doing all kinds of things, and they sit down in their cockpit with their array, and they are building these businesses. there’s a limit Right? They’re, they’re still, they’re, they’re still bumping up against the limits of their model.

0:08

Tim: Now, they’re doing what we could never do before, which is to create a business that big, uh, as a, as a solopreneur, but they’re still bumping up against a limit, limits, limitations of that business model. They don’t have the, they don’t have the collaboration. They don’t have team. They don’t have the interdependency, and so there’s only so far they can go.

0:08

Tim: was interesting. are still bumping up against limits. Well, and even if we say there is no theoretical limit, and we make that argument- Mm-hmm … doesn’t necessarily follow that that’s what all of us would want to do. True. Is be locked in a closet by ourself with a bunch of machines- Yes

0:09

Tim: trying to execute on a grand vision. If you think about what meaning where meaning comes from at work, it’s the collective effort. It’s the team that provides a lot of that. So there’s this misconception that AI maybe is making teamwork obsolete. We don’t buy that No. So if we go back to Led Zeppelin, and you asked what makes a team or a group of people cohesive, the intuitive response is something like, well, friendship.

0:09

Tim: They… Or individual excellence. They’re individually all very competent, or they are all cut from the same cloth, or they all do what they’re told. What we find is that none of those things is true. People who would disagree that cohesion can be engineered would say, “Well, you can’t engineer friendship.”

0:10

Tim: Mm-hmm. You can’t engineer individual competence. You can’t engineer uniformity. You can’t engineer compliance. And we’re saying exactly, right, that’s not what cohesion is. The reason that team chemistry feels un-engineerable is because we’re describing the wrong four things. Mm-hmm. So if we correct the definitions, which we’re going to do today, then the whole thing becomes suddenly buildable.

0:10

Tim: So let’s go into each of those. Social cohesion is not friendship, which is the first type of cohesion, social. Mm-hmm. is it not friendship? Well, it, what it, what it really refers to, Junior, is your ability to interact effectively, and there’s a massive social component to that in, uh, the way that you do the work.

0:10

Tim: It depends on your interaction, right? It depends on human interaction. It doesn’t mean that you need to be best friends outside of work. It doesn’t mean that you need to hang out together. But you do need to be able to interact effectively, and that’s a, that’s a major social component. Then we go to task cohesion, which that sounds like a pretty technical term.

0:11

Tim: Let’s define it first. What is task cohesion? Task is… Task cohesion is the way that you organize your work. It’s the way that you create the division of labor. It’s the way that you create roles and responsibilities. It’s the way that you define the interdependencies. So we’re saying in task cohesion that that is not individual competence, right?

0:11

Tim: Right. Compliance belongs to the commitment denial, which we’ll get into. Identity cohesion is the third type of cohesion, and we’re saying that is not uniformity. In fact, a variety of different people with different identities helps make the rule. So you singled this one out on the call. is it?

0:12

Tim: Does it require us to be the same, or can we enjoy our differences? point is, can we leverage the differences, right? Can we, uh, make one and one equal more than two? That’s what teamwork is all about. I think that this point is worth explaining a little bit more, because if you think about uniformity for a second, how useful is a team to me if every input in human capital side is uniform?

0:12

Junior: Mm-hmm. If it’s uniform, then I can just assume that that scales linearly in terms of output. There’s no qualitative difference between the, uh, you know, Person A’s output and Person B. Well, then Then we do get redundant with AI. That’s what I’m saying. That’s the very point I’m making, is once you have uniformity, that makes the case for AI to come in.

0:12

Tim: And And commoditize you as a human being. Exactly. And so another way to say that could be that the teams most threatened by AI are the most uniform. That’s a really good point. And so maybe one way to hedge against the commoditization of your team’s talent is to have a diverse team. How about that?

0:13

Tim: There you go. And then four, commitment is not compliance. So people choosing to stay and give discretionary effort is really what we’re after. That discretionary effort is where everything lives. That’s where all of the value unlocks. And when I say all, I say that deliberately. I know it’s not truly 100%, but it’s above 90 for sure.

0:13

Tim: If I look at the qualitative contributions of my team and I trace that back to compliance or commitment, just force because that’s their job versus discretionary effort that’s given of their own volition, oh man, it’s more than 80/20. It’s gotta be in the 90s. Yeah. It really genuinely does. It’s the person who sits down, uses their unique competence of their own accord to do something a little bit different, a little bit extra, who takes extra time and effort to go in and create something meaningful.

0:14

Tim: I think for a lot of teams, Junior, we could, we could use this hypothesis. Now, this may not be true on every team, but I think it’s true on many teams, and especially teams that rely on innovation, and that is that most of the value comes from discretionary effort If that’s true, then commitment cohesion, which is the fourth dimension of cohesion, is crucial to this whole equation.

0:14

Tim: Means they want to be there, they they love what they’re doing, they wanna be a part of it, they wanna make a contribution, and they thrive in that interdependency. Here’s another way to look at that. Can you get the learning speed out of a team that you need to stay relevant today through compliance?

0:15

Junior: No, that’s impossible. It’s impossible. So you could ensure that a team be adequately trained to execute on a given task, let’s call it 10, 20 years ago, and that was durable. You could put them through training, and then you could force them into compliance and execution, and that would give you the lion’s share of the results.

0:15

Tim: Mm-hmm. The environment today is so dynamic that that will leave you in the dust in about a month. The learning speed that’s necessary to stay relevant today is built entirely on discretionary effort. I’m seeing this with my very own team. If we look at marketing and product, if we look at revenue and client success, if I look at the heads of those functions, are they keeping pace with the environment based on my training or Leader Factor’s training?

0:15

Junior: There’s no, there’s no possible way- Yeah … that we could keep pace. And so it’s up to each individual person to go out there, source, craft the training that they need to stay relevant. And so if it were done entirely through compliance, we’re toast. Well, to say, to make the statement the team creates value out of compliance is ludicrous.

0:16

Tim: Yeah. I mean, think about our team. Yeah. that is no part of the equation Yeah, it’s very, very, very little. And for most organizations out there, we talked about this a few weeks ago, um, those that can maintain some historic competitive advantage because of the nature of their position, there’s really…

0:16

Tim: There’s an interesting comment in the YouTube comments that, yes, but all else equal, everything would still be better if the team performed at a higher level. So even if you enjoy the fruits of historical advantage and your moat is big for some necessary reason, it would still be much better if you innovated out through this discretionary effort that we’re talking about.

0:16

Junior: That’s true. Okay, so those are the four types of cohesion, which are not what most people think. Now we’re going to get into the other system. So today we’re talking about two types of systems in a team, the human system and the work system. The, you said mechanics and dynamics, and I thought that was an apt way to put it.

0:17

Junior: The… We have… I think we’ll title this episode something like the seven drivers of team performance. Why seven? Well, those are the first four in cohesion. Now we’re gonna get into the work process. So talk us, uh, through the IPO model. What is IPO? So now we’re into the mechanics part, right, Junior? Yeah. So we talked about four drivers on the dynamics part, the four dimensions of cohesion.

0:17

Tim: So now we get a little mechanical and we talk about IPO. IPO is the fundamental, uh, process that a team goes through. So it stands for inputs, processes, and outputs. And what we’re saying is that with any team, the outputs are a function of the inputs and the processes. And so if you want to improve or change the outputs, you work backwards, and you look at your inputs, and you look at your processes, and that’s where you make changes.

0:18

Junior: I think it’s interesting to look at these two side by side and look at the combinations. So if you said, “Well, team performance is a function exclusively of the four dimensions of cohesion,” then we get a team who gets along pretty well and doesn’t do much. On the flip side, we have a team who does a whole lot but doesn’t get along.

0:18

Tim: And get along is a simple way, and probably an overgeneralization- Yeah … for cohesion we talked about. But speaking in generalities, that’s pretty much true. If you have a team that’s low in dynamics- Mm-hmm … and low in mechanics, they’re going nowhere. Yeah. If you have high dynamics, low mechanics, we’re also not going to make that much progress.

0:19

Tim: You gotta have both. The opposite is also true, and so what are we striving for? The pinnacle of both. Yeah. We want a team that’s mechanically sound who has great dynamics. That’s right. Both. And if we can achieve both of those things, now we’re off to the races. Now we can compete. And I would go so far as to say that now that’s table stakes.

0:19

Tim: If you want any opportunity to compete at the highest level, and compete really in the marketplace or even as an individual, you either have to be able to create a team that’s high in both or be part of a team that’s high in both. So that’s a very important lens, Junior, that I think, uh, all of our listeners viewers could think about.

0:19

Tim: So think about your own team. Where would you rate yourself in dynamics, going back to the four dimensions of cohesion? And then number two, where would you rate yourself in mechanics, as we refer to inputs, processes, and outputs? You’ve got to take into consideration both, and you’ve got to assess how you’re doing in both areas.

0:20

Junior: You do. And that’s one of our jobs as leaders, is it not? That’s the very job. Yep. And I think that that’s especially true in distinguishing yourself against other professionals who have access to the same tools as you. So if you’re a leader and you have access to the latest tooling, great. Well, so does just about everybody else who’s worth their salt.

0:20

Junior: So how do you outperform? You’re good at the human side. Mm-hmm. You start to get better and better at the dynamics. So if you look at the IPO model, this is another lens to look through, I suppose. Which is more, um- Open or at risk of commoditization. IPO piece, the mechanics, or the cohesion piece, the dynamics.

0:20

Tim: It’s way more likely that you get disrupted in mechanics. Mechanics will increasingly be solved for even across multiple people working together. Tooling’s gonna help you a lot. we’re doing that. That’s true. Right? Yeah, we’re doing that. So if you look at inputs- That’s a good point … and the processes- Yeah

0:21

Junior: I’m outsourcing a ton of process.

0:21

Tim: Yeah. But what I can’t outsource, I can’t outsource the cohesion piece. So if you take someone who’s incredibly competent, a really intelligent operator, and you give them tools, great, right? They’ll do really well in isolation, and they can make a big dent. But what sort of massive change could they effect if they were able to do cohesion well and assemble a team around them that were qualitatively different?

0:21

Tim: So again, we’re fighting against the uniformity that’s so commonly people think is really the key, when in reality that’s fighting against you and opens you up to commoditization. So I think that’s an interesting thing to think about as you’re looking at these two systems, the work system and the human system.

0:22

Tim: The human system is ultimately differentiated. It is. Cannot be commoditized. So the chemistry question up front about Led Zeppelin, would it be better all else equal if we got along and there was just magic? Yes. Right? Yes. Wouldn’t that be nice? Yes. It would. But we can’t plan for that. Yeah. So if that ever happens to you, good for you.

0:22

Tim: Stay there. Work in that. Develop it. But for the majority of us for whom that won’t be true, we have to engineer- Yeah … the performance through process, and we do that through those two systems. That’s true. So team cohesion, if we work all the way through the logic, is tightly correlated with team performance.

0:22

Tim: they’re inseparable. You can’t pull them apart. Cohesion can be engineered. It’s not just happenstance. And that cohesion has to be combined with really good systems to produce performance, the mechanics and the dynamics. And AI, what does AI have to do with all of this? It actually increases the need for both.

0:23

Tim: If we over-rely on the machine, we fail because we’ve underweighted the importance of the team and the importance of cohesion. And in the age of AI, when the cost of execution is low, then the coordination becomes the bottleneck. Mm-hmm. And that is require, that requires us to be really good on the human side.

0:23

Junior: So coordination is positively affected by cohesive teams. So if you zoom really far out, what are some of my takeaways? What are some of my invitations? Think about how far you will go if the cost of execution drops to close to zero What happens if that’s true in your individual role as a professional, in your team’s situation?

0:23

Junior: And then what might you need to do to work out of the commoditization path and into a place where you can increasing increasingly rely on humans to get farther, who are better than you at different things? And it’s, that’s where the magic happens. That’s where I’ve seen the magic happen in my own career, is when people who are qualitatively different than me are able to contribute at a high level in something that I would never have even thought of, uh, regardless of the tools I had access to.

0:24

Tim: Mm-hmm. I would agree, Junior. So if we apply theory of constraints, and we say execution has been the bottleneck, and we de-bottleneck, we de-bottleneck that, now we transfer back over to the team and the team’s ability to innovate, the team’s ability to create, uh, value, right? Because you can go execute it, and so it comes back to the importance of the team.

0:24

Tim: The other thing I wanna highlight is just that if you look at research in, uh, around team performance and team building over the last 30 years, the number one predictor of team performance is cohesion. It’s number one. That’s where the correlation is the highest. That’s why we focus on it so much.

0:25

Junior: Love it. Hopefully, that’s been valuable for you, gives you something to think about over the next week. Uh, you’ve been listening to The Leader Factor. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave us a like, give us a comment, and share. Uh, subscribe if you haven’t already, and send to a friend. With that, we’ll catch you in the next episode.

0:25

Tim: Take care, everybody. Bye-bye.