Posted by Drealm on
URL: https://coalpha.arkian.net/Group-Cohesion-tp5588680p5589800.html

J. Durden wrote

An aside: My real name is not J. Durden. Just a pen name.

Apologies, my mistake.

J. Durden wrote

Executive summary of the ideas in this post and this post:

Identify three values that the CoAlpha group wants to foster. For example, these values in the Marine Corps are Honor, Courage, and Commitment. Once you have these highest-order values, you can scale everything else based off of them.

I've read and reread your "theory of three" many times. I can't seem to grasp it at even a basic level. This isn't a criticism against the theory or how it's written, I just think it's highly philosophical. I'm not the best at grasping abstract concepts. I prefer working with concrete details. I still applaud your efforts though for attempting to create a theory of super cohesion. This is a monumental undertaking.

My approach takes the lower road. I identify organization which succeed at cohesion and I scavenge these organizations for specific practices. This does not result in a grand overarching theory, but merely a list of examples. Perhaps we can recreate some of these examples within our own organization.

In the case of the Marine Corps there's a number of examples that come to mind:

- Buzz cut.
- Uniforms.
- Marching songs.
- Crucible (rite of passage).