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The Four Forces That Hold a Team Together, and How to Build Them

Your team isn't broken. It's just doing what every human system does when left alone: drifting apart.


That's the uncomfortable truth behind Matt Poepsel's research into what he calls organizational entropy. Every system, a messy desk, a forgotten to-do list, a team spread across time zones, moves toward disorder unless someone puts in the energy to hold it together. The good news is that Matt identified four specific counterforces that pull teams back into alignment (and none of them require budget), but all of them require intention.


Why Cohesion Doesn't Happen by Accident


Remote and hybrid work, shorter job tenures, and a growing focus on individual satisfaction have all chipped away at the collective glue that used to hold teams together. Add in layoffs, AI adoption, and a widening trust gap between employers and employees, and the drift accelerates. None of this means your team is uniquely dysfunctional. It means you're leading people through a moment that is actively pulling them apart, whether you name it or not.


Counterforce One: Hope


Hope sounds simple, but most managers never actually build it. Matt points out that it only works when it's collective, meaning it includes everyone, is future oriented, and specific enough that people can picture it. Matt explains that telling your team an AI rollout will save them time isn't hopeful if it also threatens the part of their job they identify with most. Explain exactly why the change is good for the individual, not just the organization, and take the extra few minutes to ask instead of announce.


Counterforce Two: Mutuality


Mutuality, says Matt, means everyone is contributing and benefiting in a way that feels fair, even if it isn't identical. This breaks down fastest around flexible policies. When one manager lets their team work from home and another requires four days in office for materially similar work, people notice, and they conclude the system is unfair rather than the individual decision. If you can't offer identical terms across a team, Matt urges us to at least offer identical transparency about why the terms differ.


Counterforce Three: Commitment


Commitment isn't determination to finish a task. It's a sense of belonging to the team itself, separate from the work product. Matt underscores that teams that only talk about deliverables, numbers, and deadlines burn people out faster, because the relationship never gets built. One of the simplest fixes: protect the first five minutes of every team meeting for the team, not the task list. Ask who's doing something fun this weekend, who's going through something hard, or what someone's genuinely excited about. It isn't an icebreaker. It's the foundation the rest of the meeting stands on.


Counterforce Four: Synchrony


Synchrony, Matt explains, is about how the team works together, not just whether each person finishes their own piece. A crew boat doesn't move faster because everyone rows their hardest; it moves faster because everyone rows together. If your version of "done" creates extra work for the next person, whether that's an overly long email or a handoff that doesn't account for how someone else actually works, you're technically finished, but the team isn't. Ask your teammates directly what would make your handoffs easier for them.


Right and Tight Keeps Your Team Together


Matt sums all four forces up with a phrase from his time in the Marines: right and tight. Right results, tight teamwork. The two aren't in competition, and they aren't separate jobs for a manager to juggle. 


When the teamwork is strong, the results follow. When the results are good because the teamwork is good, the teamwork gets easier too. Trying to choose between "the people stuff" and "the business stuff" misses that they're the same stuff.


The bigger point underneath all four counterforces is that drift isn't a sign you're doing something wrong. It's what happens by default. Cohesion has to be built on purpose, and now, thanks to Matt’s research, it can also be measured, so you don't have to rely on a hunch that your team is drifting. You can actually track it, and do something about it, before it costs you your best people.


Listen to the entire episode HERE to learn more about the how to keep your team strong.


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