Team Identity 101: What It Is and Why It’s Key to Your Team’s Success
In today’s fast-paced, fragmented work environments, team cohesion has never been more important.
While individual roles and skills can be over-emphasised in the recruitment process, equally if not more important is how they fit into the wider team and the collective creativity, resourcefulness and strength they will go on to shape.
We know instinctively from witnessing sports teams overcome insurmountable physical and strategic feats that they are much more than merely the ‘sum of their parts.’ This shared drive towards a common goal creates a wisdom far greater than any individual alone – and in the coaching field is credited to the ‘Team Identity’.
But what exactly is team identity and why does it matter? In this article, we will answer those questions and offer practical advice to help you start defining yours. Let’s dive in!
Who are you? Who are we?
In leadership development, we often encourage leaders to articulate their leadership identity. We invite them to delve into their sense of self and their place in the world to uncover what defines them as a leader.
This exploration typically includes naming a professional identity, e.g. “I am a lawyer, a marketer, a consultant”. But it also extends to personal attributes like gender, ethnicity, faith, personality traits, beliefs, moral codes and motivations.
However, when individuals come together in relationship, that relationship begins to take on an identity of its own – with shared values, goals and a unified sense of purpose. Articulating it requires teams to ask themselves: who are we as a collective? What defines us? This inquiry requires a mindset shift from “I” and “you” to “WE” and “US”.
A Living, Breathing Whole
In the framework of Organisation and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC), this concept is referred to as The Third Entity™. This concept acknowledges that every relationship or team has its own unique qualities, values and aspirations. Each entity has its own identity, character and wisdom, with distinct needs and wants that enable it to survive.
Team identity is not static or a one and done idea. It is a living, breathing entity with a life of its own – with unique perspective and insights that are separate from the individual members, which can evolve and change over time along with the team. This dynamic encourages a collective wisdom that is far more resourceful and creative than any individual alone. It shifts the perspective from individuals to unity and unifies team members into a collective “whole”.
Research has shown that a team’s potency – the belief a team holds about its ability to succeed – is closely linked to team identity. When a team defines their shared identity, it encourages cohesion and shared accountability – team members feel a sense of pride in contributing to this shared identity, leading them to feel positive and content as part of the collective.
As highlighted by Widdowson & Barber Litchfield et al. (2018), team identity represents “a story form of attachment where individuals partly derive their self-definition from the team.”
How to Start Articulating Your Team Identity
The first step in articulating your team’s identity is identifying common themes found amongst its individual members, and one effective way of uncovering them is through creative expression.
For example, asking each individual team members to draw a picture that represent their version of the team’s identity, then displaying the drawings together as a gallery and asking team members to notice similarities and differences can yield rich insights.
An equally powerful exercise is asking the team to come up with a metaphor using this structure: “we are the (noun) that (verb)”, for example:
“We are a golden thread that weaves through the organisation.”
Other examples of team identity metaphors include:
- We are the key ingredient in the winning recipe
- We are wise owls guiding the way
- We are a well-oiled cog in a clunky wheel
- We are the smallest team, but the one everyone wants to be part of
Embracing and articulating team identity is not merely an enjoyable exercise: ultimately, the narrative a team constructs about itself shapes the story others will tell about them.
It is an essential step in the process to foster connection, accountability, and united strength when forming teams that truly succeed – as individuals and as a collective.
By taking the time to understand, articulate and nurture your team’s unique identity, leaders can empower their teams to thrive together and achieve results that wouldn’t be possible alone and form a culture of true collaboration and support.
