Connection is Readiness

Getting Beyond Ice Breakers and LinkedIn Outreach to Cohesion that Matters

We all too quickly dismiss the concept of connection when talking about things we should invest in as an organization, for performance, for readiness, and so forth.

And yet in the same breath, we in the military will claim that our work is all about the people we fought beside. That unit cohesion is the most powerful weapon in our arsenal. That the band of brothers (and sisters) who had our back means everything.

That doesn’t happen by accident. The military is actually very, very good at structuring the necessary events needed for connection and cohesion, because it is an essential part of mission readiness.

On the outside, we label connection and cohesion as “touchy-feely,” nice to have, but not essential. Or worse, some “woke s&!t.” But the more I work in talent, leadership, and readiness, the more convinced I am that connection isn’t soft at all. It’s foundational.

We connect to trust. We connect to lead. We connect to inspire. Without real connection, even the most capable workforce becomes brittle.

Connection and cohesion are a core component of workforce readiness, especially in times of change and uncertainty.

Let’s decode it. 🚀

Connection is Readiness

And it feels touchy-feely because so many people handle it WRONG.

Need a team to rally behind? Team USA is at Milano Cortina for the 2026 winter Olympics and you can watch it all here.

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If you want to know why connection matters, don’t look at wellness posters or engagement surveys (although I’ll tell you those matter, too).

Look at elite teams.

We just saw it at the Superbowl. We’re seeing it at the Winter Olympics. We see it in special operations units. There’s a reason SEALs sell books—they get it done.

Their connection and cohesion are essential to top performance. Stakes are high, conditions are uncertain, and failure has real consequences, and you have to depend on the strength of the people to your left and right. It’s not optional.

So what makes connection such a necessary thing in top-performing teams?

Let’s break down what high-performing teams have as strengths:

• deep trust under pressure

• shared understanding without constant instruction

• the ability to adapt mid-execution

• confidence that teammates will show up

• permission to speak up when something is wrong

Sound like a lot of our conversations on what we need to adapt our talent in ambiguous environments? I’m happy to provide a refresher:

What we need to roll through this change, beyond adaptive talent, is connection. And no, it’s not about liking each other or kumbaya talk. It’s about reliability in uncertainty.

So…what makes this so easy to get wrong?

We have systems that deliberately design for connection and cohesion, but we don’t realize it. We treat connection as an afterthought, as something that just happens. So we don’t notice when we eliminate the pieces of the system designed to create it.

Worse? We treat it as soft and unprofessional.

I see this a lot when we shift from combat environments into garrison environments in the Army. In combat, we train together, we eat together, we work together. It creates the kind of relationships that have my original platoon, who I deployed with to Kuwait and then Iraq in February 2003, still messaging each other on a Facebook chat.

But then we get back into garrison and leave the wartime environment behind, and things that were commonplace there are considered unprofessional. Uniform standards become paramount in peacetime. In combat, the only thing we needed to be “uniform” was where people put important pieces of kit (hard to perform first aid if you can’t find someone’s first aid pouch). In garrison? We police our dress code like the Mean Girls and our installation like the world’s pettiest HOA.

As far as cohesion goes, we replace relationships with process and then wonder why trust erodes, learning slows, and adaptation becomes painful.

So why do we not design for connection when we’re not deployed?

Let me give you three reasons.

1. It’s hard to measure. We can count billets, readiness ratings, and outputs more easily than trust or cohesion.

2. It feels inefficient. Connection takes time. And time looks expensive in spreadsheet-driven environments.

3. It’s misunderstood. Connection gets conflated with informality, lack of discipline, or emotional indulgence.

Elite teams reject all three of these.

They understand that:

• what you can’t measure may still be decisive

• time spent building trust saves time under pressure

• discipline and connection reinforce each other

Connection is How Teams Adapt to Living Change

One of the most important capabilities in modern organizations is adaptation. Elite teams don’t adapt because they have perfect plans. They adapt because:

• information flows quickly

• people speak up early

• feedback is trusted

• correction happens without ego

That requires connection.

When people don’t trust each other, all of these things break down. People withhold information, they delay raising concerns, they protect themselves instead of the mission, and they wait for permission instead of acting.

In sports, that costs games. In the military, it costs readiness—and sometimes lives.

High-performing teams don’t leave cohesion to chance. They build it deliberately through:

• shared experiences

• honest feedback

• consistent interaction

• mutual accountability

• clarity of purpose

This is where many large organizations fail. They assume cohesion will emerge naturally while simultaneously designing work that fragments people, isolates teams, and rewards individual endurance over collective success.

You don’t get cohesion by accident. You get it by design.

So what does this look like at work?

It’s definitely not group therapy or endless meetings or even forced vulnerability (no registering for your mentor somewhere, no unnecessary cheesy ice breakers). Who’s got the worst ice breaker? (Honestly, want a good one? Ask someone to talk about the worst hotel they’ve ever stayed at or plane ride they’ve had).

Connection at work looks like:

• people knowing how others think and work

• leaders understanding how their teams connect best

• shared language for collaboration

• trust that disagreement won’t be punished

• confidence that someone has your back

This is where resources like Steven Van Cohen’s great book Connectable are useful—because they make the organizational design elements clearer.

Understanding how people connect—through ideas, empathy, action, reliability—reduces friction and misinterpretation. It prevents leaders from mistaking difference for disengagement. And it reminds us that isolation is a readiness risk.

One of the clearest lessons from shutdown periods and remote-heavy work environments is this: isolation degrades performance over time.

People can execute tasks in isolation. They cannot sustain judgment, creativity, or trust that way. It’s why even as someone who works at a great distance from my team, I try to be with them in person on a regular basis. I need to be, as Lin Manuel says, in the room where it happens, from time to time.

Elite teams rotate together for a reason. They train together. They spend time together. Not because it’s pleasant—but because it’s how shared understanding is built. When organizations remove those connective tissues without replacing them intentionally, performance quietly erodes.

Leaders often say they want:

• initiative

• accountability

• adaptability

• learning

• trust

Every single one of those depends on connection.

You don’t get initiative without setting the right conditions for it, and that’s trust and understanding. You don’t get accountability without trust. You don’t get learning without openness. You don’t get adaptability without cohesion.

Connection is the foundation that makes all of this possible.

So, I need connection as an organization because…

Because I want a capable, adaptable, continuously learning, reliable, trusting, and autonomous workforce in my organization. For that, I have to care about connection.

Cohesion is a force multiplier.

The Army knows this in combat, even if we have challenges remembering it everywhere else. Likely, your organization knows this, too, even if they call the signs of cohesion and connection by another name.

Connection is not “touchy-feely.” It’s how teams perform when it counts.

One of the most critical things we need to realize, though, is that cohesion and discipline are not opposites. One of the reasons organizations resist investing in connection is a fear—often unspoken—that cohesion will undermine discipline.

That if people feel connected, standards will slip. That accountability will soften. That leaders will lose control.

Elite teams know the opposite is true. Cohesion is what makes discipline sustainable.

In high-performing sports teams and military units, discipline doesn’t come from fear or surveillance. It comes from mutual accountability. People hold the standard not just because leadership expects it—but because they don’t want to let their teammates down.

Cohesion changes who you’re accountable to.

Instead of discipline flowing only downward from authority, it becomes lateral and internalized. Standards are enforced by the team, not just imposed by leaders. Corrections happen faster, with less drama, because trust already exists.

The balance looks like this:

• Discipline sets the standard — clear expectations, roles, and consequences

• Cohesion sustains the standard — trust, shared purpose, and mutual responsibility

When cohesion is weak, leaders are forced to rely on control, rules, and oversight to compensate. When cohesion is strong, discipline becomes lighter—but more effective.

This is why elite organizations need to invest in both. They don’t choose between connection and rigor. They understand that rigor without connection becomes brittle, and connection without rigor becomes loose.

The goal is reliable performance under pressure. And that requires discipline anchored in cohesion, which begins with connection.