The link between team cohesion and performance doesn’t need an explanation. It’s only logical that the better the team works together, the more it will increase its performance. As obvious as it might seem, no single method guarantees a certain level of cohesion. There are seminars, workshops, or books that can help, but in the end, every workplace will have its way of doing it.
When it was time for Chris Cavallini to tackle the issue, he had a lifetime of experiences to look into for inspiration and solutions.
Chris Cavallini Tackles Teamwork
Chris Cavallini is the CEO of Nutrition Solutions, a premium healthy meal delivery service.
A U.S. Navy veteran with a history of 17 arrests before he turned 18, Cavallini led a life where coming up against problems — and occasionally causing them — was almost routine. Eventually, he turned his life around.
His company Nutrition Solutions has a unique culture where employees are paid to work out, are provided with nutritious meals during shifts, and learn to build resilience by leaning into adversity.
“Adversity is necessary for a human being to reach their full potential. We build resilience and improve our response to stress by proactively doing things that are hard to do,” he explains. “By leaning into discomfort, we can build mental toughness, break limiting beliefs, and develop confidence.
“As I learned in the military, the more hard things a team faces together, the closer they’ll become.”
About Nutrition Solutions
Cavallini's company specializes in providing their customers with high protein, nutrient-dense meals that support specific goals such as weight loss, building lean muscle mass, and improving overall performance.
For a company that operates in the health and nutrition space, it makes perfect sense that the adversity part of team-building will involve things that ultimately benefit people’s health. It starts with a curious initiation ceremony employees have to undergo before becoming a part of the team.
Ice Baths
“After they get a couple of training sessions, as a final test, they go through a three-minute ice bath before they’re officially inducted onto the team,” Cavallini explains. “Cold water immersion has numerous health benefits, but we implement them as part of our training curriculum because it’s brutally uncomfortable and provides a micro-dose of adversity.”
Celebrating adversity and using it to build resilience is one of the core values of Nutrition Solutions. The shock of an ice bath helps with recovery, increases blood flow, reduces inflammation, and might even boost the immune system and help with fat loss.
And those are just the physical benefits. People who undergo them might get psychological benefits, too, from knowing that they’ve successfully pushed past the boundary of what they thought their bodies could do. Chris Cavallini might also let them sit there a bit longer without them knowing to show them they’re capable of more than they believed.
“It’s a potent realization, at that moment, that gives them confidence and self-belief that they can then use to start attacking other goals.”
Paying Employees to Work Out
Chris Cavallini and the team at Nutrition Solutions don’t stop there. One of the more interesting practices of the company is paying its employees to work out. The company has two organized morning workouts every week.
“The training by design is hard. High intensity with minimal rest periods and pushes the team not just physically, but mentally.”
The aim is to provide a combination of physical and mental benefits and a way to help the Nutrition Solutions team build self-discipline.
“Our mindset is that we don’t have to do this — we get to do this. So, we make sure when hiring people that they understand our company culture and what we represent,” says Cavallini. “The cool part is we have people in their twenties and people in their fifties, and everyone is out there pushing their limits.”
Building a Team
Besides creating the best possible company Nutrition Solutions can be, Cavallini’s ultimate goal is to get the people he works with as mentally and physically strong as possible. That includes building a team that clearly understands the company’s mission, and culture, and exhibits camaraderie between all departments.
Another unique part of their company culture is a daily gratitude practice. For a minute and a half every morning, the Nutrition Solutions team gathers for a short gratitude exercise observed in noble silence. It happens before any business is discussed, allowing the team to prime themselves in a peak mental state first.
“Right after that, we roll into the win of the day,” he says.
Cavallini continues: “Winning is important, and I want to instill that mindset into every man and woman that works at Nutrition Solutions. We share wins like client transformation pictures, success stories or testimonials, so the team understands the massive impact their work is having on the clients we serve.”
So far, his efforts to build a strong, resilient, and cohesive company that helps its customers get fit, healthy, and confident – without stress, have proven successful.
Nutrition Solutions has grown year over year, and, according to Cavallini, 2023 will be the biggest and best year yet.
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.