The Importance of Developing a Cohesive Team - Interview with Ashli Komaryk

For this episode, we were joined by Ashli Komaryk who is a Communications and Organizational Leadership Trainer at Komaryk Communications. She grew up in Canada, then completed her education in Italy where she lived for 14 years. She then returned to Canada to work as the director of the Italian Cultural Center in Vancouver.

Throughout her career, Ashli has had a variety of roles, with experience working with a number of different leaders. This helped her recognize different communication and behaviour styles that were uplifting, and those that were not. This understanding inspired her to develop her business and to provide organizational development training to organizations focused on strategy, communication and team culture.

During our conversation, Ashli shared her tips and best practices for strategy and leadership, including:

• The importance of employee culture building and tools, like DISC, that can be used to build self-awareness around personal behaviour and communication styles, as well as learning about how to relate to others.
• These same tools can help leaders understand how to encourage their team members to contribute in their own styles. For example, those who are focused on accuracy and precision may be less likely to share their new ideas that they are uncertain about. If a leader is aware of this, they can encourage this type of employee to share their ideas during meetings and brainstorming sessions.
• Culture and communication have been extensively studied and there can be costs to your bottom line if you ignore these essential areas of business – Take the time to understand your team and to assess how cohesive you are