Want a great team culture? Skip the quick tips and start here

Team culture part 1:

Getting clear on the foundations.

In the people & culture space, nothing looms larger than the c word. Culture.

We hear it from businesses across the board, it's the big picture goal on their list: "We want to work on our team culture."

Most of us have an intuitive feel for culture that is pretty accurate, we can sense when things aren’t quite right. But intuition only tells us how things feel, and not much about why they feel that way or how to fix it.

A quick google search and you’ll then be bombarded with all kinds of articles peddling the “3 golden rules of culture”, “the definitive guide to culture” and of course, the classic “culture isn’t pizza parties and ping pong tables”.  

But with so many golden rules and definitive guides out there where do you even start?

Start with the foundations

Instead of jumping to the quick tips and how-to guides we think it's worth getting clear on a couple of things first:

What is culture, really?
What influences it?
And then, how can you use that knowledge to start creating the team culture you want to be part of?

That's what we're covering in this blog series, we'll be taking a look at culture from a practical perspective, grounded in research and organisational psychology.

The link with productivity: Why we first started paying attention to culture  

The focus on organisational culture is not new. The idea goes back to the industrial revolution when corporations’ looking to improve productivity, turned to researchers for help. They stumbled across something surprising: productivity could vary wildly even if the same “ideal” physical conditions (lighting, break times, and safety protocols) were applied to different workplaces. 

This suggested something else was the hidden driver, and what we now know as "workplace culture” was first theorised. With new recognition that how people felt about their social work environment was important too, businesses started asking questions that are still familiar: How can we measure this “culture” thing? And ultimately, how can we improve it?

You’re not imagining it, the advice on building team culture keeps changing

The way we approach workplace culture has evolved as we have learned more about the factors that shape the way people experience work. Looking back can show us how this understanding has developed and help us make sense of today.

Initially, culture was thought to be top-down, driven by leaders through procedural changes like policies, org structure, and performance management.  Then came the era of inspirational, enigmatic leadership. The idea that culture relied on leaders who could rally people around a common goal.  That influenced a different approach altogether, focusing on collaborative culture-building and the idea that all employees contributed to a shared culture rather than relying on what came from the top.  

The consensus now sits somewhere in the middle.

No single approach gives the full picture. Culture doesn’t come solely from the top, and it doesn’t emerge magically from the bottom either. And just like we’ve come to accept there is no way one to be a be a “great leader”, there is no one way to have a “great culture”.

There is no one way to create a positive culture.  

Today, we tend to think of culture as being personal and unique to different people. Everyone has different things that impact how they feel about work.

For some, having flexible work hours and work-life balance go a long way. For others, having friendly colleagues is really important, while some people value clearly defined roles and streamlined communication. These are all valid, which is why there is no single answer to creating a positive culture. But there are commonalities in what influences team culture overall.  

All team cultures are different, but they are made from the same building blocks  

There are four areas that researchers tend to agree are the key drivers of culture:

• Value alignment – Are values clearly defined, does the work environment encourage people to express those values, and do team members relate to those values?
• Leadership – Do employees see leaders as authentic and motivational?
• Safety climate – Do employee’s feel physically and psychosocially safe at work?
• Trust and respect – Do employees trust and respect each other and does the business demonstrate trust and respect for its employees?

Picture these areas as four dials, each adjusted based on what matters most to each person. One person might turn two all the way up, with the other two turned halfway. Someone else will set the dials differently.

All four areas are important, but if lots of people in your team have the same dials turned up, it’s a sign those areas are more important to focus on than others.  

So where does this lead us?  

Over our series, we’ll be taking a deeper look at each of the four areas and how that might apply to your business and team. First up, we’ll be diving into with Value Alignment (stay tuned for next week).

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Curious about how we partner with business leaders and HR teams to champion positive team culture? Find out more here.