How to intentionally manage your team’s culture
True or false: Culture is something that ‘just happens’
If you chose ‘True’, you are right. If you chose ‘False’ you are also correct!
Your team will create its own culture, whether you intentionally manage it or not. As a leader, the question we would be asking you is: “what outcomes do you want your team culture to drive”?
Deprioritising culture and letting it ‘just happen’ doesn’t mean that it ceases to exist. Your team will create its own brand of accepted behaviours and these may not be aligned to your organisation’s ideal ways of working. When culture is left unmanaged, it can easily drift into dysfunction, creating silos, poor communication and performance issues.
On the other hand, proactively managing culture is one of the most powerful things you can do as a leader. Culture is what determines whether ideas get shared, whether feedback generates constructive conversations, and whether your team is pulling in the same direction when it comes to achieving operational goals.
High performing teams have an intentional culture that supports their goals. Leaders of high performing teams understand that culture influences everything from decision-making and accountability to innovation and collaboration. No matter how solid your plan, your team’s ability to deliver will depend on the way they work together.
Sounds great, but where to start?
In this article we explore four practical ways to intentionally manage your team’s culture.
Each tip is drawn from our experience working with diverse teams across Australia’s public and private sectors, and they are designed so you can put them into practice straight away, without waiting for staff survey results.
Tip 1: Start by understanding the current state of your team’s culture
It is risky to assume that your team’s culture is on-track because your organisation has a clear vision, mission or values. The real culture is what people experience day to day, and you can’t manage what you don’t understand. Once you get a realistic understanding of your team’s ‘day to day’, then you can begin to intentionally manage your team’s culture by amplifying those behaviours that are values-aligned, and addressing those that aren’t.
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Start by asking these three questions:
Write your answers down, then ask your team to write their answers down. This can be done anonymously using a free online survey tool (we recommend Menti.com), or as a group activity if your team has baseline of trust already established. See where your lists match, and where they differ. Cross reference your answers with recent culture survey, or APS Census results to see where there are consistencies or differences between the culture of your team, versus your organisation. |
Now you are on your way to understanding the real current state of your team’s culture.
Tip 2: Next, define the desired culture for your team’s future
Once you understand your current culture, the next step is to define where you want to go. Use your strategic objectives as a blueprint; you know what you need to aim for, but what are the behaviours that will get you and your team there?
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Now, consider these questions by yourself:
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At the end of this, you will have created a practical "culture gap analysis” showing where you are now (Tip 1) and where you want to be, along with a guiding statement that will help you prioritise what behaviours to focus on, allowing you to intentionally lead that journey for your team.
Tip 3: Understand the preferences within your team
Now that you have designed a plan to intentionally lead your team towards your desired culture, it is important to take a pause and consider the diversity of strengths, styles and preferences within your team.
The Team Management Profile is an effective tool that provides insights about work preferences relating to leadership style, interpersonal skills, team building and communication.
As a leader, having the information to hand about how each team member prefers to work, where they excel, and where they may need support is critical to unlocking team performance.
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Ask your team these questions ahead of your next 1:1 or performance review:
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This will give you useful information on where each member of your team finds ‘flow’ in their day-to-day work, and which tasks may take them more time to complete. If you find you have a team full of people who enjoy the creating/ innovating side of work, but few people who enjoy the concluding/ producing work stage, then you will start understanding why your team gets highly energised about new ideas, but often fails to complete or implement these on time.
Tip 4: Add culture to your agenda
True or false: “It takes a long time to change culture”
If you chose ‘True’, you are right (again). If you chose ‘False’ you are also correct…again!
If you have been through a culture change journey, you will know that it absolutely takes a long time to implement. For most people, it is very difficult to say goodbye to behaviours that were comfortable and accepted. Often, new behaviours are not tightly defined and linked to practical examples of each behaviour in action, making it difficult for staff to replicate, or understand when behaviour deviates from this direction. Because of this, culture change journeys often take years to successfully implement.
On the other hand, organisational culture can be changed in an instant.
Can you imagine coming to work one day at a place that you love. The work is rewarding, and your team works well together. Then, you are told some challenging news at an all-staff meeting. Perhaps there is going to be a restructure and jobs will be lost. Perhaps the CEO is stepping down and their replacement has a very different leadership style. Whatever the ‘bad’ news is, it will instantly affect the culture. Self-protection behaviours can start to appear. Discretionary effort to help the team will dwindle as people feel that the extra hours might not be worth it.
What is important to remember as a leader is that culture isn’t static. It evolves as your team grows, changes, and adapts. But without regular and intentional attention, it can easily drift in the wrong direction.
We understand that it is difficult to predict and plan for these major culture-shifting moments. What you can do, is introduce one simple, continuous improvement question to your regular staff meeting agenda.
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Ask your team: “What is one way we could work together better next month?” And then act on these answers. Giving your team this opportunity to continuously reflect and adapt on culture will help you react with agility to the constant organisational changes that impact the working environment of your team. |
With these practical tips, you can start to intentionally manage the culture of your team, building a powerful understanding of how your people work together, and the behaviours that will strongly align with your strategic goals.
If you are ready to take a more active role in shaping your team’s culture, our one-day Team Dynamics workshop is a great place to start. We have helped leaders and organisations to identify the culture they need to deliver strategy and priorities, and then work with them to create and evolve it.
Contact us to have a conversation about how we can help your team, or click here to read case studies on how we have supported organisations across all aspects of culture development.
