Keeper of the Culture

Corporate culture is often taken for granted and its impact is underappreciated, but in reality, a positive work culture can allow a team to perform beyond its abilities and a negative work culture can sink a talented team. The creation, maintenance and improvement of a team’s culture isn’t a one-person job, it requires the entire team working on it daily; but as individual business leaders we must be ever vigilant in protecting and supporting our corporate/team culture. With that in mind, let’s talk more about how our personal actions are so critical when it comes to culture-

It Has to Start with You- There isn’t a blueprint for building a corporate culture and there is not a help line you can call to fix a problem. That can seem daunting, but in some ways, it is kind of liberating. There are not forms to fill out and there are no reports to run. The culture you are building is organic, you are just helping to cultivate it. So, where do you start? It must start with you. You need to model the culture you are trying to create. If your culture is based on being on time and wearing business suits, then you should be on time and wear your suit. If your culture is about putting the customer first, you better make sure your actions are demonstrating the value that the customer has in your business. If your culture has a bias for action, you cannot sit back and wait for things to happen; you must lead the charge. Be the person you would like your team to be, that modeling will help your team understand your vision and cut a path for them to follow.

It Relies on Trust- This probably goes without saying as trust is the key building block of all leadership efforts, but when we are thinking about how we can influence the culture of the team the concept of trust is critical. When it comes to things like driving process improvements you can fall back on customer surveys, revenue reports or other measurements to prove the return on investment to the team for their actions. When we are talking about the team culture, that is much more difficult to quantify, and you just can’t touch it, feel it or report on it. It is at this point that the team’s trust in you and your leadership is vital. They will follow the modeling that we discussed in the previous bullet if they trust you, they will be reluctant if they don’t.

It Never Sleeps- This is the hardest piece. Building a culture isn’t a project that ends in 60 days and it is not a task that you must complete quarterly. Keeping your culture moving ahead is always 24-7 task and you as a leader have to be on duty. There are so many small things that can disrupt your culture that you have to guard against. A culture built on teamwork can be spoiled by a team member that doesn’t help others. A culture built on respect can be crushed by a single act of you as a leader demeaning a member of the team. Most of these things are not fatal and you can overcome these hurdles to keep your culture growing, but you cannot let them linger. You need to react quickly to attacks on your team culture and constantly ensure that you are demonstrating the culture you are trying to build on a daily basis.     

It certainly feels like the responsibilities to you as a business leader continue to pile up. You have to manage your team, you are responsible for the financial performance of your team, you have to get great customer feedback and so much more; but it is important to remember that our team culture permeates all of that. A strong culture makes everything easier. It doesn’t remove the challenges we face, but it gives us a stronger team to overcome whatever gets in our way.  

ONWARD AND UPWARD