Why values and culture are essential to high-performing teams

I have long believed that culture is not a nice to have within a business; it should be the backbone of the organisation. The right blend of performance and culture is both powerful and a formula for success.

Culture is not only an enabler to help deliver mission, vision and values, it is a constant push and pull between innovation, flair, creativity, process and efficiency with the absolute key ingredient being people.

Creating a positive, organisational culture goes beyond social events and quirky benefits. It is about bringing together diversity of people and thought, whilst uniting the workforce through a shared sense of purpose and values. From the start, our values have guided how we behave towards each other and shape our culture.

“We refer to all RLWC2021 staff as teammates. People really relate to this and immediately feel closer, and as though we are all working towards the same goal.”

Jodie Cunningham, Community Engagement Lead

Now, more than ever, a strong sense of culture will support both our ambitions for the tournament, along with the wellbeing, resilience, and performance of our team in these uncertain and anxious times.

Maintaining culture during adversity

My favourite phrase is, “Without challenge there is no achievement”, and it is fair to say that we are operating in some of the most challenging times of our generation.

In my recent podcast with Al Fawcett, I spoke about building culture and the need to learn from others. I surround myself with people I can learn from and, where possible, bring outside perspectives into the RLWC2021 team to broaden our thinking.

The challenges we have faced this year have made some of these strategies more difficult. Although we have always supported remote and flexible working, there is no doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the way we as an organisation, our partners and peers work together.

People may have increased care responsibilities, health concerns or demands on their time. Many will have had to rapidly adapt their working style to a fully remote set up, often interacting with a reduced breadth of teams and departments – and therefore potentially reducing the opportunities for learning, bonding and, ultimately, growing.

In his LinkedIn article, ‘Lessons from the pandemic’, Ian Lawrence, a sports management and marketing consultant, begins by stating that the Covid-19 pandemic has “laid bare the cultural and structural DNA of our workplaces”.

Thankfully, our approach to culture hasn’t had to change too much as we have established a values-led strategy from the start. Having built a team based on our behaviours framework, I am confident that together we can not only weather the storm but also learn from it.

However, we have brought in a number of initiatives to help combat the remoteness of working from home, to support staff welfare and to ensure we are continuing to recruit and onboard new team mates successfully.

RLWC2021 COO, Stephen Brown, is responsible for the people and engagement side of the tournament. Stephen and I have known each other and worked together for many years. I caught up with him to discuss the importance of values and culture in high-performing teams, and how our operational strategy has adapted to the pandemic.

JD: Stephen, where do you get your inspiration from when it comes to creating a great workplace culture?

SB: I look outside the sporting world to find inspiration and have observed how organisations such as Lego, Google and Facebook have built a successful and thriving culture and created somewhere I would want to work myself. We've taken elements of these and applied them to the way we operate.

We have also brought in guest speakers who are first class in their field, such as Mick Wright, Tournament Director of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and Lindsay Impett, the Event Director of the Netball World Cup 2019. These guests have often experienced adversity or personal challenges themselves and can impart valuable learnings to support at times such as now.

Travelling to Japan with members of our Senior Leadership Team (SLT) for the Rugby Union World Cup 2019 was a great learning opportunity. We asked a lot of questions and were able to share these insights and experiences with the wider team by holding an away day on our return.

JD: How would you describe the culture we have set out to build?

We don’t want to be another Local Organising Committee (LOC) delivering a major tournament. We see ourselves as being a small business delivering a major tournament – flexible and agile.

Our small team includes a blend of full-time teammates, consultants and agencies, but we extend the same welcome to everyone. This includes celebrating birthdays or other important life moments, as well as inviting everyone to team meetings and social events.

There is a feeling of empowerment by enablement from the SLT – we call this a ‘leader / leader’ culture. We are open to new ideas and encourage teammates to run with them, offering freedom, autonomy, and responsibility for those who want it. We provide a support bubble for them, and should they fail our approach is to learn from any mistakes and next time make it better.

JD: How do you carry on supporting a collective culture when everyone is working from home, and to avoid creating siloes?

SB: We have maintained a ‘rhythm and rhyme’ to our week. The Monday morning SLT meeting flows into everyone’s team meetings, providing visibility and informing teams of their roles.

To combat the increased remote working and use of technology such as video conferencing, we introduced Wellbeing Wednesdays. These feature fun activities such as quizzes and CPD (continuing professional development). We encourage people to use this time to take a break from technology, exercise, and meet up with others if restrictions allow. We have also had guest speakers, such as our ambassadors James Simpson and Kevin Sinfield, share their personal experiences.

On Fridays, we have an optional water cooler moment from 9.45-10am ahead of the weekly team Zoom meeting. This provides a chance to log in earlier to chat about what is happening outside of work and to get to know people in different departments.

JD: Finally, what do you think is the key to creating a high-performing culture?

Communication, transparency, and authenticity – which is also one of our values – are key. It requires the whole team to buy into a collective responsibility, where nothing is off limits. For example, every major announcement is shared and discussed with our teammates before anything public is released, so there are no surprises and teammates can be advocates.

When it comes to our team, we don’t just hire people who have worked directly in the sports industry. We’ve also brought in people from the corporate world who can provide a point of difference and offer an alternative perspective. We can then support any gaps in knowledge by complementing that with others who have experienced the sporting world.

We encourage people to network and knowledge transfer across business sectors by listening, understanding, and taking on board to find best-in-class learning.

I believe that by being values led, combined with a balance of skillset, knowledge, and experience, is what has got us to where we are today.