Why your Team Culture matters

This newsletter explores the Five Pillars of Authentic Leadership & this edition explores your team culture & why it matters. I will share with you some tips to help you build your 'local culture' with your team & have the impact you want to have with them.

Culture isn't HR's job

Culture is something that all organisations want & all talk about. It is the 'deal breaker' for leaders & teams. It is why people choose to work hard & do their best for your team. It is also why people choose to leave your team. Your culture is how it feels to work where you work. It impacts on your sense of belonging & self-motivation to do a good job. When your culture is right, you & your team can overcome any challenge you face.

Let's cut some of the culture BS right now - it is not HR's job. Culture is not something exclusive to your people team or senior leaders. You all own your culture & as a leader you must take responsibility for your team culture.

Too often, leaders leave culture up to someone else & believe that the only culture they work in is the 'company culture' & put little time & effort into building their own culture & blame HR when it doesn't work.

OK, HR are faultless here & many culture initiatives fall into the Corporate BS category as values get stuck to walls & we're all told we must use a branded MS Teams background. Or we're given some sort of reward or incentive to attend company workshops on competency frameworks that don't translate into tangible attitude & behaviours. Often, culture gets a bad rap because it feels contrived & something that belongs to someone else.

Build the culture that you want to be known for not what others tell you to build

To build a culture that really means something to you & your team, you must see beyond the Corporate BS & take responsibility for building it yourself with your team. Yes, company values & having a People Team who want to build the right culture will certainly help you but your team care about your team culture not what is happening on the other side of the organisation.

There are two types of culture in every organisation: -

• The Global Culture - the culture of the entire organisation. Very few people can truly influence the Global Culture & when we focus on trying to build that, it often fails & leaves teams feeling like the culture that is portrayed is more 'look at what you could have won' than anything they recognise in their day-to-day reality
• The Local Culture - the culture of your team. This is in your control & where you have total autonomy because you lead it & you don't need anyone else's permission to build it or make it what you want to be. This is the culture of your real-world & where you & your team really feel what it is like to wok in your organisation. The more we focus on building Local Culture, the more the Global Culture is what you want it to be.

Build the culture & live the culture

Your Local Culture is what really matters & you can build this with your team. Your leadership grows as you show respect for the Global Culture & then ask your team 'what culture do we want in our team?'. This puts you & your team in control of your culture. And the more you build your culture with your team, the more your team take accountability for it.

Your Local Culture matters because it is what influences how people behave in your team. I have worked in teams with great leaders & dreadful cultures. I have also worked with awful leaders in toxic cultures. Every time I left those behind, I wasn't thinking 'I need to leave this boss', I was always thinking 'get me out of HERE'.

The old maxim of 'people don't leave bad organisations, they leave bad bosses' needs to be changed to 'people leave bad Local Cultures'. People can tolerate toxic Global Cultures if their Local Culture feels safe & gives them the space to do great work with people who they trust. People can even tolerate bad bosses (I did some of my best work when working for two of my worst bad bosses) if their Local Culture is full of peers who inspire them & encourage them to o great work in spite of the bad boss.

And I have also had the pleasure of working with amazing leaders who built amazing Local Cultures. That is as close to Utopia as you can get in the workplace. A Local Culture where you feel empowered led by a leader who role models the culture & brings the best out of you & your peers.

Leaders must take responsibility for their Local Culture & facilitate building it in cooperation with their teams. Leaders must input & lead the way but they can't dictate the culture. The Local Culture belongs to the team NOT the leader.

Create a culture where your team feel empowered & can be themselves

How to build your Local Culture

Your Local Culture needs to be built over time & is a continuous process. You can't click your fingers or have one conversation & your culture is built. Your culture needs to have foundations based on attitudes & behaviours whilst being transient to evolve to what your team needs, as your team changes & as the Global Culture changes. I will share with you, four tips that you can do with your team to start building your Local Culture.

Set expectations for attitudes & behaviours

To build your Local Culture, you must facilitate conversations with your team. A really simple one to get things moving is to discuss the attitudes & behaviours that you will accept in your culture & the ones you will not. This is achieved by brining your team together & setting: -

• We Will - the attitudes & behaviours that you will demonstrate as a team & that you expect from yourselves & others. These are what help you to be at your best & positively challenge each other. They will influence how you communicate & how you take responsibility.
• We Will Not - the attitudes & behaviours that you will not demonstrate & that you will not accept from yourself & others. These set the tone for removing any negative attitudes & behaviours & protect you from your Local Culture turning toxic.

The 'opposites' approach is needed because people need clarity on what is & what is not acceptable. This sets strong expectations & you having this conversation has an organic benefit of showing your team that you want to build your Local Culture & you expect them to contribute.

Discuss & agree on how you will hold each other to account

A ket part of your Local Culture being successful is that it can't only be you as the leader who enforces it. You need your team members to hold each other to account & call out positive demonstrations to enhance the culture & to address negative demonstrations. Without this, your 'We Will' & 'We Will Not' mean nothing & just end up being words on a post-it notes.

Ask your team how they want to be called out. Some people will be happy to be called out in-the-moment & for you to be direct with them. Others will want a quiet word & help to put it right. Some teams have some fun when starting to do this & use a word or an object to call it out so it gets introduced in a non-threatening or personal way. They use this to practice calling things out & to get used to doing this consistently.

This really solidifies your Local Culture as it shows that it belongs to everyone in your team & helps them to grow their confidence in giving feedback & having difficult conversations. This puts into your culture, the ability to share with others how their attitudes & behaviours impact on others which some leaders & teams can only dream of being able to do.

Be clear on the attitudes & behaviours you want to demonstrate

Base your Local Culture on the authentic people who work in it

Too many culture get lost because leaders & teams get stuck on trying to build them on things that they think they need to build on i.e. company values & purpose or what another team built their culture on.

You need to build your Local Culture on what is important to you & your own team. Choose your own team purpose & make it something that can change every year or less often. Make it relevant to the work you do & how you contribute to the wider success of the organisation. Also make it relevant to the changes you're trying to achieve in the next year or five years. I worked with a team recently who set their purpose 'make sure everyone knows that we do by the end of 2024'. That really resonated with them as they are building the impact they have on their customers & stakeholders & it guides their culture to make sure how they work adds the value they know they can add to the organisation.

Most importantly - build your Local Culture on the personal values & beliefs of you & your team. Invest time in helping you & your team to know exactly who you are & what you stand for. Create team values based on the shared values that you each have & contract to non-negotiables to bring your beliefs to life.

Leaders must show their interest in understanding people's preferences & strengths & allow them to flourish in your Local Culture. This also equips the leader with the capability to role model & encourage others to respect their differences & embrace how other people like to work rather than trying to make everyone fit a mould of how you like to work.

Choose to develop with your team with regular development sessions to uncover things like your behavioural profiles & working on your collective development areas & enhancing your strengths. When you put personal development in your culture, your team respond by developing themselves so they can evolve to meet new demands & take on new challenges.

Regularly review your Local Culture

You can't set your culture once & it live forever. You have to regularly review it & engage in feedback conversations in your culture & be prepared to change it when needed or to highlight areas that need improvement.

This needs you to ask for regular feedback from your team on how you are role modelling the culture & also needs you to engage your team in regular reviews. It is a good idea to agree the frequency of your culture reviews with your team & then make them happen.

A favourite approach of mine to review your Local Culture is your Team Wheel which assesses key areas of a successful culture & identifies areas that are working well & areas that need your attention. When you do this with your team, you can agree how you will all work win the relevant areas which strengths your Local Culture as it acts a good reminder that it belongs to everyone.

This is also a fun & open way to see where your culture might need resetting. It removes any blame for things that are not working so well & creates a motivation to collaborate on putting things right. It also means you can get clear on the areas that are out of your control & that you don't need to put your energy into addressing. This is a massive help as there are few things more detrimental to Local Cultures than feeling like you're wasting your time on things that are never going to change.

Be the catalyst of the culture you want to see. Role model what you expect from others

Start building your Local Culture today

Don't wait for others to build your Local Culture for you - start on it today. Your team will always appreciate you leading on building your culture & it shows the importance of it which avoids it being neglected.

Take some time today to consider what your first steps need to be to build your Local Culture.

• How will you take responsibility for your Local Culture?
• What conversations do you need to have with your team to build your Local Culture?
• How will you get to know the authentic people in your Local Culture?
• How will you review your Local Culture & address that need improvement?

Get in touch today to discuss how developing authentic leaders can help your leaders to positively lead negative people. ??

Keep smiling. Keep being you.