You are the Keeper of the Culture
Coming from a background in sport coaching it is hard to get away from the word culture. It is one of those words that is thrown around all of the time and most coaches really think that they have this part of nailed. "We have a great culture!" is one of the phrases I hear most when I talk to other coaches about their teams. They are likely right when you look at it from their perspective, because the culture is something that is often set by the coach, deliberately or otherwise. It is a reflection of their personal attitudes and actions, so it likely seems right to them all of the time.
All groups have a culture. A culture is a set of shared beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours that pervade any group setting. It is the often unwritten way that a group operates, and results in how people act and how people treat each other. In my opinion, keeping the right culture is one of, if not the most important job of the leader. The right culture can inspire creativity, foster high levels of individual and group motivation, build resilience, and can lead to maximizing potential of the individual and the team. The wrong culture can lead to infighting, sabotage, submaximal effort, and total discontent of team members.
As a leader you have the ability to decide what sort of culture you want to create and be a part of. Closely aligned to starting with what matters (discovering your values that was discussed in that related post), when you decide what elements of culture you do want, and what elements you don't want, you can go about deliberately working towards it.
One of the mistakes that people make is allowing positive outcome to hide or even promote a negative culture or to allow a negative outcome to overshadow the merits of a positive culture. Wins and losses, profit and loss, do not mean positive or negative culture. Success often masks poor culture. It is easy to be happy and for everyone to get along when things are going well. Culture is tested most when things go wrong. It is my belief that you don't have a strong culture if the behaviours and attitudes change greatly during success and failure. Don't get me wrong, people are generally happier when it is going well and less happy when it isn't. But culture isn't happiness, or lack of. Culture is shared beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours. If those things change based on success and failure then clearly your culture isn't as soundly rooted as you would like.
A strong leader knows what their culture is and works diligently to ensure that it is strong regardless of the outside circumstances. By leading through your values you have a clear beacon telling you how to act during stormy times. The same is true when you are clear on your culture. It is how you believe regardless of the situation, and in fact during difficult times a strong culture can be a galvanizing force.
If you are not clear on your culture, and you are not working daily to ensure that it is a normal working part of your team, then you cannot be surprised when people do not know how to act during crisis. Your culture clearly guides peoples thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours at all times. How do we view success? how do we view failure? How do we treat our team mates?
What sort of culture do you want to have in your team? Once you decide what you want, make sure you model the appropriate attitudes and behaviours, and make sure you work on your culture every single day.
Steve Simonson