What Is A Team Culture And How Do You Make One?

From how decisions are made to how people interact, your team culture shapes what working within your organisation is like. It has a huge impact on productivity, employee engagement and your business’s reputation.

Designing your team culture is crucial for one simple reason: if you don’t, it will be shaped by the biggest personalities on your team. And with something this wide-reaching, you don’t want to leave it to chance.

Let’s take a more detailed look at team culture, the benefits of a strong culture, steps you can take to make and maintain one, and some real-world examples.

Defining Team Culture

If you Google team culture, you’ll likely discover many articles saying more or less the same thing: team culture is the goals, values, attitudes and beliefs shared by the people who work in your organisation.

It’s not just a matter of mindset though. Those attitudes and beliefs are influenced by the processes that govern how people do their work and interact with each other.

That’s why you might also find people dividing cultures according to the frameworks and principles used to maintain them. Two common ones are hierarchical – which aims for long-term stability through defined structures and top-down decision-making – and collaborative – which prioritises collective intelligence.

The results aren’t just internal either. It influences how people who come into contact with a business perceive it, whether that’s clients or potential employees.

All of this is useful but it’s important not to underestimate how cultures can form and change organically, based on people’s experiences in the workplace. Whether a culture has been defined by management or not, it’s the day-to-day experiences that really create it.

If those experiences are out of step with the culture you want, an alternative, possibly toxic, culture will form instead. For instance, a CEO might regard open communication as a pillar of their team culture but if another member of the team is consistently hypercritical during meetings, nobody will want to offer their thoughts. Soon, keeping quiet will become the cultural norm.

Designing and consistently maintaining your culture is the only way to ensure the experience of working in your business is what you need it to be.

The Benefits of a Strongly Defined Team Culture

As Dan, one of our coaches at the Business Growth Agency, often observes in coaching sessions: “Leadership is having a presence even when you’re not in the room.” If your culture instils a solid understanding of the goals, values and purpose that should be driving the business, your team can make the decisions that you would make without needing your input.

Furthermore, if your culture constantly proves to your staff that they are valued as individuals and that their work is purposeful, they are likely to be happier and more actively engaged at work. A study by the University of Warwick found that happier employees are up to 12% more productive, while Gallop has found that higher levels of employee engagement have a positive impact on a broad range of KPIs, from profitability to workplace safety.

An appealing culture will also help you to attract talent. A 2019 survey by Glassdoor found that 77% of job-seekers consider a company’s culture before applying and 56% regard culture as more influential than salary when it comes to satisfaction.

Engaged and satisfied employees are less likely to quit – in fact, Deloitte estimates that businesses that actively manage their culture enjoy retention levels that are 40% higher. This is especially important at the moment, with a Gallop survey revealing that 51% of employees are actively or passively job-seeking.

Steps to Take to Build Your Team Culture

“A company’s culture is the foundation for future innovation. An entrepreneur’s job is to build the foundation.” – Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb

Establishing a team culture takes time and work but there are practical steps you can take right now.

Work Backwards

Think about what you want from your business. Then, ask yourself what kind of culture you need to make that happen.

From there, you should be able to sum up your thinking with company values. These are words or short statements that represent the pillars of your culture and how you want your business to run. If you already have company values, don’t be afraid to edit them to be more in line with your vision.

Make your Values Real

Values shouldn’t just be something that looks nice on your website. They need to be actionable for everyone.

Think about concrete actions people can take that will reinforce those values on a daily basis. Now would be a good time to have a brainstorming session with your team.

Embody Your Culture

Lead by example by modelling the behaviour you want your team to adopt.

If you want your team to be open and honest, you may need to practice displaying a little bit of vulnerability. If you want people to take ownership, then you need to give them autonomy.

If your behaviour isn’t consistent with the culture you’re trying to establish, it will undermine everything you’re trying to do.

Build a Sense of Belonging

For your culture to really thrive, people have to feel as though they belong in it. So, working on initiatives that foster inclusivity is a must.

Coqual, a DEI thinktank, identified 4 key factors that people need for a sense of belonging:

• To be seen for unique contributions: Try to celebrate people’s accomplishments and give them space to share insights based on their lived experiences. As Louis Efron put it in an article for Gallop: “Individualized and deserved appreciation goes a long way toward making people believe their unique talent, experience, and personality matter and belong.”
• To feel connected to colleagues: Facilitate team bonding and promote collaboration.
• To feel supported in their work and development: Offer constructive feedback, ask people if they have what they need, and invest in your team’s professional growth.
• To feel proud: Consistently show how their work relates to the values and purpose of the business and the difference it makes.

How to Maintain Your Team Culture

A team culture needs to be consistently maintained, otherwise it will diverge from what you want.

One way to do this is to circle back to your values regularly. Dan, our coach, had a clever way of doing this when he led a team:

“I used to ask everyone to suggest something a colleague had done during that particular week that represented one of our core values. I would then read them out at our weekly team catch-up and pick one person to receive a silly prize. To my team, this probably looked like a simple morale booster. In reality, I was getting everyone to think about our values and the everyday actions that re enforced them.”

You should also use your culture to guide the hiring process. By assessing candidates for the values and attitudes underpinning your culture, you boost your chances of hiring a good fit.

Be aware of challenges and address them quickly. You should always emphasise to your team that maintaining the culture is an iterative process. Welcoming suggestions and concerns is the best way to keep toxicity at bay.

Team Culture Examples

Let’s take a look at two examples of a strong culture in action.

Zappos

American shoe brand Zappos was so successful at creating a distinctive culture that they now offer team culture training.

They will happily spend twice as long on recruitment to find the perfect fit. They’re also famous for their so-called ‘quit bonus’: offering people a certain amount of money if they decide to leave, to make sure that only people who are committed are on board.

They’re not only a great example of how consistency and prioritising culture can pay off in a big way but also of how a strong culture can be a key differentiator.

Coaching the England Rugby Squad and Team GB

“An environment so good that everyone wants to be a part of it and nobody wants to leave.” – Sir Clive Woodward

When Sir Clive Woodward became head coach of the England rugby squad and later of Team GB, he worked with the athletes to develop a set of values and rules that everyone would uphold, called teamship rules.

Woodward realised the rules needed to go further than a code of conduct though. Asking the athletes to prioritise ‘high-performance’ was too vague. Instead, he created practices – such as always carrying a fresh, sanitised water bottle to cut down on illness in the athletes’ village – to make the expectations concrete.
Actionable values maintain the culture and also make it easier for people to make future decisions that are consistent with it by giving them solid reference points.

Final Thoughts

Every business has a culture. By taking some practical steps, you can ensure yours serves your goals, creates a supportive environment and enables everyone to perform at their best.

Being intentional about building and maintaining your team culture will have massive benefits for every aspect of your business, from productivity to employee retention.

If you’d like some more practical advice on designing your team culture, book a free call with one of our coaches.