Archive for the ‘team culture’ Category

5 essentials to build a team culture

I could really not let this whole month go by without a reference to the World Cup.   My sister-in-law tells me that what you need as a woman in business is to develop two very good sentences on every sporting topic.  To introduce this blog I offer you mine on soccer.

As I watch different teams play, and read the commentaries in the newspapers which I get delivered each day to my Kindle, I remember the impact on performance that the culture of a team can have.  France and Germany come to mind, for those of you watching the soccer.  A lot of my attention is taken with working on the culture of larger organizations, but of course a team leader can create their own unique culture within their team.  The team sits within the environment of a wider culture, and today the English newspapers have moved on to writing about the different cultures in the national football federations of England, and of Germany, who beat them soundly.  They don’t use the word culture, but those readers familiar with the framework for building culture covered in my book will be able to spot the references to behaviors, symbols and systems.  But, with the right leadership, individual teams can operate above and beyond the culture within which they sit.

So back to teams.  What are the five essentials to build the culture you want in your team?

  1. Set standards together and agree to be held to them.  Standards need to be objective and observable.  They can relate to behavior and to actions.  ‘No interruptions’ is a standard.  So is ‘Start and end all meetings on time’.  ‘Be supportive to each other’ is not.
  2. Point out examples when the standards are exceeded, and call it when they are breached.  If people are not good at doing this, offer training.  This is a learnable skill.
  3. Line up the agendas of your meetings with the purpose of the team, which is the value the team adds as a team, over and above the value they add as individuals.  If the primary purpose of the team is to share best practice, don’t spend most of the time reviewing last month’s performance results.
  4. Select, promote and restructure team members with the team in mind.  The culture of the team matters if it is delivering a value in excess of that which the individuals could add if you managed them one on one.  A new team member whose behavior is out of line with the developing team culture can diminish the performance of the overall team.
  5. Clear the air.  Schedule time to resolve differences or unspoken resentments.  Get help from outside the team if you need it.  Internal Organizational Development people or external facilitators.  This has symbolic as well as immediate impact.  It shows that you value relationships as much as task.

If I had a third intelligent sentence to say on soccer, I would end this blog with a comment about the standards that I think England should have adopted.  But I will have to leave that to you to work out.

Talent management – how culture contributes

Here in Europe, where I am working this week, there is a lot of valuable focus on “talent management”. Yesterday I asked a client for his definition of talent management, and he said “hiring and developing the best people”. He also told me that one of the big strategy consultancies had been making presentations in his organization that talent management was the key, and with this, culture would take care of itself.

I fundamentally disagree with this statement. The guy I was meeting with has many years of designing culture change initiatives and he described it as, “like a football team hiring the best players but not winning the championship”.

The culture of the team either brings the best out of the players, or the worst.

  • In some teams, the cultural values demand that every player put the outcome of the game ahead of their own desire to star. In other teams this does not occur.
  • In some teams, it is the norm to blame each other when things go wrong. In others, everyone considers their own contribution and responsibility.
  • In some teams, more experienced players mentor the newcomers. In others they do not.
  • In some teams, everyone turns up for practice, every time, on time. In others they do not.

These are not factors of the skill of the individual talent, although t is possible, and useful, to hire for and develop these behavioral characteristics,  They are factors of the culture that has been created in the team, and the club.  It is not the automatic result of good hiring and talent development.  In fact many times I witness  talented new hires being pulled down by the culture in which they operate.  Culture is a force in its own right, and to build the environment in which this well developed talent thrives, it is crucial to manage and develop the culture through deliberate interventions.

To win you need great talent. You need a culture where good talent management is valued. And you need a culture which lifts everyone to be the very best they can be, technically and behaviorally.