Culture & Transformation
Culture is a distorted reflection of the values, behaviours, mindsets and beliefs of the people that make up organisations and teams. Human beings have a strong desire to ‘fit in’ and adapt to the group culture that they perceive around them. This can lead to poor performance and unhappiness because people want to contribute more but feel held back by the behavioural norms in the group, want to express more optimism or demonstrate a ‘can do’ attitude but don’t because of a climate of cynicism. Alternatively they may feel compelled to demonstrate effort by working long hours when secretly they know that this is detracting from their productivity as well as negatively impacting their private lives.
Whilst a team’s culture is a ‘tacit’ issue it will remain unchallenged and is likely to be disproportionately influenced by a minority of people in the group. These people may be forthright, hold prejudices or they may be people with long service who have seen it all before, are entrenched in past ways of working or have grown cynical as a result of past failures of leadership. The good news is that once you start talking about team culture it can be challenged. Through dialogue a series of conscious choices can be made about what values, behaviours, attitudes and beliefs are helpful and can support the team to thrive. The dialogue process creates a language and framework which enables positive behaviours to be recognised and bad behaviours called out in a non threatening way.
- Take a moment and think about the culture of your team.
- What language is being used – is it ‘can do’?
- How does the group respond to unscheduled changes or unforeseen customer demands?
- What are the group ways of working that stand out?
- What do your customers say about your team – from the outside looking in?
- What energy is being expressed?
- What stories do people tell – of triumph or disaster?
Whether or not you like what you see it would be a good idea to start a healthful dialogue about ‘how things are around here’ – what’s working, what’s not working and how people feel about what is being asked of them.� If you suspect that your team culture is holding back performance or affecting the perception of the team by the wider organisation then it is time to act and our 3D Cultural Transformation Process may be of interest to you. Call now on 0161 266 1090 or email info@farsightleadership.com to find out more information
