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What exactly is team culture?

 

I was recently chatting to an owner of a business and I asked him what the business culture (and by inference the team) was like in his business. His response was ‘what is culture?’

 

Whilst I was a bit taken back by the comment at the time, on reflection I posed a question to him that was difficult to answer. So circling back to the question, what is business culture? And therefore what is a ‘good’ culture?

 

Culture is subjective by nature. I found a description which broadly covers what is generally recognised as business culture.

 

“Corporate culture refers to the values, beliefs, and behaviors that are common or understood at a company. These determine how a company's employees and management interact, perform, and handle business transactions.”

 

So the question I really wanted answered (should have asked it properly in the first place!) was ‘what are the values that define the way the business operates?’ I would have gained a better insight into him as a leader and the business ‘culture’ overall. 

 

So values are important. Values drive behaviour and behaviour drives business and team performance.

 

To keep this simple, from this point forward where I talk of culture, I am of course referring to the values of the organisation and the behaviour derived from those values. 

 

So what makes a good culture and, importantly, by whose measure? 

 

As an observation, company culture is often influenced by the sector the business plays in. Money markets for example are high paced, highly competitive environments that are largely driven by individual success measures. This creates a company culture with a high degree of competitiveness, attracting personality types that are more likely to be alpha male/female types. This environment delivers but can break people. Delivery centric, not people centric.

 

At the other end of the scale,  I recently did a stint working within the education environment. An industry that attracts genuinely nice people that carry a duty of care for their students but, as a general rule, they are incredibly poor on delivery. People centric not delivery centric. 

 

The point of the above examples is to illustrate the cultural connection between the sectors and the businesses that operate in them. Why does this matter? If you work in a sector in a culturally different way than the wider sector, you are likely to find the path forward rocky at best. 

 

Consider this. If your business has a people centric set of values and you are working in a delivery centric sector, how easily could you attract the skills you need, without bringing in an alpha type into your business.  The converse is also true for businesses in the delivery centric sectors.

 

In my experience, you need to be deliberate in managing a portfolio of values, ensuring they are both  compatible and complementary for your business to deliver in your chosen sector.    

 

So the question for you to answer is, do your values, and by inference your team's values align with the defaults sector values. If not, you need to understand the challenges that may lay ahead for you and your team.