Change your team’s culture overnight
Summary: Culture is based on what people do. A team with a psychologically safe culture will outperform any other team, even with less resources. Now is the ideal time to change your culture and you can do so by spending time listening, empathising and trusting each other.
Culture is what it’s ok to assume
Edgar Schein defined culture as what it’s ok to assume. I love this as it illustrates what i’ve always found — that a team’s culture is driven by the way they work. People see how others operate, what behaviours leaders reward, the ceremonies they have in place — and their expectations are driven from there.
Culture is regularly used as a scapegoat for when something is difficult. I often hear comments such as “Our culture wouldn’t allow that”, “That’s not the way we work here” or “We don’t have a fail fast culture”.
Schein’s definition (and my own experience) shows that all it takes to change a culture is for people to start expecting something different.
At the moment, there has never been a better time to make a change, as everything around us, for better or worse, has changed significantly and permanently.
Your culture should be about building trust at every opportunity
Google’s re:work study, amongst many others, has shown that how a team operates is more important that the skills it has. From the US Navy SEALS to the New Zealand rugby team to your own family — more can be achieved by a high functioning team with middling skill sets than a squad of superstars that don’t trust each other.
The underlying currency of high performing teams is this trust. If people can depend on (ie assume) that the person in their team will have their back and support them no matter what, then they can operate with a security that always allows their best work.
In addition, it means that the team will solve problems together — rather than trying to outdo one another to reach the solution. This genuine collaboration makes the most of all their perspectives rather than a single point of view — which has consistently been shown to yield greater results.
Trust is built on understanding but isn’t a linear journey
If we can understand someone’s perspective, then we can start to empathise with it. This empathy allows us to imagine how they are feeling in a given situation or context. If we understand and empathise with someone’s reaction then we can begin to respect it, even if we don’t agree with it. From here, you start to trust that someone will not harm or humiliate you, in a situation where they could do so.
This is not a straightforward process. It is a journey, with its progress and setbacks that takes time. It is much more like travelling through a maze than a linear drive from A to B. Either way, your team’s ability to feel safe, all starts with spending time getting to know each other.
Extreme situations build extreme understanding
When we are put in situations outside of our regular day to day with other people, we see what they are all about. When people are asked to make decisions with little time or under high pressure, it’s difficult to hide their thought process or underlying beliefs.
As such, the pandemic has been a shortcut to really get to know each other — and exactly what we can expect from other people.
Extreme situations can also push people apart
The aim of a good team should be to build a sense of safety amongst all its members. In a crisis situation this can happen through the extreme understanding we build, but it can also go the other way.
If people are feeling generally unsafe in their world, then they can end up forcing themselves apart from the group.
This is a difficult situation to recover from. If people are expecting the worst, then it’s more than likely to happen.
Listen to make people feel safe
To avoid individuals feeling alone, we need to make time to communicate with one another. By showing that you are hearing what they have to say and you understand, that is a relationship which will share a burden. It will build your understanding, empathy and respect between each other, strengthening the trust that you need to operate effectively.
Make time to communicate
This understanding does not tend to come from meetings with agendas. It comes from unstructured conversations that we all used to have at our desks or in the cafe — but now need to actively make time for. In a world of back to back zoom calls, this can be difficult. But if you don’t prioritise it then slowly but surely, your team will start to assume the worst and performance will drop.
So what specifically can we do to avoid that? Here are a few solutions that we’re seeing work well for our own teams and people we work with:
Daily catch ups
They can be annoying and at times feel like they’re getting in the way of the working day — but nothing builds understanding like seeing your team every day. You don’t need much of an agenda — just to touch base and see if there is anything blocking the day’s work. The main aim should always bee to maintain your relationships with each other. At least 50% of the time should be talking about life outside of work.
Retrospectives
Periodically (every two to four weeks) you should be giving more space for a discussion about how things are going. Focus on what went well and what didn’t — building lessons to learn from your successes and actions to try and address your problems.
Always start with the problems and finish the session on a high note celebrating your achievements.
You should also include the retrospective prime directive on whatever tool you’re using — “Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.” Norm Kerth
Our standard Mural retro board — don’t be afraid to use icons to add colour to the conversation!
Create space for different types of thinking
Tools like Mural, Miro, Whiteboard or Freehand are really great at giving different types of thinking styles time to contribute to workshops. Whereas in person, it tends to be extroverted people that dominate, remote tools even up the playing field.
Always send out a board before a session, with full instructions about what’s expected of people. That way if someone is more inclined to prepare, rather than think on their feet, they have the space to do so.
A feedback board with space for conversation and preparation
Yes and…
Improvisation is the practice of concentrating on what is going on around you, and reacting effectively. Comedians are great at this and often use a tool called ‘Yes and’ to get to interesting results.
Rather than constantly thinking about what was said at the start of a conversation, you focus on what the other person just said, and start your next sentence with ‘Yes and’. This simple practice can help you practice building on top of each others’ ideas, rather than trying to dominate with your own.
Revisit your vision
At this time, people can easily feel lost, stressed and overwhelmed. To help give them an anchor point, you should be revisiting your team’s purpose. Whether through a specific session or just in conversation, remind people what greater cause they are helping to achieve by turning up every day.
Continuous wellbeing polls
Retrospectives and catch ups can be great to capture group conversations about how things are going. However it’s also important to give people time and space to reflect by themselves — and raise any issues anonymously. Wellbeing polls or micro engagement surveys can be a great way to make this happen — and allow everyone to track how your team is feeling.
There are lots of tools out there, including Charlie HR — which uses micro polls that take no time at all to complete but are still based on lots of science to understand how people are feeling.
https://intercom.help/charliehr/en/articles/2301739-why-micro-polls
Talk about money
Everyone is worried about their and their families’ security at the moment. Money is a key part of ensuring that. The more you talk about how things are going financially, the more people will feel safe in their roles. Even if things are not going as well, you will be more likely to create a shared responsibility for fixing the situation by talking about it.
Ask why not, space for different types of thinking, yes and, call each other, keep talking about your just cause, talk about money, stick to your systems (eg making everything available to all)
