Intro

If you’ve worked for a few years, you’ve probably had the back luck of running into an organization with a toxic culture. Or maybe the culture was not toxic, but it wasn’t great either – it kept going on a steady course, and nothing extraordinary made it rise above mediocrity.

These situations often trigger a sense of expectation from the organization’s leadership team. We naturally feel that if they lead the company, they are also responsible for our well-being. While this is true, most leaders wouldn’t even know there is a problem, and some wouldn’t even care – after all, things have worked like this so far. So why should they bother now?

This situation raises anger in most employees, especially the dedicated and talented ones. The best advice would be to run off and find a company with a culture that suits your values. Or, if you’re on cruise control, just ignore everything and go with the flow.

However, if you decide to stay and do something about it, here are some steps on how you could start changing the culture:

1. Understand the current culture

If you’ve made it so far, you probably feel part of a not-so-great culture. Before taking action, you need to become an impartial observer. Emotions can be very deceiving and, when not identified and appropriately treated, may lead to wrong perceptions and bad decisions.

Once you become a “legitimate” observer, it is time to analyze the current state of your culture.

Find what’s missing

Start with what you think is missing and determine the source of the events in retrospect.

Is it a recurring situation?
Does it happen to anyone else?
Did you hear anyone else complaining about these things?

These questions could be helpful remove subjectiveness from your analysis. In some companies, people might be afraid to speak up, so you might as well just ask them.

Test the mission, vision, and values

Not having any is a big red flag.

Are they connecting to what’s happening?
Is the decision-making process based on this system?
Do people enforce the culture through artifacts, stories, or behaviors?
Is anything missing or, worse, contradicting the culture?

Analyze behaviors

Watch the interactions and behaviors of the people. Interactions and behaviors seem like an open book as you walk “through” your culture. Scanning and analyzing how people behave can reveal a great deal of information.

Do they follow a particular pattern when it comes to decision-making?
Are they communicating effectively?
Are feedback and knowledge sharing part of the culture?
How are they dealing with the crisis?
Are people more self-oriented or team-oriented?
What’s the level of politics or gossip?

Map processes

Map processes and practices for a better understanding. This refers to both documented and undocumented patterns people follow in dealing with situations.

How strict are the processes?
What’s the level of freedom in decision-making?
Is it a flat structure or a hierarchic structure?
Is there an onboarding process?
How does the reward and recognition system work?
How is the performance evaluated?

Research history

Look into the company history and its stakeholders. Try to find out where the company comes from, who’s leading it, and why they would choose to have a culture like that. There could be many hidden reasons behind it that may not be obvious at first glance.

Are the leaders intentionally choosing and fostering this culture?
How risky is it to start acting differently?

This is essential to clarify before proceeding, as your actions may lead to your firing.

2. Define your movement

Once you’ve identified how things are and how people behave, it is time to define what you would do differently, why, and how these changes will help people in the future. Remember that movements are not about yourself but the people joining the movement.

Branch out

Do not drift from the vision and mission. While values might change to adopt a more effective way to operate, the mission and vision are the reason the company exists. While there is a temptation to come up with a better mission and vision, keep in mind that this is not your organization, and you are only doing this to improve the company.

Think critically

Be frank about how changes will fit the current context. While researching what you can do to improve the company culture, you’ll end up reading a lot of exciting ideas. Over the last years, the information on company culture just exploded, and there aren’t good or wrong decisions you can make – just decisions that are a good fit for the given context. For example, promoting an unlimited-vacation-days policy is ineffective in companies where people have low intrinsic motivation for their work or don’t believe in the company’s mission.

Tell a story

There’s no movement without a great story. To sell your ideas, you need an inspiring story about how things will be in the future and what great life everyone will have if you succeed. This is your advertising, and the culture is your product. Reaching prospective “clients” and turning them into members of your tribe is your number one priority.

Be heretic

Be a bold leader. People do not join the movement for you; they do it for themselves. To become an inspiring leader and make people believe in the movement’s mission, you need to get 110% passionate about your goal and 120% devoted to your success. You need to assess that failure is not an option, and you will do whatever it takes to get there.

3. Create a clique

Beginnings are the most challenging part of any project and can become a demotivating factor. Challenging the status quo is not easy; change will always be interpreted as a “bad” thing because it threatens stability, and you’ll definitely meet with resistance.

Core-team

First, find a few people to sell your story. These people might be the co-workers you spend time with or your teammates. You don’t need to convince everyone, and you surely won’t. So the first step is to test your hypothesis and see how many people are willing to contribute. The second step is to reach a 15-17% adoption rate of the total number of the team, department, or company employees, depending on your scenario.

Caveat: if you plan to change the company’s culture, it is better to start converting your team, then other groups, and then the whole department before going global.

Keep repeating

Set the story on repeat. The story of your movement should be played every day, with every occasion. Keep reminding people why they’re doing this, why it matters what they do and what the end will be like. Faith is a critical factor, especially in long-term endeavors. Changing the culture is not a few-days task. It will take time, and people need to be reminded why they do what they do to stay motivated.

Foster the network

Convince others to convince others. Once you have a small, stable clique, you can expand and start talking to other people from other teams or departments. Listen to their problems and emphasize by telling them you had the same issues and solved them with the new culture and how you’re doing things differently in your team. The advice you offer, hopefully, will start expanding around the organization.

Find an enemy

In some cases, a villain can help strengthen the need for change. Unfortunately, scapegoating is embedded in our nature. People love finding reasons or excuses for their current situation instead of doing something about it. The enemy could be the current culture or some individuals who are not compliant with how things should be. Creating a tunnel for negative energy toward a villain can instill a sense of battle and a desire to win. But be careful – this road can also lead to undesired results if not handled well.

4. Build artifacts

Brand your movement

Now that you have a mission and a crew, it’s time to brand your image into something tangible. You should give your unit a name and maybe create a logo. T-shirts, mugs, bookmarks, backpacks, office toys – everything you can think of should be transformed into an artifact of the new culture. A rewarding system might boost the group’s energy, such as giving prizes to people who recruit other people or who achieve essential milestones in your strategy.

Make it personal

Artifacts are powerful and create a sense of belonging and cohesion inside the group. But making some of them personal has even a bigger impact. For example, you could collect funny statements from your peers that you can print on bookmarks. You could also create artifacts relative to specific individuals’ unique skills. For example, you could create a brooch with an “ambassador” icon for someone good at influencing others into joining the movement.

Mark important moments

Celebrating wins attracts the desired behavior in your movement. Therefore, you should not miss any opportunity to recognize and reward such moments with unique artifacts such as medals, trophies, or nameplates. These items are best offered in a ceremony. Watch out for competition at this step, as others may start to feel they’ve been mistreated. Try to be clear about what an important moment is and what it takes to get there.

5. Make it visible

Show off

Now that you have the whole arsenal, it’s time to show it to the world. Wear your artifacts proudly and be sure others notice your culture. You should let the new culture express itself as much as possible. You’ll probably meet with criticism and negativity but don’t worry. This is just a sign that you’re on a good path. People do that when they feel threatened or scared.

Promote

You should make the most of any chance you get and talk about how you’re doing things now, how impressive your processes are since you’ve joined this movement and how good you think the future will be if everyone does what you do. This is when recruiting is at its full potential, and it’s practically self-sustaining.

Close the circle

It is good to make public the great parts of the new culture and let others know and use them. However, there should also be some “members-only” activities. This makes members feel rewarded and appreciated while instilling in others the desire to have that experience. These activities might include personal development workshops, work-related workshops, outside-the-office activities such as parties or team buildings, and so forth.

Conclusion

Changing the culture is possible even when you’re not in charge or in a top-level position. Leadership is built on influence, not authority. As long as you believe in your mission and foster a community of belonging, you have all the chances to succeed.

Change is about innovation. Take the lead and provoke the status quo.

Imagine a team where everyone is firing on all cylinders. Everyone’s at the top of their game and functioning as an integrated machine. This is what it’s like to work in a high-performing team, but how do you achieve this?

In this article, we are going to have a look at what this buzzword that’s all over the corporate environment truly implies and what it could mean for your company. But first, let’s make sure we truly understand the “high-performance team” concept:

What is a high-performance team, and how do you recognize it

High-performance teams are an ever-green leadership topic describing a powerful asset able to tackle the most common issues organizations face nowadays: the lack of cohesiveness and collaboration. A high-performing team is not just a collection of talented individuals working together—it is a highly integrated group that is able to leverage its collective skills and knowledge to achieve goals beyond what any individual member could do on their own and come up with innovative solutions to complex problems.

Of course, depending on the organization and its goals, high-performance teams may work differently, but we could pin down some shared characteristics:

High-performance teams are comprised of individuals that have clear goals. Clear goals are at the heart of any successful team. Without clear goals, you may know what you’re working on today or this week, but you won’t understand why you’re doing it or what the end result should look like when the project is done. Goals tie the team’s work to the organization’s mission, purpose, and values. They provide a benchmark for success, showing how far you’ve come and how far remains to be traveled. And they give focus and motivation — if you know where you’re going, it’s easier to figure out how to get there.
High-performance teams are founded on mutual respect and collaboration enthusiasm. Sometimes, a team’s efficiency boils down to members actually liking each other, which, let’s face it – doesn’t happen very often in the corporate world. High-performance teams enjoy working together. They celebrate successes together and recognize individual contributions through gestures that may be as simple as a pat on the back or an “atta boy” in front of the group. These people speak highly of each other without any pressure. In a high-performance team, everyone feels comfortable speaking their minds without fear of reprisal and value each other’s contribution through praise and empowerment.
High-performance teams have low turnover. High turnovers are common for organizations with a faulty corporate culture, as mentioned in a previous article (link). The opposite is true for leaders who build high-performance teams tied together by shared values. When people enjoy the company of their workmates, even for casual conversations over coffee, they are less likely to come to a point where they despise their work and want to leave. Once a team becomes stable, people become comfortable in their clearly defined roles, and the group dynamic is solid, things are likely to stay that way for a long time.

Why are high-performance teams so important for an organization

According to McKinsey, start-up investors often value the quality of the team and the collaboration between its members more than the idea itself – 90% of them think the quality of the management team is the most crucial non-financial factor. As Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s co-founder, put it, “no matter how brilliant your mind or your strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.” If you’re looking for a sign to build a high-performing team, this is it, and this is why:

High-performance teams are highly effective and productive. High-performance teams make the difference between just good and great results. They cut down on internal conflict, streamline communication, and reduce information bottlenecks. These factors can lead to significant improvements in quality, efficiency, and speed of a company’s operations.
High-performance teams are highly autonomous. The scale of the challenge of building a high-performance team is comparable to that of building a small company within a larger company. You need to select people with the right skills, give them autonomy, offer them enough resources and support, and create a culture that effectively enables them to work together. Once you manage to do that, your role as a leader would be to support them in achieving their goals – they’ll do the rest on their own.
High-performance teams deliver high-standard work. Such teams take pride in their work and go above and beyond to maximize its quality. Even if they work as a whole, each member is aware that their actions are essential for the team’s success. As communication is smooth, their decisions will always be well-informed, based on a deep understanding of the problem at hand.
High-performance teams are very adaptable. In a high-performance team, members act as peers, not as a hierarchy. Even though their roles are clearly defined, they are willing to help each other when something comes up and adapt to change more quickly. Every team member has an equal right to offer their opinion and participate in the decision-making process.
High-performance teams are more likely to succeed. One of the chief reasons teams perform poorly is that they are not cohesive. When the members are clashing with one another, are not on the same page, or are simply not working together effectively, the team cannot perform well. This challenge is eliminated when it comes to high-performance teams that feel personally invested in what they achieve as a whole.

The bottom line

In summary, a high-performance team improves overall performance by leveraging the strengths of each member. The most successful teams are comprised of members who take ownership of their tasks, foster well-defined goals, and create an environment that values constructive feedback and collaboration. Leaders should understand what makes a high-performing team function, implement tactics that encourage open communication, and focus on building teams made of individuals who are compatible on a personal level as well.

Tag: team power

How to start a movement to change your company’s culture