Company and team values serve as a foundation and are what you believe in, while culture is the expression of those values.
"Who you are is not the values you list on the wall. It's not what you say in an all-hands. It's not your marketing campaign. It's not even what you believe. It's what you do. What you do is who you are" - Ben Horowitz
A great way to look at culture is the following equation:
Culture = (What you celebrate) - (What you tolerate)
Meta firing highly paid engineers for misusing food stamps to buy personal items is a good example of culture at play....
What would they stand for if they turned a blind eye and tolerated this type of behaviour?
What message does that send to the entire organisation?
Culture is the invisible hand that guides people’s behaviour.
If you allow this hand to guide people to do bad things then it becomes a slippery slope.
So how to you build a strong team culture.
Think through the following
- Do you have your values written down? More importantly - do you act in line with your values and culture?
- Are you tolerating under performers? Are you really a high performance team?
- Would you fire your top performer if their actions weren’t in line with your values? Do you truly stand by your values?
- Do you lead by example, setting the standard for the behavior you expect?
Are you tolerating toxic people?
Toxic employees cripple employee performance and productivity by decreasing the level of happiness and consuming valuable brain power in conflicts or reduced collaboration
Who do you promote?
What behaviours do they embody in order to get a promotion?
Do you only look at performance?
Remember who you promote is a role model for others in the team.
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