A Healthy Team Culture: Why It's Important and How to Create It

Undoubtedly, you've heard about building a healthy team culture, something that's crucial for success. In fact, the importance of fostering positive and collaborative relationships among team members can't be overstated. A positive team culture enhances productivity and innovation and reduces turnover. Healthy team cultures foster a sense of belonging and create deeper engagement. So how can you, as a leader, create a culture where collaboration thrives and wins are celebrated?

I tend to look at three key areas: People, Process, and Priorities.

People: Nurturing Positive Relationships

Great cultures are built by people, right? And a team that can work well together can accomplish just about anything.

Hiring for Culture Fit

Qualifications and experience are great. But they're not the only thing that's important. When you're hiring, look at your candidates' values and attitudes, and how they align with your team's culture. That said, remember that diversity is crucial to fostering innovation. A positive attitude and strong work ethic can sometimes outweigh technical skills.

Leading with Empathy

According to Pew Research, one in five workers believes their company doesn't care about them - and that can lead to low morale and low engagement (both of which lead to high attrition rates and low productivity). Leaders should consider what challenges each team member might be facing and demonstrate empathy in one-on-one check-ins. Being open to flexible work arrangements, for example, is a simple and easy way to show genuine care that builds trust and loyalty, which then can lad to higher levels of engagement.

Encouraging Open Communication

Team members should feel safe in sharing their ideas and concerns. As a leader, you can create a safe environment for your team. Open-door policies and anonymous feedback systems are helpful tools in this endeavor, but leaders who celebrate successes of individual team members as well as collective wins generally find that their team members are more likely to feel valued and want to share more openly.

Celebrating Wins

Speaking of celebrating wins, it's vital that you celebrate your team and their collective and individual achievements. Public recognition of these wins through awards, shout-outs, or a simple, handwritten thank you note can help pull your team together.

Whether big or small, celebrate wins together. Publicly recognize individual and team achievements through shoutouts in meetings, awards, or simple thank-you notes. I generally recommend against using solely digital recognition like those mentioned on Teams or Slack, because they're not as tangible to your team. Digital kudos are great when combined with a brief celebration of teams and team members in meetings. When you give voice to celebrating successes, your team will feel much more visible and valued.

Process: Streamlining Collaboration

Ineffective or inefficient processes can turn even the most affable team member into a frustrated, even angry, grump. I've had clients come to me for help with toxic teams, saying, "We can't understand why this group can't get along." After a little investigation, they're often surprised when I start asking about their processes.

When you have processes that don't work - or worse, processes so challenging that people make up their own - you can easily end up with a toxic team. On the other hand, teams with effective, efficient processes tend to have better communication, collaboration, and productivity.

Defining Clear Roles and Responsibilities

One of the most frustrating things to any team member is a lack of clarity over their roles and responsibilities. When roles are unclear and boundaries are murky, team members feel like others are stepping on their toes. Lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities also means that efforts may be duplicated because nobody knows what anyone else is doing. This inefficiency leads to chaos and conflict on the team.

Best practice is to ensure that every team member knows what they’re responsible for and how their role contributes to the team’s overall goals. Clear job descriptions and a well-structured onboarding process can help provide clarity and will allow each team member to stay in their own lane.

Fostering Cross-Functional Collaboration

The left hand should always know what the right hand is doing and how their responsibilities fit together. Leaders should encourage departments to connect, share insights, and collaborate on projects. Connecting teams together helps the entire company to work together toward the same goals.

Encouraging Continuous Improvement

Foster an environment where team members are comfortable seeking feedbakc and making improvements. It's useful to debrief after completing initiatives to help refine processes and learn from experience.

Priorities: Aligning Goals and Values

When you establish clear priorities, you create an environment where everyone is working together toward the same objectives. This clarity creates more efficiency and efficacy and reduces confusion and chaos.

Setting a Clear Vision and Mission

It's crucial that you ensure every team member understands and aligns with the company's vision and mission. Leaders should consistently communicate these priorities and connect them to daily tasks.

Identifying Core Values

Many organizations have a list of values on their websites. But core values are so much more than something to be used for good optics. Instead, collaborating with your team to identify shared values that define your organizational culture will help guide decision-making and resolve conflicts.

Prioritizing Work-Life Balance

If the days of "hustle culture" aren't yet over, they should be. More and more, clients tell me they don't want to pursue leadership because the model they see - one of overwork and never stopping - doesn't appeal to them and doesn't match their values. (And can we be honest about unlimited PTO? I think by now the jig is up on that one and everyone knows that most organizations that use unlimited PTO as an enticement have cultures that discourage actually using that PTO.)

If you want a strong organizational culture, then prioritize both productivity and your employees' well being. Reduce the number of meetings team members are expected to attend (more on meeting hygiene in a future article) so they can get their work done at work during work hours. Offer flexible work schedules, remote and hybrid work options, and mental health days, and adopt a practice of discouraging after-hours emails and calls.

Defining Key Metrics and Objectives

Every team and individual should have their own, well-defined metrics for success and their own objectives, and these metrics and objectives should be regularly reviewed and adjusted to ensure everyone is aligned.

Building a healthy team culture doesn’t happen overnight. Leaders must be intentional and consistent with their efforts. Sometimes you'll need to rethink outdated positions, and adjust accordingly.

Next Steps:

Assess Your Current Culture

Start by gathering data in the form of surveys or focus groups. Your goal is to understand how your team perceives your current organizational culture.

Bear in mind that if you have a toxic team, you may want to pursue assistance in determining the cause of the toxicity, as well as solutions.

Once you've assessed the data and analyzed it, you can look for quick and easy wins, as well as longer-term, bigger picture strategies.

Implement Quick Wins

Next, intentionally implement the "low hanging fruit" for easy wins. Small, visible changes like celebrating wins or introducing a practice of no calls or emails after hours can make a huge difference right away.

Develop a Long-Term Culture Plan

Longer term, you'll want to collaborate with your leadership team to create a comprehensive plan to take actionable steps to foster a healthier team culture, following change management best practices. Consider how you can build in measurement so you can assess the impact of the changes you're going to make.

Remember, a positive organizational culture starts with you as a leader. By modeling the behaviors and values you want to see, you'll inspire your team to follow suit.