By Anne Cheng
There is this elusive idea of building the right culture in every business. I was taken aback earlier this week when a team member sent me a text about a conflict that she was facing with a client who was being unreasonable. I asked her, “What would you do?” Her response — stay professional and politely stand my ground. This colleague of mine had been with the company for all but four weeks but quickly grasped that bringing your A-game and staying professional were values that we deeply cared about.
I believed it was because of the culture that we had built within the organization — but what is team culture? By the most basic definition, team culture is made up of the values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a team. It is how people work together towards a common goal and how they treat each other. These attributes could be positive or negative.
This begs the question — how would I supercharge my team culture, to create a high-performance team? I explore some of my top tips for how we developed a high-performance team at Supercharge Lab.
High-Performance Tips
First, communication is key. Our team meets on a weekly basis, and we term the meeting the weekly happy half hour. In this meeting, psychological safety reigns supreme. We create a safe space for everyone to be vulnerable, honest, and transparent about their challenges, struggles, and their celebration of wins. We also involve our junior team members in developing the organizational strategy, creating clarity and a shared vision.
Second, we adopt an ethos of supportive leadership — where leaders serve the engine of the organization — the people doing the execution of the strategy. As we grow our organization, we will endeavor to keep up with our bi-weekly personal check-ins, to ensure that the team not only feels supported but knows that they are supported.
Check Out Another Supercharge Lab Insight: Human Connectivity: Psychology and Behaviors
Third, Supercharge Lab’s premise of operations is in the study of behaviors. We have implemented a leadership competency development program that ensures that each person identifies high performance behaviors that they want to work on in the coming year and leadership is committed to supporting that directive.
Fourth, we have a collaborative work environment. Almost all our colleagues refer their friends to work with Supercharge Lab and keep each other in check. When one colleague refers another to work in the company, they are putting their reputations on the line and continuing to raise the bar of excellence within the organization.
Finally, and most importantly, it boils right down to the organizational values and motivation. When your values resonate with your team, and they are meaningful to their personal worldview, your team supercharges itself. With authentic servant leadership and the right career development framework, get ready to jumpstart your organizational growth and thrive in an increasingly complex world of work.