The 4 steps to creating a winning team culture

Firstly, what is a ‘winning team culture’ and why would you want to create one?

Culture in business is all about ‘how we do things around here’.  It pulls in all of our core values as an organisation and includes our beliefs, ideas, codes of conduct etc.  Culture is also very much a top down concept,meaning that the owner of the business is largely responsible for the culture,good or bad.

A ’winning’ team culture in business is a culture where the individual members of the organisation pull together as a team, creating exponential ‘wins’ that would not be possible if the individual members operated in a silo or in isolation.  There are 4 essential steps to take to creating such a team.

1.      Servant leadership.  Yes, gone are the days of autocratic leadership being ‘best practice’.  The best leaders are strong enough and secure enough to be able to put others in the limelight.  As goes the name ‘winning team culture’, it does revolve around a ‘team’ not a person or personality.  Finding the strengths of your individual team players and elevating them in their area of strength is key.  It is highly engaging for the individual, character building for you, and frankly, is smart business.  Keyword though is ‘authentic’ – make sure you keep it real and do everything you do for the right reasons

2.      Clarity. Your mission needs to be so clear and simple, that everyone on your team knows and understands exactly what it is – it needs to be crystal clear,succinct and repeatable by your every one of your team

3.      Reward.  Directly tie all reward to activity that is n line with your culture.  Get to know your team well – not all reward is monetary – what spins the wheels for each of your team?  At every opportunity, tell(and have your team tell) the winning stories of delivering on your culture and in this way keep it alive, and front and centre.  Put 10 times the focus on what is done right versus what is not.  

4.      Celebrate.  Set realistic stretch goals, then go big on celebration.  You and your team spend a significant portion of your lives in the workplace – make it fun and find any excuse to celebrate.

John Robertson

Principal Coach

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