1. Team Culture: Defined

Definition of Culture: According to Ed Schein, culture is a pattern of assumptions developed by a group to cope with challenges, which is taught to new members.

Elements of Culture: Culture includes observable behaviors, espoused values, and underlying assumptions. It can significantly affect team performance.
Examples of Team Culture: Different team dynamics are illustrated, such as informal interactions versus strict adherence to agendas, and how these reflect underlying cultural values.
Assessing Culture: Leaders can evaluate their team’s culture by observing behaviors, listening for values, and identifying assumptions that drive outcomes.
Intentional Culture Building: Leaders should be proactive in shaping a culture that promotes safety, engagement, and growth, as this can lead to better team performance.

Three Qualities of Effective Teams:

Performance: Effective teams deliver valuable outputs, which should be evaluated by external metrics.
Member Benefits: Team members should gain satisfaction, knowledge, and skills from their experiences.
Continuous Improvement: Teams should learn and adapt over time, encouraging open communication and the sharing of diverse perspectives.

Communication and Coordination: Effective teamwork requires clear communication and alignment among team members to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Cultural Aspects: Creating a culture that values contributions from all members and encourages learning is essential for team success.

Leaders influence team culture and must empower team members to take initiative and make decisions. Creating a Safe Environment: Leaders should foster a culture where team members feel safe to express problems and learn from failures. Humility in Leadership: Great leaders often exhibit humility and lead by example, creating an environment where team members feel valued and engaged. Team Dynamics: The success of a team often relies on the leader’s ability to recognize and utilize the strengths of team members.

2. Cultures of Safety

2.1 Reading

🍎 Google’s Project Aristotle back in 2013, showed that : A strong sense of psychological safety (Team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other) fostered an environment where members felt comfortable expressing their thoughts and ideas openly, leading to more productive discussions and innovative solutions.

The co-location of teams had no impact on their performance as long as they possessed psychological safety.
Two more norms : (1) Equality in conversational turn-taking; (2) High “social sensitivity”.

🍎 Psychological Safety in Remote and Virtual Teams 2024

Talk about psychological safety.
Make sure everyone knows what to do (what is expected of them) and make work visible.
Focus on outcomes, not inputs or outputs (focussed on what really matters to the business or organisation).
Build a culture of appreciation.
Embrace routine and ritual.
Establish work boundaries.
Be actively inclusive, or risk being passively exclusive.
Establish multiple communication channels for different needs.
Cultivate curiosity before jumping to conclusions.
Clarify your intentions with considerate language, emojis, and gifs.

2.2 Fostering Psychological Safety

Psychological Safety: a shared belief that team members can speak up without fear of humiliation or punishment. Learning from Mistakes: Encouraging a culture where mistakes are acknowledged and learned from is crucial. It helps create a sense of belonging, which is necessary for genuine inclusiveness.

Cultural Development: Psychological safety is a culture that takes time to develop. Leaders should model transparency, honesty, and vulnerability.
Encouraging Participation: Leaders should invite team members to share their thoughts and concerns, creating an environment where silence is less likely.
Conversational Norms: Successful teams focus on how they communicate rather than who is on the team. Every member should have the opportunity to speak during meetings.
Empathy and Social Sensitivity: Leaders should be aware of team members’ emotions and encourage open discussions about challenges.
Addressing Bad Behavior: It’s important for leaders to address negative behaviors that threaten psychological safety, ensuring a supportive team culture.

2.3 Cultivating Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

Vulnerability: Many people hesitate to speak up due to fear of sounding foolish, which can suppress valuable contributions.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB): These elements are crucial for fostering a psychologically safe environment. Diversity encompasses various differences among team members, equity ensures fair access to resources, inclusion creates a space for all voices, and belonging fosters a sense of acceptance.
Below the Surface Leadership: This concept focuses on authentic connections and prioritizing the needs of others, which helps create a culture of safety and support.
Empathy and Understanding: Leaders should strive to understand different perspectives and experiences, recognizing that individual experiences shape how people perceive situations.

2.4 Developing Ethical Cultures

The lecture discusses Luckin Coffee, a Chinese coffee company that rapidly grew from its founding in 2017 to a valuation of over $12 billion by 2020. However, it faced serious allegations of fraud, leading to its suspension from NASDAQ and bankruptcy. The lecture emphasizes that ethical failures in organizations often stem from a culture that allows unethical behavior rather than individual decisions.

Ethical Culture: Defined as the interplay of formal and informal systems that promote ethical or unethical behavior.
Corporate Ethical Virtues Model: Identifies eight elements that facilitate ethical culture: clarity, congruency of supervisors and management, feasibility, supportability, transparency, discussability, and sanctionability.
Benefits of Ethical Culture: Research shows that a strong ethical culture leads to increased employee satisfaction, reduced burnout, and improved overall performance.

2.5 Navigating Hierarchy

The lecture discusses the relationship between team hierarchy and the success of mountain climbing expeditions, based on a 2015 research study. Key points include:

Power Distance: This concept measures how power is distributed within teams. High power distance teams have clear authority, while low power distance teams distribute power more equally.
Findings: High power distance teams were more likely to reach the summit but also had higher risks of fatalities. This suggests that while clear hierarchy can improve decision-making and coordination, it may also stifle communication and safety.
Social Hierarchies: Hierarchies naturally emerge in groups, even without formal structures. They can be based on status (respect and admiration) and power (control over resources).
Implications for Safety: Understanding the dynamics of power and status is crucial for fostering a culture of safety within teams. While hierarchies can enhance teamwork, they can also create distance that hinders communication.

It emphasizes the need to recognize the types of hierarchies present and to establish structures that promote inclusion, ethical cultures, and effective decision-making.

3. Cultures of Engagement

Help your employees find purpose—or watch them leave 2021

Start with the organization’s purpose (hint: the only thing you control directly)
Reflect, connect, repeat.
Help people live their purpose at work.

3.1 Business on Purpose

This content emphasizes the need for leaders to cultivate a meaningful work environment to improve team dynamics and outcomes.

Engagement Levels: A significant number of employees feel disengaged at work, which presents an opportunity for leaders to connect their team’s work to a higher purpose.
Business on Purpose: This concept emphasizes the intentional pursuit of ethical practices and the importance of understanding the “why” behind work.
Have a clear Team Purpose, defined by a shared vision (North Star) and motivating reasons (whys), enhances team effectiveness and communication. Teams with a shared purpose perform better, as it fosters transparency, meaning, and a sense of belonging among members.

3.2 Mitigating Burnout

Leaders should recognize the symptoms of burnout, which include exhaustion, cynicism, and feelings of ineffectiveness. Normalizing discussions about burnout can foster a sense of belonging among team members.

Burnout: Defined by Christine Maslach, burnout is a psychological syndrome resulting from prolonged stress at work. It includes three dimensions: emotional and physical exhaustion, cynicism and detachment, and a sense of ineffectiveness.
- Prevalence of Burnout: Surveys indicate that over half of U.S. employees report feelings of burnout, which can negatively impact productivity, creativity, and workplace relationships.
- Impact on Business: Burnout not only affects individuals but also has organizational costs, leading to decreased performance and increased turnover.
Organizational Risk Factors: Burnout can stem from six key domains:
- Workload: Excessive demands without adequate rest.
- Control: Lack of autonomy in decision-making.
- Reward: Insufficient recognition and appreciation.
- Community: Poor relationships and lack of support among team members.
- Fairness: Perceptions of unjust treatment.
- Values: Conflicts between personal values and job requirements.
Prevention Strategies: Leaders can promote engagement and wellness by implementing practices such as wellness days, flexible work schedules, and encouraging social connections among team members.

3.3 Cultivating Meaningful Work

Meaningful Work refers to a subjective experience where individuals find significance in their work, which can lead to higher engagement and satisfaction.

Personal Connection: Each person experiences meaning differently, and it often involves a sense of purpose and alignment between the individual and their work.
Work Orientation: There are three primary views of work:
- Job: Focused on monetary benefits.
- Career: Interested in growth and promotions.
- Calling: Linked to personal purpose and fulfillment.
Impact of Meaningful Work: Those who find their work meaningful tend to have better life satisfaction and health outcomes. However, viewing work as a calling can sometimes lead to overcommitment and burnout.

Cultivating meaningful work is essential for engagement and personal growth. It starts with individual reflection and responsibility.

Personal Responsibility: Individuals must take charge of their career paths, recognizing that meaningful work often needs to be created rather than handed to them.
Finding Meaning: Reflecting on past jobs can reveal ways to find meaning, even in roles perceived as unfulfilling. Examples include using earnings for personal goals or supporting loved ones.
Job Crafting: Leaders can foster meaningful work in teams through job crafting, which involves:
- Task Crafting: Changing how tasks are completed.
- Relationship Crafting: Building new social connections.
- Cognitive Crafting: Reframing the purpose of work.
Leader Behaviors: Effective leaders can enhance team meaning by ensuring clear communication, recognizing contributions, and fostering a sense of purpose.

4. Cultures of Growth

Cultivate and sustain a learning culture 2022 A learning culture is an environment that demonstrates and encourages individual and organizational learning. 4 Components to Building a Learning Culture:

Attract and develop agile learners. Learning-agile leaders exemplify a growth mindset by learning from experience, challenging perspectives, remaining curious, and seeking new experiences. Building a learning culture that democratizes leadership development and values a growth mindset will help you attract and retain a workforce
Create an environment that supports psychological safety. Ensuring leaders can create psychological safety for their teams allows team members to learn collectively and leads to a strong learning culture in your organization.
Encourage better conversations and feedback throughout the organization.
Make learning an explicit organizational priority. Examine your policies, rewards systems, and opportunities to establish and reinforce a learning culture.

4.1 Creating Cultures of Problem-Solving

Everyone in the organization should grasp the corporate purpose and their role in achieving it, fostering a sense of responsibility and excitement in problem-solving. A structured approach to problem-solving is essential, focusing on identifying root causes and implementing irreversible corrective actions. Leadership Paradigms: Effective leaders create a culture where employees are empowered to solve problems collaboratively, contrasting with ineffective leaders who impose blanket solutions.

Transformation Process: The transformation involves four stages:
- Awakening: Recognizing the need for a cultural shift.
- Awareness: Challenging assumptions about work and organizational purpose.
- Action: Implementing changes based on new insights.
- Actualization: Embedding these changes into the organizational culture.
Barriers to Success:
- A mindset focused on immediate action rather than taking time to identify and solve problems.
- Frequent changes in leadership direction can confuse employees, leading to inaction.
Overcoming Barriers:
- Action: Establish a framework for problem-solving that empowers those closest to the issues to identify and address them.
- Growing Respectful Connections: Build trust among team members to facilitate open discussions about problems.
- Accelerating Organizational Learning: Implement structured reflection processes, such as the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Adjust) cycle, to evaluate changes and adapt as necessary.
Actualization: Leaders must model the behaviors they wish to see, question their assumptions, and engage in their own problem-solving processes to influence their teams positively.

4.2 Manifesting Creativity

Definition of Creativity: Creativity involves generating ideas that are both novel and useful for solving problems. It requires looking at issues from different perspectives to foster innovation.
Psychological Safety: A culture that encourages creativity must be psychologically safe, allowing team members to share unique ideas without fear of judgment.
Shifting Perspectives: The ability to change viewpoints can lead to new insights and solutions, as illustrated by a study where participants recalled different details based on their assigned perspective.
Building a Creative Culture: Organizations should intentionally cultivate norms that promote creativity, such as encouraging brainstorming and accepting mistakes as part of the learning process.
Influence of Power: Power dynamics can either hinder or enhance creativity, depending on how they are managed within a team.

Creating a Culture of Creativity: The PIECE model (Participation, Independence, Elaboration, Communication, Exploration) is introduced as a framework to foster creativity within teams.

Participation: Encourage everyone to share ideas.
Independence: Allow independent thought without pressure to conform.
Elaboration: Build upon others’ ideas collaboratively.
Communication: Use emotionally intelligent communication, including political correctness, to create a safe space for sharing ideas.
Exploration: Encourage looking beyond one’s own group for new insights.

4.3 Navigating Change

Adapting to change and navigating uncertainty within teams and organizations. Key points include:

Change and Uncertainty: Organizations that thrive are those that can adapt to changes, especially in the context of recent global events like the pandemic.
Leadership Challenges: Leaders face unique challenges in creating effective team cultures amidst rapid changes in higher education and work environments.
Kotter’s Change Model: John Kotter’s eight-step model for organizational change emphasizes the need for urgency, vision, and communication to gain buy-in from team members.
Culture of Change: Instead of a command-and-control approach, fostering a culture that encourages learning and growth is essential for navigating change effectively.
Complex Adaptive Systems: Teams should be viewed as complex adaptive systems, where interactions are nonlinear and outcomes are unpredictable.
Resistance to Change: Understanding the cognitive and emotional reasons behind resistance to change can help leaders facilitate smoother transitions.

Agility in Organizations: Organizations must learn to be flexible and adaptable to maintain a competitive advantage. This involves creating processes that allow for experimentation and learning from failures.

Complex Adaptive Systems: Teams should be viewed as complex adaptive systems. Leaders should avoid imposing changes and instead integrate new practices while respecting existing structures.
Leadership vs. Leader: Leadership is a social process involving relationships between leaders and followers, focusing on developing potential and working towards shared goals.
Engagement and Trust: Leaders should engage team members in goal-setting and build trusting relationships to enhance collaboration and information flow.
Embracing Change: Organizations must be comfortable with uncertainty and continuously adapt to new challenges and opportunities.