4 pillars for healthy team culture
So you just started leading a team, maybe you were promoted to the position. Or maybe you were hired to take on leadership of a brand new team. A leader’s job is to focus on the 4 categories of Product Strategy, Execution, Operations, and Team culture. Let’s focus on team culture for this post.
It can seem daunting to take on something as ‘intangible’ sounding as improving the culture of a team. Here is one approach to address it. I look at the following 4 pillars of action when addressing team culture:
Clarify
Empower
Nourish
Connect
1. CLARIFY
This category includes setting very clear expectations for your team. Do you have a strategy? Does everyone on the team know and understand the strategy? Is it clear how their day-to-day and work connects to said strategy?
Do they know how their performance is evaluated? Do they know how their compensation is calculated? Do they know what good/bad looks like?
A lot of culture messiness stems from a lack of clarity. Leaders often make the mistake of saying something once and hoping/assuming everyone gets it. Any leader’s key job is to be the Chief Reminding Officer, keep repeating the strategy, vision, how things are done till your entire team is rolling eyes at you.
Suggested action: Make a list of the givens, what you think the team should (and probably does) understand. This includes your team’s vision, strategy, mission. It also includes details pertinent to each employee like how their performance is evaluated. Create a calendar for when and how you will clarify this information to them and stick to it.
2. EMPOWER
What is standing in the team’s way? Do you have the right ratios for UX to cross-functional partners? Are you allocating enough time for strategic thinking? Does the team have a say in quarterly deliverables? All the external factors that might stop the team and individuals from doing their best work falls in this category.
To empower the team, you need to create conditions for them to succeed. This is often addressed by leaders well, since many see it as their core job (which it is!) so I will keep this short.
Suggested action: Are the UXers on your team overallocated? Do an inventory of projects vs. time and block more time for strategic work if your team isn’t there yet. If hiring more people is not an option, prioritize and say a hard NO to items under the cutline.
3. NOURISH
Nourishing people on your team means taking a holistic approach towards their development. This means you understand each person’s career goals, and are creating opportunities AND helping them achieve those goals. This includes your company’s promotion processes but also their career growth outside of that system.
It is important to do this for everyone so you also advance your DEI goals. A common problem for under-represented minorities is not being assigned stretch opportunities, or being passed over for high impact roles. Creating holistic systems that address career growth for everyone on the team helps everyone, especially those who might get ignored from organic sponsorship.
Suggested action: Create a tracker for everyone on your team clearly documenting their current trajectory, growth potential, goals for next 3 months, and stretch opportunities provided to them. Create a cadence to review this at least on a quarterly basis.
4. CONNECT
Connecting people on your team is important for people & business reasons. People reasons are obvious, it creates a sense of belonging, it increases inclusion on the team, it creates an environment where everyone feels welcome. Business reasons are to reduce redundancy of effort, folks helping each other with tips they have learned from previous projects, and operating with larger awareness of team-wide work and activities.
Individuals like connecting in different ways, so I do a bunch of activities in this category. I also make a lot of them unidirectional or optional so it’s not avalanche of forced connections for those not interested in certain kinds of activities/rituals.
Suggested action: I wrote about this in detail in my post about team rituals. Check it out!
So there’s the framework, it isn’t set it and forget it. I have a tracker I review monthly where I note down ideas for each category, mark what i have tried, what worked, what didn’t work, and what I am planning to try soon. I tweak my approach based on team needs I learn through observation, conversations, and team pulse surveys (more on that some other time).
If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you. If you think I am missing something, let me know! Thank you for reading.
