Team culture matters, a lot

I was listening to a webinar recently, where the interviewee shared a statistic that hit me like a ‘ton of bricks’! It was, that 70% of human behaviour is determined by whatever environment you are in. Pause and think about that for a minute.

This was based off a current meta-study by the English Institute of Sport, and it triggered a memory I had of reading about a similar phenomenon that comes from the world of Psychology: namely, Fundamental Attribution Error. The term, which was coined by Social Psychologist Lee Ross, describes the tendency we have as people to falsely believe that a person’s behaviour is primarily determined by their personality, as opposed to social factors. In other words, we will generally always assume that what someone does or how they act, is a reflection of who they are, as opposed to the environment they are in, which is often the case.

The reason this has struck such a chord for me, is because of what it means for how we understand people, behaviour, teams, performance, engagement, culture and more. If the environment that people are in, has such a significant influence on who they are and how they behave, we need to ask ourselves… how intentional are we being in creating these environments?

So how can we be more intentional in doing this? Well here are a few suggestions:

1. If you are part of an existing team or business, you already have a culture that has formed whether you are aware of it or not. Look at the current behaviours that you are seeing from people, and ask yourself how your team culture/environment may be causing them, both positive and negative. Notice the connection and note these down.
2. Considering the above, think about what you would ideally like your team culture to be. You may need to take a step back and re-evaluate your team or business as a whole, by looking at things like your vision, belief or purpose. Think about what you do, your reason for being, and more so how you want to execute what you do as a team. This may all assist in painting a clearer picture of what type of culture you would like (and need) to have in order to make that a reality.
3. With this picture in mind, identify the behaviours that need to be consistently shown in order for that culture to emerge and strengthen. Whether this is done through identifying values, your internal DNA, your standards, or a combination of these, document how people should be conducting themselves, and help to show how and why this is important to the creation of your team culture/environment.
4. Lastly, ensure that your leadership is aligned to this. They need to not only ‘buy in to it’, but more so, they need to set the example and model the behaviour they wish to see from others. They need to praise and recognise those that demonstrate these behavioural standards, and continue to reinforce these, while holding those who don’t, to account.

These suggestions above are not an exhaustive list, but they demonstrate that culture is an output, and that by adjusting internal mechanisms like these, we can in turn create the culture we want.

By taking the time to proactively and intentionally craft the team environment, we know that we can positively influence the behaviour of our people in a significant way, and by doing so, also ensure that their behaviour will be aligned to the objectives of the team itself. Its a job worth doing well.