8 Culture Building Questions That Every Leader and Team Member Must Answer
Patrick Leddin
29th September 2021
- 2 min read
Think of a top-notch organisation you know—one you wholeheartedly tell others to work for, or whose story you share with friends at dinner.
- Why do you recommend it?
- What makes it so unique?
- Or put more forcefully, why is that organization so remarkable, and rare, that you tell stories about it?
- What causes you to feel so strongly about the organization?
Top organizations share the most powerful, hard-to-replicate, and sustainable competitive advantage—a winning culture.
So, what is culture?
- It’s the collective behaviour of your people
- It’s what the majority of your people do the majority of the time
- It’s the nature of the language and relationships
- It’s spoken and unspoken values, norms, and systems at work
Top federal agencies share the most powerful, hard-to-replicate, and sustainable advantage—a winning culture.
Winning cultures are unique, deliberately designed and maintained, and rare.
Cultures that are truly great, consist of employees that can agree with the following statement: I am a valued member of a winning team doing meaningful work in an environment of trust.
8 (or so) Questions to Help You Build a Winning Culture
If you want to create a winning culture, here are 8 culture building questions to get you started:
- How clear are your team members on what truly matters most to the organisation and the customers they serve?
- How aligned are team member behaviors (e.g., prioritization, time management, collaboration, etc.) with those things that matter most?
- Do team members see a connection between their daily work and the goals of the organisation?
- How credible are your leaders? Do they have both the character and competence to effectively lead?
- Would team members choose to follow your leaders if they weren’t bestowed with the title ‘leader’?
- Do your leaders create an environment of trust – starting with their own behaviours?
- What processes and procedures does your organization have in place that allow your people to bring the best to work? Which ones hold your people back?
- Is your team winning or losing? Does everybody know?
Answer these 8 questions on your own and invite your team members to do the same. Then, get together and have a candid conversation about your answers. Doing so, is the right first step to building a winning culture in your organisation.