If your team is already operating at peak performance, CultureSet™ can help you hire the right people to keep the exceptional culture you already have.  But if not, it may be time to start troubleshooting.

Troubleshooting Checklist

Verify again that:

1. Each team member does have the appropriate skills and expertise to achieve current objectives
2. The team has all the information, support, tools and other resources they need to accomplish its goals
3. Everyone understands the team’s mission and goals, they are quick to explain it to others, for example, “our mission is to provide great customer service”, “win the championship”, or “we’re here to invent the next generation of widgets”
4. There is a shared sense of commitment to the team’s mission, priorities and purpose, that’s their North Star
5. Team members feel confident that their boss “has their back” and are supportive of each other – there’s a strong sense of trust within the group

Any issues you might uncover while checking off the first three items on the list can usually be remedied with some training or shifting of resources.  Problems with the last two however, may indicate that some team members have conflicting cultural values and priorities that prevent them from working effectively, if not at odds with each other.  There’s little to no foundation upon which to build trust.  If culture-related issues turn out to be the reason your team is underperforming, what to do next?

Communicate Team Purpose and Priorities

The story you tell about the reason why you’re there, do what you do, and the language you use, says a lot about what you value and believe in.  If you haven’t already done so, define and rank the team’s top five mission-critical priorities.  It might be helpful to come up with a few simple catchphrases that convey the attitudes and behaviors you want to encourage to support those priorities.  Repeat these maxims often.

Now that it’s been clearly articulated, if everyone doesn’t get on board, it’s possible that some individuals – no matter how talented – may not belong on your team.  To keep people working together despite having incompatible cultural values can be like throwing a wrench in the works.  The resulting friction, distrust, and negative energy tends to undermine the entire team’s performance.  Once you do have everyone on board though, there’s just one more step.

Unlock Team Chemistry

Everyone loves a Cinderella team, especially the kind that almost no one saw coming.  They don’t have the best talent or star players but, surprising all the analysts and against the odds, make a deep run into the play-offs – maybe even win the championship.  In other settings it’s not always so clear cut to know when a team is over-achieving well beyond expectations, but they tend to pull off what others didn’t think was possible or maybe set the gold standard in their field despite perceived shortcomings.  No matter the mark for achievement, what they have in common is a deep level of trust that allows them to overcome whatever obstacles were in their way.   How did they do it?  They have team chemistry.

Every best-in-class team has its own mission-critical values and priorities, its own winning culture, so trying to copy how someone else did it, isn’t generally the best recipe for success.  Your goal is to get the team right.  Which means to hire people (with of course the right skills and expertise) who share your team’s mission-critical cultural values because then they will almost always be able to find common ground, work through any differences and build the kind of trust where magic happens.  They care about the mission, they care about each other, and even more importantly, they take care of each other.  Great teams get the relationships right.

Learn more about the CultureSet™ and Hire process