Why team culture is the only thing that matters
We read a lot of guides on how to create and maintain great company culture. We read “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast” or “Leaders Eat Last”.
Only many publications on the subject address companies and entrepreneurs, company owners or branch managers.
But what can the committed person in middle management do with their small team?
The best advice came from my boss, who gave me advice early on:
“Embarrass yourself every day, then you’re on the right track!”
Here are three other points that have helped me on my way of becoming a manager:
Give trust instead of demanding it
That doesn’t even have that much to do with my romantic world view:
I just think this “trust is not given, it must be earned” slows down all decisions. And the biggest competitive advantage we can have over the competition is being faster.
And don’t compare your staff to yourself: we who have worked our way up into a manager role all have a distorted self-image of our past selves - just as we would like to believe that as children we always respected the teachers and sat still all morning (the hell we did).
Experts do not want to be micromanaged
Problems in team building are often caused by the person in charge, the leader.
Good leaders do not raise their voices and they do not hover behind their team members all day.
Good leaders support their team members to become better by themselves.
A strong team culture must be the goal
Because if our team members have to pay less attention to politics, then they have more time to do the work that is actually important.
The only efficient way to get there is to actually be interested in what our team members care about. We need to invest the time and energy to create a frame of reference in which they can live their values.
Team culture = emotional investment
In my opinion, being a manager has a lot to do with the idea of “service to the team member”.
As a manager, I have to be willing to give my team members more than I seem get in return. I’m making an emotional investment in my team’s future with no guarantee that this investment will pay off.
As a new manager, I was often tempted to do too much at once and still wanted to show that I can continue to make a valuable contribution to day-to-day business.
However, the most valuable contribution of a manager is no longer their own performance, but increasing the performance of everyone else.
As a leader, your goal is to make those around you great.
