<![CDATA[People create teams. Teams build businesses. They trump every other contributing factor and the success and failure of an organization can be directly linked to the talent they hired and the teams they built. It’s one of the reasons we take our work so seriously. We’re not out here just ‘finding candidates’, we’re here building companies. We see it play out every single day.
Which is why we know that for the right teams and individuals, to thrive, the right culture needs to be in place, and culture should be a priority. Great teams build a great culture, great culture builds great teams (They are deeply interconnected and essential to each other.)
FIRST, VALUES CONNECT PEOPLE
If your business has been built on the things you believe in, in values and missions, then you’re going to attract people who have similar beliefs to you. Those likeminded individuals build connected teams that share the same principles. Sure, you could put a bunch of highly skilled individuals into a team, but if their fundamental human values differ wildly, that team isn’t going to perform at an optimum level, no matter how skilled those individuals are. People want to believe in things together. They want to rally around the same battle cry. The things you believe in as an organization that are threaded throughout your culture, will be the glue that brings and fuels high performing teams.
SECOND, COMPANY CULTURE ATTRACTS PEOPLE
We all know that great culture is a great talent attraction tool, and in a candidate driven market where it’s hard to get talent to jump ship, your company culture needs to be strong if you have any hope of attracting the right people so you can build strong teams in the first place.
THIRD, YOUR PEOPLE NEED TO OPT-IN
It’s no longer enough to cajole people into a team and expect them to work hard for that team. Your team needs to opt in. They need to actively want to empower their team members and excel. Without a strong company culture your people won’t be empowered, or struggle to care enough to contribute to the ecosystem of their team. It creates uneven balances of power and workloads which leaves some of your people overworked and jaded, while the others are disengaged and unenthusiastic. The team is only as good as the engaged people in it.
We could go on with these bullet points to highlight just how imperative it is to build a strong company culture in order to enable teams, but you already know that. The two impact on one another and often go hand in hand. Rather, what’s important to note is that without a strong company culture the DNA of your teams does change. It’s also possible to have incredible team cultures (silos) that exist within a business that has poor culture. They become an isolated anomaly in the organization that risks isolating others further as opposed to contributing to the overall roadmap. However, when the business does have a great culture, high performing teams are a byproduct of that. Your company culture allows your brand to become a destination. It draws in the most talented individuals in the marketplace. Above all, it gives your people the autonomy, motivation, and inspiration to excel and push themselves past the boundaries of what they thought they were capable of. Strong teams hold themselves and each other accountable, they execute together, grow together and continually want to mentor and innovate – and what company wouldn’t want that? True leaders understand the priceless value of this and nurture not only strong teams but a proper company culture.]]>