Creating a positive team culture

If you want to have a team that performs at a high level then it is your role as a leader to make this happen.

1. Establish the vision and goals for the team

High performing teams have a clear sense of their purpose. Why? Because the team leader makes it clear, shares with them the organisational vision and how the team vision relates to this. This should be revisited at least once a year, ideally every six months as so many changes will have occurred. And if you are a member of a team where the leader is not doing this – ask for it. Ask for a planning day or morning where you can go through the team vision and goals so everyone can be aligned to it.

2. Agree on team behaviours

Talk about your work, your roles and establish agreed behaviours and rules. Ask everyone to commit to the list. Having agreed standards of behaviour and performance will ensure you are in agreement about house-keeping and tidiness, use of shared resources, break times, meeting times, complaints, emails, start times, etc

3. Determine recognition and reward strategies

Give clear goals and acknowledge good performance. Everyone loves acknowledgement so make sure you and your team work out some rewards everyone can enjoy. Celebrate completion of group projects with the whole team. Even a morning tea together once a week or two can be a good team bonding activity.

4. Talk about ways to create a motivating workplace

Talk with your group and ask for suggestions on what can make your workplace (the physical environment) more motivating and what can make the work and processes more motivating. Discuss healthy lifestyle strategies and what can be done at work to achieve this. Brainstorm ideas with the whole team, select some that are practical and implement them. Create an ongoing suggestion box with a reward every few weeks for best ideas.

5. Create a buddy- mentoring strategy

Create pairs or trios of staff or even involve people form other parts of the organisation, so that people can share issues about work, get ideas on ways to improve and develop longer term strategies for building skills in their careers. Encourage people to initiate learning and self-development strategies.

6. Provide regular professional development activities for the team

Do some team building and training in communication and problem solving skills, or even skills like how to give and receive feedback, how to do presentations, or any skills relevant to their roles.

7. Have regular performance and career discussions

It’s important that managers have regular one-on-one discussions with their staff, ideally every four to six weeks, about how they are going, and finding out if they need more skills or challenges – or anything that helps them work more productively or happily.

If you find you are disappointed in the culture of your team – then do something about it – whether you are the leader or not.

Eve Ash has produced hundreds of award winning resources to help leaders and teams work more effectively.