Culture Eats Strategy: Building High-Performance Teams

High-performance teams are built on psychological safety and a shared understanding of the "why" behind the code.

Culture is a vital part of a team and an organization. What leaders should realize is that each team has a mini sub culture within that team and make sure that though the sub culture is different it adds to the main culture of the organization and respect the unity in diversity.

So in the blog we want to talk about practical steps one can take to ensure you are having a good culture on your team. These are by no means a comprehensive list as human emotions are complex and we need to understand that going in:

• Clarity on roles: It is vital for leaders to communicate what the roles are. That being said - we cannot go hardcore on this is what you do and that is it. There should be leeway that leaders need to allow so that the bonding within the team can grow organically.
• Identifying behaviors like withdrawal: In a team with good culture, it should look like the team is loving what it does and bring their best self to work. However if we introduce too many restrictions, or sometimes have team members who pull others down - this needs to be fixed immediately as the team morale and the enthusiasm goes down.
• Align on goals: Having clear goals and communicating that with the team is crucial. Good leaders tend to do so by repetition that these are the goals that we want to achieve but also not put too much pressure on timelines.
• Trust: Building trust amongst team members is essential to have a high performing team. If we try to keep stuff from each other, or have too much of "written communication" to cya. That does not foster a good team environment. And the only way to get trust is being honest with each other.

After leading many teams and being part of both amazing and not so amazing teams, we are experts in spotting what works and what does not.