Culture Is What You Reinforce

Every team has a culture.

Even the teams that have never had a single conversation about culture. Actually, especially those teams, because if you don't intentionally define the culture you want, one will still develop.

The strongest personalities, repeated behaviors, tolerated behaviors, unwritten rules, leadership reactions, and everyday interactions will create it for you.

...And you may not particularly like what you get.

That is why I don't think culture is something leaders can afford to treat as this big, abstract organizational concept that belongs in a strategic plan or gets discussed once a year at a retreat.

Culture is happening every single day.

It's happening in your staff meetings.

It's happening when someone makes a mistake.

It's happening when someone disagrees with the boss.

It's happening when a teammate needs help.

It's happening when someone does exceptional work.

It's even happening when someone behaves in a way that goes against everything you say your organization values...and nobody addresses it.

Culture is what you reinforce. And culture is also what you tolerate.

Culture Is Everyone's Responsibility, But Leadership Sets the Tone

I believe everyone owns culture. You don't need a leadership title to make a workplace better or worse. Every person contributes something to the environment around them.

But I also don't think leaders get to shrug their shoulders and say:

“Well, culture is everyone's responsibility.”

And that is because leadership carries additional influence:

People are watching what you recognize.

What you correct.

What you ignore.

What you laugh at.

What you reward.

What you model yourself.

If you say collaboration matters, but then reward individual achievement at the expense of the team, people notice that!

If you say people should speak up, but then become defensive every time someone challenges an idea, people notice that too!

And if you say work-life balance matters, but you regularly email people at 10 p.m. expecting a response, people absolutely notice that as well.

Your team will eventually believe your behavior over your words.

...So yes, culture belongs to everyone, but exceptional leaders understand that it starts with them.

Don't Make People Guess What the Culture Is Supposed to Be

Years ago, I oversaw a work team that was struggling. There was tension. People were undermining one another. There were issues with trust and respect. Some of the behaviors happening within the group were making it harder for everyone to succeed.

And eventually, I had enough.

Not in a “I'm going to walk into this room and tell everyone to knock it off” kind of way... Although I'm sure part of me wanted to. 😂

Instead, we got everyone together and essentially started from square one. We talked about something incredibly simple:

What do we actually want it to feel like to work here?

And it was interesting because most people wanted the same things!

They wanted to enjoy coming to work.

They wanted to feel respected.

They wanted teammates who helped each other.

They wanted to be able to communicate without drama.

They wanted to feel trusted.

They wanted to have fun while still doing good work.

Nobody walked into the room saying, “Personally, I'd really like more dysfunction.”

Most people want a healthy workplace... but wanting one and knowing how to create one together are two very different things.

Turn the Desired Culture Into Behaviors

This is where culture conversations sometimes fall apart. We come up with words like:

Respect.

Teamwork.

Trust.

Accountability.

Awesome... but what do those actually mean?

If we want a culture of respect, what does someone do?

Maybe respect means we address concerns directly instead of talking about people when they're not in the room.

If we want teamwork, maybe that means we step in when someone is overwhelmed instead of saying, “That's not my job.”

If we want trust, maybe that means we assume positive intent and ask questions before jumping to conclusions.

If we want accountability, maybe that means we own mistakes, fix what we can, and learn from them.

People can act on behaviors. You cannot hold someone accountable to a vague aspiration.

Put It Where People Can See It

With that team, we eventually took the things we had identified together and made them visible.

I created simple reminders and put them around the facility. Things like:

We talk TO each other, not ABOUT each other.

We ask before we assume.

We help each other succeed.

We own our mistakes and fix what we can.

We make this a place people want to come back to tomorrow.

The exact language isn't what mattered... what mattered was that the culture stopped being something abstract.

We had named it.

We had described the behaviors that created it.

And then we kept talking about it.

That last part is critical because one staff meeting does not change a culture. One poster definitely does not change a culture... But you know what does? Repetition!

Culture Is Built in the Follow-Through

Culture-building takes time... A lot of time!

Especially if you are trying to shift a culture that already has established behaviors and unwritten rules. You can't have one inspiring conversation and expect everyone to immediately operate differently.

You have to reinforce it.

Bring the behaviors back into staff meetings.

Recognize when someone demonstrates them.

Use them when you're coaching.

Talk about them when something goes wrong.

Ask whether your own behavior matches them.

And when someone consistently behaves in a way that undermines the culture?

Address it.

This is where leaders sometimes unintentionally destroy their own culture work.

Imagine telling everyone: “We address conflict directly and respectfully.”

Then your highest performer repeatedly treats coworkers poorly and you don't address it because they're really good at their job.

You just created a new cultural standard, and it isn't the one on the poster. You just taught everyone that results matter more than how you treat people.

What leaders tolerate becomes incredibly powerful information about what the culture actually values.

Invite Your Team to Help Define It

I also don't think leaders should disappear into an office and emerge with the Ten Commandments of Workplace Culture (😂).

Your people need to be part of this. Ask them:

What do we want it to feel like to work here?

What brings out our best?

What behaviors make this team stronger?

What behaviors make our work harder?

What do we want people to experience when they interact with our team?

Then listen because you may hear things you didn't expect, which is a good thing!

Remember everything we've built throughout this challenge around psychological safety, feedback, trust, ownership, and different voices back in the first quarter of the year?

This is where all of that work starts paying dividends!!!

Your team can help create the culture because you've been building the conditions that allow them to participate in it.

Reinforcement Is Where Culture Becomes Real

And this is where we begin Quarter 4! We've spent 39 weeks getting 1% better:

We've worked on ourselves.

We've strengthened relationships.

We've built ownership and clarity.

Now we're going to zoom out and look at something bigger:

What impact does our leadership have on the environment around us?

Culture doesn't live in your mission statement. It doesn't live on your website, and it definitely doesn't live on the inspirational poster in the break room. Culture lives in the thousands of tiny moments people experience while working with you and with each other.

So define it.

Build it together.

Turn it into behaviors.

Model those behaviors yourself.

Talk about them.

Recognize them.

Correct what undermines them.

And then do all of that again.

And again.

And again.

A great work culture isn't created in one big moment. It is created by is reinforcement in a thousand small ones.