1. Review your team culture documents
Your team culture documents could be anything from a line or two in your vision or mission statement, or a section of the HR manual. Culture is distinct from rules, standards, and SOPs. They overlap, but culture is breathed and inhabited, while SOPs are checked off and rules are obeyed. Focus on the things that are not spelled out step by step.
2. Set aside time to recall great teams you’ve been on
Our most common starting framework for building teams and developing culture-driven brands are experiences with previous teams. Those could include any range of sports teams like neighborhood pickup games or sponsored teams in school, Girl or Boy Scouts, University Groups, Choir, PTA, Bowling Leagues, or a 4-person Tough Mudder team dressed in T-Rex costumes. If it involved two or more people and had a focus and goal it counts. What made the best of those groups so unique, cohesive, and memorable?
3. Describe your dream team
On a sheet of paper or your journal, describe your dream team. The only rule here is that you can’t use corporate buzzwords or business terms. Instead, describe the nature of the relationships between team members.
Here are some examples to get started.
- Supportive
- Honest
- Loyal
- Themselves
- Present
- Like Family
- Vulnerable
- Optimistic
- Protective of each other
- Transparent