Lead Smart

CHAPTER 8Lead productive cultures

When I wrote Smart Teams in 2018, I concluded that productivity was more than just a set of personal skills and strategies. For sustained productivity to truly exist for a team, the individuals in the team need to work in cultures that don't just support productivity, but allow it to flourish. I identified three distinct productivity cultures, which are the team's:

• communication culture
• meeting culture
• collaboration culture.

My premise was that when these cultures are healthy, productivity flourishes, and when they are unhealthy, they languish.

As is the way when writing books, soon after publication I realised that my theory was incomplete. There is a fourth culture that is crucial to team productivity: the team's urgency culture. Many organisations I work with have highly reactive cultures, and this also kills productivity. This led to me write Urgent! in 2020 to complete my thinking on productivity cultures. Except, of course, my thinking was not complete, as another ingredient is required to create sustainable productivity cultures: leaders who buy into the approach and lead productive cultures. So, here we are.

As I said previously, I cannot think of a more impactful thing that a leader can do than to increase the capacity of their team, and allow them to excel in their roles in a way that supports their balance and wellbeing. Beyond how you interface with your team, this involves helping them to work with each other, and with all of ...