Leading High-Performance Teams For Dummies

Chapter 12

Understanding Company Culture and How It’s Established

IN THIS CHAPTER

Describing the core elements that shape team culture

Detailing how culture influences performance and drives business outcomes

Viewing leaders as thermostats by examining how leadership sets the cultural temperature

Culture is a word that gets thrown around a lot when in discussions of teamwork and performance. But what does it really mean? Is it just a “vibe” you get at a particular company? What makes a company culture healthy or toxic? What makes one company thrive and another one struggle? Does culture happen organically, or does it depend on careful planning and execution?

I find that the simplest definitions are usually the best, so I like to define culture as “the predictable beliefs and behaviors among any defined group of people.” Culture can be national (for example, Japanese culture, Italian culture, or American culture), regional (the fast-paced culture of the Northeast United States versus the comparatively laid-back culture of the West Coast), or based on identity (for example, Millennial culture, Jewish culture, Deaf culture, male-dominated culture), or personality, industry, education, ...