Odds are you’ve daydreamed of either improving your company or team culture in some way. Maybe you even believe it needs a major overhaul. But does your company or team aspire to the same things you do? As we return to office and reorganize (is anyone out there NOT going through a major re-org?) now is the time to find out.

In The Long-Distance Team: Designing Your Team for Everyone’s Success, we offer help for leaders trying to involve their team in building an aspirational culture they can all succeed in. These steps are particularly helpful if you’re looking to alter an existing team’s way of thinking.

Pick your timing  

This process takes time and demands people give it some attention. Trying to gather information and assess where your team is won’t succeed if you’re in the middle of a re-org (the players aren’t in a particularly reflective mood, and might be changing.)  If you’re in the middle of hiring or bringing in a number of new people, you might want to wait until things calm down. Pick a time that people have sufficient mental bandwidth. Don’t involve your accountants if it’s tax season.

Communicate the reasons/Start the process  

Everyone needs to know why you are seeking a change and why it matters. They not only need to know why, but how you’ll go about gathering and processing the information before you even start.

Create a team

Determine who you want to involve in this process and what they bring to the table.

Paint the picture

Determine the team’s picture of a perfect working environment, and be able to articulate it clearly.

Socialize and revise

As you paint the picture, make sure people know about it and talk about it. You’ll probably get feedback that will help you edit, clarify and perfect the vision.

Finalize and formally communicate the vision

Once it’s been discussed, kicked around and finalized, it needs to become common knowledge and part of the air you breathe. Posters in the workplace, reminders during meetings, discussions during coaching conversations are needed to have everyone absorb, accept and buy in to the new way things are.

Refine microcultures

There may be small but important differences between functions or even sub-teams based on the job they do or the people who are on those teams. This is natural, but try and make these microcultures consistent with the bigger version (allowing for human beings to be human)

Operationalize the new way of doing things

Workflow, metrics, check-ins and processes should support the aspirational culture, not be barriers to everyone buying in.

Changing the way any group of people thinks and acts, and steering them in a new direction is hard. It can feel even more difficult when it’s an existing team and you’re “trying to fix the plane while it’s in the air.” It can be done, it just takes intention, time, patience and clear communication.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wayne Turmel
Co-Founder and Product Line Manager

Wayne Turmel is the co-founder and Product Line Manager for the Remote Leadership Institute. For twenty years he’s been obsessed with helping managers communicate more effectively with their teams, bosses and customers. Wayne is the author of several books that demystify communicating through technology including Meet Like You Mean It – a Leader’s Guide to Painless & Productive Virtual Meetings, 10 Steps to Successful Virtual Presentations and 6 Weeks to a Great Webinar. His work appears frequently in Management-Issues.com.

Wayne, along with Kevin Eikenberry, has co-authored the definitive book on leading remotely, The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership. Wayne and Kevin’s follow-up book, The Long-Distance Teammate, offers a roadmap for success not just for leaders, but for everyone making the transition to working remotely.

The latest book from Wayne and Kevin shows leaders how to design a team culture that has a one-team mindset and gets great results under hybrid-work conditions. You can order The Long-Distance Team: Designing Your Team for Everyone’s Success now.