Oct 2024 How to Build a Strong Work Culture & Retain Your Top Employees
Why do some businesses and sports teams have great cultures and long-term team members?
Dan Coyle found when researching this topic for his book, ‘Culture Code’, that the main reason great companies retain staff for longer is they satisfy their team’s innate human need for belonging and purpose. Culture is built on relationships, connectedness, growth, and a shared goal.
Culture, like any relationship, is built up over time through everyday moments. Shaping your company’s culture hinges less on big moments and more on those seemingly mundane interactions your team has with you, with one another, in the office and on site.
Build Belonging
Building belonging is about creating a safe environment where team members can feel connected, valued, supported, and safe to fail. To build a strong culture, leaders must build genuine relationships that signal to team members that they are connected, safe, and share a future.
Two great sporting coaches who are beloved by team members for giving honest feedback and showing that they care about every team player are Gregg Popovich, the legendary coach of the San Antonio Spurs, and Wayne Bennett, the legendary NRL coach. Both Gregg and Wayne share belonging as a priority.
Popovich goes out of his way to make his team feel seen and known. Whether it’s mock wrestling with a player twice his size, hosting a private dinner with the team after a tough loss, or asking about a player’s child, his small, everyday interactions show his team that he values them as complex human beings. Every interaction shows them he cares. Bennett has a similar approach.
As a leader, your goal should also be to assist team members to form relationships, trust each other and feel like a unified team. What I read wasn’t anything surprising as we all know this from our interactions with teammates in sporting clubs and from our experience with building friendships.
Listening to employees and showing them you care by asking about their lives outside work, planning their goals with them, and showing them they are part of a company with shared vision and goals are key to building belonging.
Encourage a culture where all employees feel safe to express their opinions, ideas, and concerns.
Sharing Vulnerability
Vulnerability is not about touchy-feely moments; it’s about showing your team that you are not perfect and you have flaws.
One of the ideas around this is sharing your screw ups. As the leader, your team respect you and your experience, and will respect you more when you share that you f..ked up.
Another important role is asking for, and providing, feedback and support.
Share the truth on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities on a project and offer to work on them together. ‘Here’s where we failed (all of us) and what we could have done better.’ This supports a culture of learning and progress, not perfection.
Establishing Purpose
Leaders should get employees on the same page when it comes to questions of what are we about, what we stand for, and where we are headed.
The major goal of a business is to maximise human effort toward a shared vision. When a culture is strong, the team focuses on a shared purpose or mission which is the daily activity that allows a company to build and move toward its vision.
Purpose keeps employees united to not only work together toward a vision but also to support each other in the process.
Stop a Toxic Attitude
There should be zero tolerance for jerks because they will diminish the team performance considerably. So regardless of a jerk’s skillset, do not tolerate a person with a toxic attitude (unless he or she will change immediately). Removing such a person sends a great message to the team that you support them and that you won’t tolerate such a person’s attitude.
Building a strong culture is something we all know is critical in developing a strong business from year to year and imperative to retaining your good team members for much longer.