Three Common Traps Costing Your Culture
Every team has a culture, whether leaders notice it or not. Yet most treat it like a luxury, something to focus on once the “real” work is done.
The truth is, culture is already shaping your team, whether you intend it or not. And the traps leaders fall into are often subtle, but costly.
“We don’t have time for this”
There’s a quiet lie in leadership circles.
It sounds responsible, efficient, even disciplined.
We don’t have the time…
Yet, in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, we learned before Mike Vrabel spoke a word of X's and O's, he shared his 4 H's: History, Heartbreak, Heroes, and Hopes. And every member of the team and staff would have the same opportunity to tell their story.
On the other sideline, his Super Bowl counterpart built something similar into the calendar. One hour a month. Players breaking into small groups.
Sometimes they would talk football. But they would also talk about life. And their journeys to getting where they are.
As Cooper Kupp described it:
"It was getting to know each other. You learn how people see the game. You learn how people saw life, how people react to adversity that they’ve been going through, and it was so cool to be able to learn from your teammates and go through moments with them.”
Rec league or the NFL, teams are made up of humans. And humans want to belong. At the highest levels of sport, they are making time for it.
“We should just copy other successful cultures”
Coaching is a copycat industry. The best coaches are constantly studying other programs. And every year, we’re told about the latest “culture” that powered a championship run. (Notice who I just referenced above.)
But culture isn’t something you can take off the shelf. At its core, culture begins with understanding who you are:
What do we stand for?
How do we want to operate together?
What gives us our edge?
Those answers can’t be copied overnight. In fact, part of what makes culture powerful is that it is unique or distinctive.
The best leaders don’t impose culture or copy it. They help their teams discover it and shape it. And eventually, take ownership of it.
“We need to win now, then I can focus on culture”
This is the quieter fear underneath the conversation. How long will this take? When will we see results? When the reality is, there is no neutral, your culture is already impacting your performance
Everything you do as a leader shapes the culture of the team. Every standard you reinforce, every behavior you ignore, every story you repeat, every meeting you rush through or slow down. You are constantly sending messages: this is who we are, this is how we do things around here.
Culture isn’t a project with a finish line. It is always evolving, either being reinforced by your habits or slowly drifting through neglect.
Every team has a culture, whether you are working on it or not. So the real question isn’t: Should we focus on culture?
Instead the question is: Is the one we're building bring out our best?
