Building Positive Team Culture: Insights and Actions for the New Year

What do you wish for your team in the year ahead? In this episode, we reveal the secrets to cultivating a vibrant team and uncover strategies to foster a positive team culture. We share real-life insights and wisdom that we’ve learned from our clients, and a few strategies to encourage you to elevate your team in the new year. Enjoy!

Building a Positive Team Culture

In our work over the last year, we’ve heard about the longing for better quality teams and better team dynamics. We’ve heard stories of progress or wanting more progress, how well teams are connecting, and how others feel a sense of longing or even loneliness. We’ve heard stories of gearing up for a year of more change and possibly more polarization. Throughout our conversations, we learned three things that teams wanted to practice in this new season to build a positive team culture.

1. Fostering Diverse and Inclusive Practices

One of the most important elements in building a positive team culture is in respecting and understanding each person’s unique perspective. Each person comes to a team with a vast history of lived experiences, meaningful relationships, and wisdom that comes from their unique culture, place of origin, and their family system. When we begin to fully embrace each person’s unique perspective, then we begin to practice what inclusivity and diversity actually means.

Creating a positive team culture where people feel free to express their past is key to understanding their perspective and how it shapes their behavior. This requires practice and creating an emotional feel where people know they will be accepted and valued for their unique perspectives.

2. Investing in Growth

Investing in individual and team growth is critical for positive team culture. It’s not just about attending workshops or engaging in professional development but also about cultivating a mindset open to feedback and self-improvement.

Make this year the year that you ask for help. How can you be a better team member and what is it that you need? Maybe this is the year that you’re going to get therapy or professional coaching. This is the year where you’re not just going to find a mentor, but you’re going to mentor someone else. Maybe this is the year where you find the right training or workshop.

Ask some of your trusted team members how you can be a better team member this year. What are some of the assets that you bring to your team that it wouldn’t be the same without? What are some things you could improve on?

3. Encouraging Work-life Alignment

Alignment is another way of inviting people into greater mindful awareness of what’s going on in their life. When you have a work life alignment mentality and you’re more mindfully aware, you’re more open to the things you can change that are incremental then making a drastic change to be ‘in balance’.

Striving for balance might be a misguided endeavor. Instead, aligning our professional lives with personal values can lead to greater fulfillment. This can be especially true in times of flux, such as holiday seasons, when the juggle between work demands and family life become most pronounced.

Your Team Culture

As the new year begins, we want to encourage you to focus on building a positive team culture through inclusivity, growth, and work-life alignment. We’d love to hear about your hopes and goals for your team culture. Connect with me at nathan@leadershipvisionconsulting.com.