Positive team culture is a powerful driver of business success which often gets overlooked as most leaders tend to focus on other important aspects such as performance management, metrics, and execution.
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“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” – Peter Drucker
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A great team culture isn't just a nice-to-have perk for employees.  It's the hugely powerful for a business impacting everything from employee engagement and productivity levels to innovative thinking, talent attraction/retention, and ultimately as businessowners, your bottom line.
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When teams operate in an uplifting environment, they are able to better channel their skills, passion, and discretionary effort to do their best work.  On the flip side, a dysfunctional, draining workplace saps motivation and creates a revolving door of turnover as people tend to flee due to this or if they do stay are unproductive.
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Building and sustaining a thriving culture is a continuous endeavour that starts from the top.  As a leader, are you interested in creating a culture to maximise the potential of your people and your business?  If so, here are some key initiatives for you to consider:
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· Vision and Values: define your desired culture and spell out organisational values that will shape behaviour and inspire everyone's best efforts.  Ensure these values ring true as you have to walk the walk - empty values aren't fooling anyone.

· Connect the Bigger Picture: help employees see how their individual roles fit into the broader organisational purpose and strategy.  An understanding of overarching goals, their role in that and ultimately accountability creates significance that boosts motivation and productivity.  Clarify the "why" behind priorities.

· Recognise, Appreciate and Empower: never underestimate the power of feeling valued, empowered and appreciated at work.  Establish formal and informal ways to celebrate wins, praise outstanding contributors, and demonstrate true gratitude for people's hard work.  Customise recognition to each individual to ensure it is genuine recognition don’t just say thanks all of the time for every little thing – be specific.  Empower people to take ownership and make decisions on the front lines as when teams feel trusted to drive outcomes autonomously, engagement soars.

· Create Open Dialogue: open lines of communication to breed trust and allow staff to proactively ask for ideas and provide feedback.  An environment where people are heard goes a long way.  We have implemented a software system which allows people to anonymously give feedback and express their opinions constructively which has been working well these past few years.

· Prioritise Their Development: whether this be through training, coaching, mentoring, or knowledge sharing – make sure you provide ample growth opportunities.  Foster an ethos of continuous learning and skill development so people are striving to learn, develop and take more responsibility rather than being stagnant.  Back this up with support and advice on their career path with you.

· Team Bonding: create and encourage opportunities for the team to connect and bond.  Foster an environment where people can build strong personal connections and enjoy their colleagues so that they are working for each other as a team.  This doesn’t need to be big flashy social events, in fact, smaller more regular spontaneous things to contribute to the culture usually have a bigger impact.
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A high-performing culture won't materialise overnight.  However, making it a focus for yourself and the team approach demonstrates your investment in people and transforms workplace culture from a buzzword into a competitive advantage.

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