Arch inspire: Your Culture In This Climate
When planning your culture in this current climate it’s important to know:
As an SME, we understand the importance of company culture within our business.
In this exclusive guest blog, our partner Arch inspire outline important factors to consider for analysing your business’s culture.
GUEST BLOG FROM ARCH INSPIRE
Given the scale of change millions of companies world-wide are facing, we are getting a stronger sense of what drives and matters most in the way companies are looking after their clients, teams and individual employees. We are seeing the strength and depth of company culture in a new light.
As we know building and developing culture is not a one-off event. Culture develops, changes, adapts and evolves over time. In my consulting work, I support clients to develop their focus on all aspect of culture and core to this is really engaging teams and individuals to step up, engage, take accountability and responsibility to help shape and define the culture at company and team level – this has to start with strong and authentic leadership to help teams and individuals feel valued, trusted and listened to with the reassurance that their views and ideas will be considered seriously and included where-ever possible.
One of the workshops I run with clients focuses on creating a one-page Culture proposition. This workshop enables teams to really get involved in reviewing, shaping and evolving their team and company culture – this focus also greatly informs their key marketing and branding messages. We work together by capturing how they currently demonstrate and evidence their collective attitudes, skills and knowledge against 9 core culture elements, what they want to develop and what they want to remove. The 9 key areas we focus on are as follows:
-WHAT WE ARE KNOWN FOR
-HOW WE WORK AS A TEAM
-HOW WE GROW AND DEVELOP
-THE BEHAVIOURS WE LIVE BY
-HOW WE DEMONSTRATE THESE BEHAVIOURS
-HOW WE CELEBRATE SUCCESS AS A TEAM
-HOW WE DEAL WITH AND LEARN FROM MISTAKES
-OUR TEAM VALUES AND BELIEFS
-WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY ABOUT US
In order to help support you to focus on your team and company culture, I have selected 3 from the above to:
- Give you some key questions you can use to develop and explore each area further
- Prompt you to start to consider how your current culture is helping you through this time and what you’d like to start, stop and continue in respect of each area
- Challenge you to focus on how you can share your culture with your clients – and specifically what you want to be known and valued for at this time
TEAMWORK
-How do we actually work as a team?
-What do we do that actually makes us a team?
-How do we work best together?
-How have we specifically supported each other during this time – how have we made a difference to each other?
-What do our clients know and understand about teamwork in our company?
-What have we learnt about each other during this time?
-What one thing do we want to start to enhance our team-working?
GROWING AND DEVELOPING
-What do we do to actually develop together?
-When was the last time we invested the time to learn something new as a team?
-How much do we understand about how we like to learn as a team?
-How have we been resilient as a team over the last 3 months?
-How do we want to grow and develop right now?
-What ideas do we have to develop further in respect of our team attitudes, skills and knowledge?
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY ABOUT US
-How do we specifically review client feedback and what do we do with it?
-How would our clients describe what we are like to work with?
-Would we recommend our company to a family member and if so why?
-What would our clients say we stand for?
-How have we looked after and communicated with our clients at this time?
-How have we reassured our clients during this time and what more can we do?
-What more can we do to help clients understand our core values and beliefs as a company?
Given that many companies are not returning in full to their offices or premises for some time to come, consider how you can start to focus on using some of these key questions now in virtual team meetings, team sessions and 121 discussions.
I am currently coaching Leaders to lead in a calm, considered, collaborative and consistent way particularly during this time. The more we can engage our teams and clients, the more we will be valued and really remembered for what we did to help each other and our clients in 2020 and beyond.
Take the time to invest in the areas I have shared with you above and do get in touch if you’d like any support.
Arch inspire
Rachael Hurdman is the founder and Director of Arch inspire. She works as a Coach and Consultant in business and personal growth, leadership and executive coaching and mentoring, management and sales skills training and development and team, culture and talent development. Email rachael@archinspire.co.uk if you’d like to discuss this article further.
EDGE Creative
At EDGE Creative, we understand the importance of teamwork, feedback, growing and development, which is what makes EDGE such an exciting place to work. If you are interested in joining our team, place send your CV to info@edge-creative.com or view our current vacancies on our about us page.
