6 minute read
The greatest threat facing your company and your team is not competition but your lack of intention to build your culture on purpose. Without a culture of curiosity, your team may become stagnant, resistant to change, and less innovative, ultimately leading to a decline in business performance.
I once had a conversation with a local startup founder who (by all accounts) was “crushing it.” When I asked about culture, he gave me a response that, to this day, I find to be surprising, if not borderline ridiculous.
He said, and I quote, “Culture is not something we think about. At 500 people and growing, our team is just too small to worry about it; in a year or two, when we are larger, it will be worth it then.”
I was borderline speechless and proceeded to be curious and ask a few probing questions to learn more. I run the risk of revealing my source by sharing more, so if you want to know about the conversation, pop me a note. I’m happy to chat.
As leaders, managers, and founders, we all have a choice: Do we purposely create a culture or let it take its own path? Trust me when I say that you will have an organizational culture no matter what you do. But the more deliberate you can be about it, the higher the chance you can build a resilient business with the team you need to reach your collective goals.
Creating a culture of curiosity starts with intention, a personal belief that it will be beneficial, and the self-awareness to lead by example and give your team the time and space to practice it until it becomes second nature and engrains your company’s culture. In my opinion, this starts with the following three key factors:
- Psychological safety
- Emotional intelligence
- Creating space and taking time
Psychological safety is creating an environment where everyone feels safe expressing their thoughts, asking questions, and sharing ideas without fear of judgment or negative consequences.
If you’re not sure if your culture is psychologically safe, start by asking yourself and your colleagues these questions:
- Does your team feel free to speak up?
- Do you have a ‘no such thing as a bad question’ policy?
- Do people often dissent from the group and are willing to ask why?
- Are mistakes treated as learnings, or are they treated like events to avoid?
When you consider yourself a leader, what behaviour do you model with your team? Saying you believe in failure and then holding yourself to a different standard will always leave a powerful message to your team. Remember, your actions speak louder than your words, and you have the power to influence the culture of your organization.
“Always be aware of your attitude; actions speak louder than words.”
Emotional intelligence is understanding and managing your emotions and using this awareness to navigate social interactions more effectively and with reduced friction. The following questions can help you identify the level of emotional intelligence in yourself and your organization.
- Are you aware of your triggers?
- Are you able to catch yourself when you get triggered?
- Do you listen to understand, or do you listen to respond?
- Are your teams’ personal experiences and responses valued or dismissed?
- Do you reflect on your reactions and responses and make adjustments for next time?
- Do you believe your thoughts and feelings on a topic are fixed or flexible?
Creating space and taking time does not mean carving out a particular time for curiosity or holding a curiosity session. It means giving your team that extra moment to think and to question without shutting it down.
- Is your team always rushing to the next meeting?
- Do you have a thinking culture or a doing culture? (Hopefully, you have a bit of both)
- Do any of your KPIs involve coming up with no ideas or questioning the status quo?
- As a leader, do you model taking a few minutes at every meeting to allow everyone to be heard–not just the talkers?
- Does your team know it will be supported if they come to you for more time on a project? This is not about missing deadlines but about letting people know where you are well before the deadline.
So much of this may sound like common sense, but as we all know, common sense is rarer than we might think. It has been my experience that, like so many aspects of curiosity and, in this case, how it relates to culture, how you show up as a leader will set the tone for how your team engages with you and each other.
The leader I referenced in the first paragraph’s tale didn’t get a happy ending. Their company struggled and stalled in growth mode, which resulted in a mass exodus of unhappy team members. You get the culture you create; in their case, they got the one they ignored.
Stay Curious!