💜 What is micro-culture?

Hello and happy Thursday!

If you’ve ever been part of an interview team, you’ve likely been asked, “What’s the culture like at your company?” At that moment you likely realized it’s not an easy question to answer! And now there’s another concept that has been growing in popularity over the past few years - micro-cultures.

But what exactly is micro-culture? And how much control do we have over them? This is the focus of one module of our Training for the Modern Manager program and it is personally one of my favorite topics to explore. In today’s newsletter we’ll discuss the responsibility that managers have to intentionally build the type of culture their team members want - and need - and how to get started.

If you’re intrigued by this idea of micro-cultures, keep reading! And consider adding this topic to your 2024 Team Retro and see if you can identify some focus areas for the new year.

Yours in crafting "want to work there" kinds of cultures,

Jill

P.S. If this is something that you and your managers want to learn more about, schedule a time to chat with me about it! I’m always happy to chat about how you intentionally build micro-cultures and can share more about our approach to supporting managers in building this critical skill set!

If you were to ask someone what the culture is like at their company, you might hear about things like happy hours, ping pong tables, or even a generous 401k. But really these things are perks, and don’t actually describe the company culture.

So how do we actually define what a culture is? Here are a few examples:

1. The formal definition of culture is “the shared assumptions, beliefs, norms and expectations that govern the way people approach their work and interact with each other.” Yeah - that’s a mouthful.

2. Katelin Holloway, former VP of People & Culture at Reddit and a leading voice in the People Ops field, defines culture as ”the beliefs, behaviors, and shared values of any community” which is a little easier to wrap your head around.

3. Finally, Marvin Bower, one of the founders of McKinsey & Company defines culture as “the way we do things around here.” Not only is it succinct, it’s accurate!

So now we have a better idea of what culture actually is, let’s go back to that ping pong table and explore how it could impact employee behavior, and in turn, company culture.

Scenario A: Employees believe that if you have time to play ping pong, you don’t have enough work to do. In turn, the ping pong table doesn’t get used very much and doesn’t represent anything about the company’s culture.

Scenario B: Taking breaks is considered a necessary part of creativity, and are encouraged by leadership. The ping pong table becomes a popular way for employees to clear their heads, and it becomes a valuable tool for helping them strengthen their working relationships while having a bit of fun. This says a LOT about the company culture.

We can all benefit from pausing to observe what’s going on around us at work, and explore what beliefs are guiding those behaviors. And it’s important to remember that the culture that exists right now is malleable and can be reshaped with intention.

Enter Microcultures

The micro-culture that exists in an employee’s team impacts their overall employee experience more than anything else - even the culture of the larger company. And managers get to create it! This is so exciting - and it can also feel like a lot of pressure. But here’s the thing - culture happens no matter what - it’s up to you to decide if you want to craft those behaviors and beliefs with intention. So stop here and think for a minute about how you’d describe the perfect dynamic for your team, and what the best version of your micro-culture looks like. This can be a really empowering exercise!

To ensure the team runs as smoothly as possible and all goals are achieved, it’s important to think about the five stages of team development, as defined by organizational psychologist, Bruce Tuckman. They are all necessary for a team to experience in order to learn how to work together efficiently.

Here is an example of how a manager might guide a team through these stages. Let’s say your goal is to foster a “kudos culture”, something we discussed in our last newsletter. 

Forming

You introduce the idea of a “kudos culture” to your team by creating an incentive to use the “shoutout” (or similar) feature in your tech suite. Employees are encouraged to give shoutouts a few times per month, and the person with the most is recognized at a team meeting at the beginning of following month. Everyone seems on board with this idea and likes the idea of giving (and receiving!) credit where it’s due.

Storming

After a few months, the number of kudos drops off as people start to feel like it’s a chore, or that they find themselves hard-pressed to find something worth praising. You hear from some folks that they appreciate the positive feedback, but would also like a similar way to give teammates constructive feedback. There are some employees who see the whole kudos idea as a waste of time and don’t participate.

Norming

You introduce a way to use the same technology to allow people to give both types of feedback - kudos, and constructive. Some find it difficult at first, but you encourage people to start by requesting constructive feedback from their peers. Once those on your team start to receive both types of feedback, they feel more comfortable giving it out. Feedback is also introduced as part of your performance review process, so leaders can hear from their direct reports’ peers about where they are excelling or could improve. This encourages participation from those who were less reluctant at the start.

Performing

Giving feedback, both positive and constructive, becomes a regular practice for those on your team. They praise each other regularly for big things, like giving a presentation that wows a client, and small things, like facilitating a meeting on your behalf so you could take a much-needed sick day. The flow of positive feedback makes those times when not-so-positive feedback is warranted a little easier to tackle. Employees know they are valued because of the positive feedback they receive, so they are more open to listening when something may need to be adjusted. This two-way cycle of feedback helps your team thrive and they are consistently improving their working relationships, which increases productivity and employee satisfaction.

Adjourning

This phase doesn’t always happen, but in this situation it could occur if a team has significant personnel changes, in which case the cycle would re-start with new members. 

The example above is just one way that managers can curate their team’s microculture, and how the five stages of team development can help you know what to expect. Maybe you want to foster a team culture where everyone feels comfortable respectfully disagreeing with one another to encourage creativity and battle groupthink. Or maybe it’s important to you to have a culture where employees are encouraged to speak up if they find themselves working more the 40-ish hours per week instead of grinding at all hours to get the work done. There’s a lot to consider, and a lot of opportunity for managers to create a the kind of micro-culture that employees want to tell their friends about!

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