Team culture is universally accepted as one of the main cornerstones of any organization today. But mang orgs fall short of the lofty promises they make.

Culture is said to be one of the hardest things to build and sustain in a company. This viewpoint exists partially because it is a people dependent undertaking and partly due to the fact that it is an ongoing endeavor, one that never ceases. But we sometimes overestimate how long it takes to bring about a cultural shift with the right mindset and leaders.

A few things I have learnt in my professional career so far about building and sustaining a team’s culture.

• Know what your values are. Be honest about them first to yourself and then to your team. The only thing worse than not investing in culture is believing one set of values while endorsing another set in the daily course of work.
• Reiterate frequently. Without consistent repetition, it will not be ingrained in the daily life of the average employee.
• Back up your words with action. Seek out and endorse examples of the desirable behavior.
• Similarly identify and discourage actions that are not aligned with the kind of team you are trying to build. The crucial moments in shaping culture lie in those instances when we stand up for the values we advocate at the cost of another significant business goal. That is how we communicate to the broader team the importance of our value system.
• The larger the organisation, the more critical it is to ensure that all levels of leaders from top executives to senior developers are aligned with the company’s culture. That they understand the values, what they mean to the enterprise’s future and why.
• Periodically retrospect and improve the values according to the present times. A value system that needs to be broken down in order to evolve is an indication that it was not principled in the right way to begin with.
• Finally, culture is always shaped by conscious deliberate action. It can never be left to chance.