Building the right culture in your team can be a major challenge as a manager and will have a huge impact on your team effectiveness. Having shared my experience with negative culture and my thoughts on its causes in Part I, now it's time to look forward.
Having realized that my previous way of managing was not enough, I knew I had to change. Through reflecting, reading and getting useful advice from great mentors, things finally started to improve. I am still learning and have a long way to go, but overall I feel I'm moving in the right direction. The following steps have helped me to get there:
Get more experienced in my role
The first and most obvious improvement will happen to anyone being a manager for the first time: Even though it very likely will be hard, challenging and tiring in the beginning, the learning curve will be steep and things will get easier over time. I started to understand the company's processes better and was able to answer questions more reliably. When an employee left the team, often I had to be the one to temporarily fill the gap by myself - this helped me to better understand everyone's actual job scope and gave me a better understanding of the problems my team members were facing.
Improve clarity of job descriptions
When hiring my first employees, job descriptions in the job ad were still quite general. Through better understanding the actual work processes and having realized that some employees had different expectations of the work than what was communicated during the hiring process, I learned that it's better to make job descriptions as clear as possible and also walk the interviewee through them, so they get a clear understanding of how the role will actually look like. That also means, as the manager you need to have a concept of how the job actually is done and which skills are really needed to do it successfully. That being said, it's also very important to still hire a candidate who is open for change and willing to also take on new tasks - especially in a young company, job scopes will often change over time, it's unlikely that all tasks of an employee will stay exactly the same over several years.
Hire not only for skills, but also for cultural fit
In the beginning, for me hiring mainly meant filling an open position. I wanted to make sure the new colleague has the experience to do the job well, and I didn't want the vacancy to be open for too long. What I didn't realize yet at the time was that who you hire for your team has one of the highest direct impacts on the team culture and success of you as a manager. Every new employee joining the company will change your culture in a certain way - big or small, positive or negative. Therefore, hiring people who, besides having the necessary skills, will also bring the right culture to the company and fit into the existing team has a very high importance. As one of my favorite authors, Simon Sinek, has said beautifully:
Involving current employees in hiring/training process
Another approach I started doing is to let potential hires get to know our current team members in advance, without me being present. When I think a candidate is suitable during the interview, I will ask ~2 team members to also spend 5-10 mins talking to him/her, and ask for their feedback afterwards. This has two advantages: The current team members can already see if they would want to work with this candidate, and also the candidate can evaluate if this is a team he/she wants to be part of. If the current employees give a positive comment to the potential newcomer, this is a good sign and already a small commitment that they want to work together with him/her, which will make the on-boarding and integration in the team more smooth. During on-boarding I also involve current team members in the training of the new hire whenever possible, so they already can get familiar with working together and supporting each other from the beginning.
Clear and positive on-boarding process
When new employees are joining your team, it is important to make them feel welcome right from the start. Setting up and testing all equipment in advance, preparing the desk including a welcome note, informing all colleagues in advance, creating the on-boarding plan and blocking my day for a personal office tour, company introduction and a common lunch is important to give newcomers a good first start.
The on-boarding process also is used to reinforce the culture you want to build. For anyone coming to a new environment, they usually want to know how they can be successful and what are the expectations for them. I have a dedicated session to talk with a newcomer again about the job description and expectation for this role, and we set the expectations on how we want to work and communicate together. As a manager, I am responsible that he/she can work well and effectively in this company, and I am taking this responsibility seriously.
Regular 1on1 with all team members
After clarifying expectations in the beginning, it's important to regularly check in with your team members. I have established regular, bi-weekly 1on1s with my team for three years now, which has been a great way to build both a better relationship with everyone as well as a better overall team culture. If I observe any conflict or problem which I don't need to address immediately, having a regular set date gives a good opportunity to speak about it. Having a set meeting date without a fixed agenda also lowers the pressure for employees to approach the manager, which can be difficult sometimes. It is okay to bring any kinds of topics to the meeting, may it be issues they are currently facing or any sort of questions. Like this, I often can notice upcoming issues in the team quite early and can address them.
Besides sharing my observations from the last weeks and identifying and addressing current issues, these meetings are also an effective way to build trust. If a problem is raised by my team members, I will do my best to solve it. Often, a simple discussion with another manager, a clarification with our HQ or a change request can already help. Sometimes it will take longer, some issues unfortunately cannot be solved by me - however, offering to listen, to understand and trying to help is the least thing a manager can do. If I can't resolve the problem, I will still let my colleague know what I did, and why it can't be changed for now.
In case we need to adjust any company processes which would affect my team members directly, these 1on1 also offer a good platform to collect their feedback, share the reason for the change and how the planned adjustment might affect them. Often it is hard to get a direct, honest comment in a big group meeting especially in Asian culture, but in this more personal setting, it is easier for employees to share their thoughts directly.
In my opinion, having regular 1on1 is the most important and basic thing a manager who takes their job as a leader seriously needs to implement. It's probably the action which had the biggest positive impact for me.
Make your employees feel safe and build trust
As outlined in Simon Sinek's book "Leaders eat last", it's important to make your employees feel that they are in a safe space, where they don't need to worry to make a mistake or to ask a certain question, and know they can be honest with me and each other. If an employee makes a mistake during their work (and that's okay, of course I make mistakes too), I will not get mad or criticize them, but will simply offer help to find a way to fix it and to understand how it can be avoided next time. Like this, we build a positive failure culture in our team, and employees don't need to try to hide something from their manager (which they might do if they are afraid). If a problem can be identified early, often it's possible to fix it rather easily.
If a question gets raised to me, I will answer it correctly - if that's not possible due to e.g. a confidential subject, I would also simply mention that. Sometimes in my 1on1 I was told a rumor or gossip and was asked if it's correct or not, which then helped me to recognize and clarify the situation. This shows me that some team members feel safe to raise also uncomfortable topics - unfortunately, often managers are the last ones to learn about this sort of grapevine talk and don't know what's going on.
I also don't make promises which I am not sure if I could keep, so employees know that what I say is something they can rely on. This is not easy and unfortunately I don't succeed all the time, but I will do my best to follow through with it. In my current company I have heard one important leadership principle many times, which is simple and also powerful:
"Do what you say, and say what you do."
All these actions are helping to build trust, of which you can't have enough in your team. Trust towards the manager, and also trust among each other, both are important indicators of a functioning group. Trust is the antidote to micro-managing. Once you have established it, it will make it easy to grant increasing flexibility and autonomy to your team members (as long as the overall goals and mandatory company guidelines are still fulfilled).
Getting a coach myself
Sometimes it is important to openly discuss problems with someone outside of your current organization who can help you with a new perspective and valuable advice. I have had two coaches in the past 4 years, to whom I have talked about my work experience and struggles, and who were able to ask me the right questions and push me in the right direction to overcome them. There are several situations in which my coach could help me to uncover the underlying reason of a certain ineffective behavior I had - only once I was aware of it, it was possible to overcome. I strongly believe only if you can manage yourself first you can manage others well, therefore I cannot recommend getting a coach highly enough.
Team building
Besides all of this, it's also important to provide an environment where your team, besides working hard and well, can also have time to relax. Team events outside of the workplace can be a great way to build a better atmosphere in the team, but need to be in combination with the other parts above - having team meetings in a company which is doing bad in most other areas won't fix anything.
Final thoughts on the topic
Looking back at my first steps as a manager now, there are many lessons I have learned over the years. These are my main learnings so far:
Get better through experience and regular reflections/coaching
Be clear and transparent during hiring process about role, culture and expectations
Plan onboarding process well to integrate new colleagues well into the team
Regular 1on1 meetings to communicate with and support your team members
Build trust with your team members and make them feel safe
Looking back, I believe that only through making mistakes I was able to learn and to see how doing things differently can lead to a better team culture in the long run. I am grateful for all these experiences, positive or negative, as they all have taught me valuable lessons. Usually the tougher the situation was, the more I was able to learn from it - after overcoming it. Being now in my fifth year in a management role, I am curious which learnings are awaiting me next (I am sure many are still yet to come).
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