“Culture” is often a loaded term and means many different things to different people in different contexts. In an organizational or team context, “culture” is often diminished as something for the HR team to worry about. Or perhaps it’s viewed as very important, as in the focus on building diverse, equitable and inclusive cultures. Here’s the truth: no matter how people view the term, as unimportant or all-important, and no matter how people interpret the word in their context, an organization’s or team’s “culture” is defined by the realities of “what’s it like to work around here.”
What’s it like to work around here? Who gets promoted? Who gets listened to? Who sits at the table? Who does most of the talking? How do decisions get made? Who makes them? How do people communicate? With whom and when? What happens when someone makes a mistake? What happens when something goes wrong? What, and who, gets celebrated? How do people interact?