The Power of Team Culture

I always knew that team culture was important, but only recently have I become aware of its super powers.

The team at Sentia Early Learning has been on a journey for the past five years to build a positive team culture.  These are the key ingredients that create our highly functioning team:

1.       Mutual Accountability – Once goals, frameworks and policies are clearly defined, all that is left is putting them into practice.  Leaders are not omnipresent.  Therefore, it comes down to every single team member to ensure these are embedded in daily practice.  Educators are encouraged to ZAP each other (zero avoidance policy) and hold each other accountable. That is hard for us. Early Childhood Educators are generally a collection of gorgeous humans who love to love – empaths who avoid confrontation at all costs.  Only in stepping outside of our comfort zones for the sake of children and best practice to challenge each other in the moment (if you see it, call it) can excellence flourish.

2.       Open Door Policy – Staff need to know that they are heard and supported.  As a leader, an open-door policy can be challenging to enforce amidst a mountain of paperwork. However, wise leaders make the time to sit and coach and have learned how to avoid taking the proverbial ‘hot potato’ – the issue at hand. Our role is to help staff recognise the next steps they need to take and to workshop words to get them started.  You help no one by solving problems for your staff.

3.       Transparency – no one is above reproach.  Even leaders regularly seek feedback about how they can better support staff.  Everyone within the team—no matter their role – takes responsibility for mistakes.  This helps create a flat structure where everyone and everything is out in the open.

Some unexpected benefits of a transparent and accountable team culture have emerged for us:

Child Safety:  It was such a light bulb moment when our team embraced the Victorian Child Safe Standards and realised that the points above are our greatest safeguard against organisational harm to children.  Open, confronting and transparent communication quickly exposes and weeds out any bad apples.

Staff Retention:  This kind of challenging, yet positive work environment leads to growth and development.  When staff are challenged and growing, they tend to stick around.  Who doesn’t want to work in a team environment defined by clear expectations, good communication and the sound of laughter? A positive team culture is just one of the reasons that our organisation is proud to boast average tenure of five years plus.

Leadership:  The truth is that once the hard work is done to embed positive team culture, only minor course corrections are needed from the Leadership Team.  The hard work up front pays off in spades over the years.  Once a strong team culture is established, you recruit strategically and any new team member quickly and easily moulds to the shape of the prevailing team.  It really does make our job as leaders a whole lot easier.

For further reading, I highly recommend this VPSC handbook on  Organisational Culture.

In summary, the importance of team culture just cannot be overrated.  Do the hard work early and everyone will reap the rewards…. Especially our beautiful children.