Climate not culture
Sometimes (organisational/team) culture and climate are used interchangeably as if they referred to the same thing but they don’t, although they are connected. Culture has many definitions. One of our favourites is Hofstede’s
Simply said, culture is how you were raised. It developed while you grew up. With a computer metaphor, culture is the software of our minds. We need shared software in order to communicate. So culture is about what we share with those around us. (Hofstede, 2021)
It follows that organisational/team culture is rich, deep, emergent, hard to describe and usually quite resistant to change.
If culture is the reality of what goes on, climate is people’s perception of that reality. Climate is what you sense when you join a team for the first time and think ‘This is great, lots of energy and ideas’ or ‘Wow, this feels bad, there’s a lot that not’s being said. Not sure I want to be here.’
Climate is the mood of your team or organisation. It is much less deeply embedded than culture, more responsive to events and can be more easily changed.
A healthy climate is one in which team members can be themselves, are able to bring their unique strengths forward, and feel comfortable asking questions, sharing ideas, challenging the status quo and disagreeing with one another’s points of view. In other words, it’s an environment where team members feel valued, respected and safe. (Bendaly, 2019)
In our canvas we suggested five questions you might want to consider when thinking about the team climate you have and the climate that you might want.
- What expectations do team members have of each other?
- How does your team manage sensitive discussions and confidentiality?
- How well do your team members collaborate?
- How comfortable are team members in expressing their own opinions?
- How well does your team handle conflicts?
Building blocks of climate
There are several models that seek to identify the different building blocks of climate. Ekvall’s (1996) approach is particularly appropriate for the arts and culture as it focuses on the 10 dimensions of a creative climate; nine are positive and one negative.
| Dimensions | High | Low |
| Positive | ||
| 1. Challenge: emotional involvement of members in the team’s work | People experience joy and find meaning in their work.
They invest energy in the team’s work. |
People feel indifferent and alienated. Little interest in work. Apathetic. |
| 2. Freedom: independent behaviour
|
People make contacts and share information, discuss problems, and explore alternatives, decisions are taken. | People are passive, rule bound and anxious to stay within established boundaries |
| 3. Idea support: how are new ideas are treated | New ideas are received in an attentive and supportive way. People listen and encourage each other. Opportunities to try out new ideas are created. Atmosphere is constructive and positive. | ‘No’ is the common response. Suggestions are immediately ‘shot down’. Fault finding and obstacle raising are the usual response to ideas. |
| 4. Trust and openness: emotional safety in relationships | Strong levels of trust. New ideas can be put forward without fear of ridicule or reprisal in case of failure. Communication is open and straightforward. | Mutual suspicion and people are afraid of making mistakes, of being exploited or having their good ideas taken by others. |
| 5. Dynamism/liveliness: eventfulness in the life of the team | New things are happening all the time. Approaches change.
‘Full speed’ |
Slow pace with no surprises. Nothing new happens.
“Same old, same old’ |
| 6. Playfulness and humour: spontaneity and ease of display | Relaxed atmosphere with jokes and laughter. | Gravity and seriousness. Atmosphere is stiff and gloomy. Humour is inappropriate. |
| 7. Debates: occurrence of encounters and clashes between viewpoints, ideas and differing experience and knowledge | Many voices are heard and people are keen to put forward their ideas. | People follow authoritarian patterns without questioning. |
| 8. Risk taking: tolerance of uncertainty | Decisions and actions are prompt and rapid. Opportunities are taken and experimentation is preferred to detailed investigation and analysis. | People want to be ‘on the safe side’. Lots of committees. People protect themselves before taking decisions. |
| 9. Idea time: amount of time people can and do use of developing new ideas. | It is possible to discuss and test new ideas that were not part of the original plan. | Back to back meetings. No time for serendipity. Time pressure makes thinking outside established routines impossible. |
| Negative dimension | ||
| 10. Conflicts: presence of personal and emotional tensions (not conflicts between ideas) | People dislike each other. Gossip, slander and briefing behind people’s backs are common. ‘It’s like a war zone.’ | People are mature, have self-knowledge, insight, and control of their impulses. |
You could use these ten dimensions in a number of ways to explore your current team climate and identify areas where you want to work together to change things.
- Discuss climate together using the dimensions as prompts
- Invite team members to reflect on each dimension, rating the current climate on a high to low scale. Use the results of this poll to kick off a discussion about what is working and what you might want to change.
- Ask others not on your team (e.g. colleagues, collaborators) to offer you some feedback around these dimensions. You could do this via an anonymous online survey.
- Invite an external facilitator to design and run a session for your team to explore these dimensions in more depth.
We’ll be rounding off our foray into teams next week by sharing a few of the common team development/dynamics models. If you love a good framework do take a look!
Susan and Dawn
References
Bendaly (2019) Want a healthier team climate? https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolebendaly/2019/05/20/want-a-healthier-team-climate-five-things-leaders-must-do/?sh=208248b9e6a1
Ekvall, G. (1996). Organizational Climate for Creativity and Innovation. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology , 5(1): 105-123
Geert Hofstede (2021) at https://geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-hofstede/definition-culture/