Cultivating a Culture by Design!

July 2016

From the moment we step across the office threshold we become a part of the culture!  The dictionary defines culture as a way of life of a group of people–the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and behaviors. Every office culture is unique based on the culture they designed or allowed to happen by default. What we do and even what we don’t do creates our culture. If we aren’t cultivating a culture by design we will reap a culture by default.

I chose to use the word cultivate because of my farm upbringing and because it is a great analogy for how I work with teams. Cultivators are designed to disrupt the soil in careful patterns, sparing the crop plants but disrupting the weeds. Similarly I help teams cultivate their culture by maintaining what is good and positive while weeding out the weeds (adverse and negative). I am a culture cultivator! The focus of this message is cultivating a culture by design and references an article, “Five Performance and Accountability Standards to Help Your Team Soar,” that I wrote for the ADA’s 2015 book, “The ADA Practical Guide to Leading and Managing the Dental Team”.

Take a moment and think about your current office culture. Is there any drama, disorder or performance decline? Do any of the following team members and behaviors sound familiar?

The Drama Lover

Kelly makes mountains out of mole hills. Any schedule changes result in meltdowns. If Kelly is missing an instrument from her cassette, instead of just going and replacing it, she wastes time complaining to everyone. She often gossips about one co-worker to another. Kelly believes life doesn’t just happen, it happens to her! She always complains, whines, and criticizes co-workers, patients, family and, for that matter, anyone who crosses her path. Her ongoing drama lowers team morale and distracts everyone from focusing on the patients and the practice.

The Chaos Creator

Sam’s life is always in disarray. He’s almost always late and has an excuse. He overslept because the alarm clock stopped working and he didn’t have time to replace it. Or he didn’t allow adequate drive time because he didn’t check the weather or traffic. Or he was late dropping off the kids at school. Sam’s desk is a disaster, and he can’t find any of the charts or paperwork he needs when he needs them. He’s never prepared for meetings, and is always rushing around, stressed from trying to catch up. The team can no longer rely on him to do his job, and have lost trust and respect for him.

The Checked-out Employee

Georgia has been with the practice for 25 plus years. She was an exceptional employee the first 15 years, but her performance has been in a steady decline for the past ten. Georgia challenges any new ideas and refuses to adopt any change in standards or services. She often has an attitude of entitlement where she feels she deserves special treatment because of her longevity with the practice. She proudly describes herself as direct which really means she lacks a kindness/respect filter. What I refer to as cutting off at the knees. (If you cut someone off at the knees, you humiliate them, bully or force them to do what you want.) This makes others afraid to approach her. She may refuse to attend team functions, morning huddles or team meetings, and refuses to put in extra time in a crunch or do what she considers menial tasks. Her attitude and behavior affects the entire team’s performance level. The team starts to question why they have to adhere to standards if Georgia doesn’t.

If you recognize any of these employees or their poor behaviors…BREATHE…you’re not alone. Many offices struggle with undesirable behaviors – they are often unsure of what to do and don’t comprehend the toxic impact these behaviors can have on a practice. They affect communication, treatment acceptance, team work, work day enjoyment, stress levels, happiness, and more. Patient experience, team performance and the practice bottom line plummet. These behaviors are triggered and escalate from unclear and inconsistent expectations due to lack of culture standards.

Culture standards help eliminate the drama of who is right or wrong and get everyone rowing at a higher level on the same boat. Culture standards create clarity and structure. When there is clarity and structure the drama and confusion that often divides a team disappears. The opposite is true when there aren’t clear culture standards, assumptions, false expectations and differences of opinions run rampant. Every team member comes from a different background with unique and individual experiences. What they believe to be true is shaped by their personal experiences. These experiences create their personal truths, which is how they judge what is right and wrong. Drama, disorder and declining performance surface when there are different expectations of right and wrong due to lack of culture standards.

Have a team meeting to discuss what culture standards the team would like in their work environment. In essence, what will be the code of conduct for the practice? Create the standards together. Creating standards to work by creates clarity and helps the team to be accountable to a specific level of attitude, behavior and communication; the ABC’s of teamwork and performance.

Here are questions to ask the team that will help them create culture standards for the practice pertaining to attitude, behavior, and communication:

• What makes them happy that they want to see more of – list it as a to do
• What stresses them that they would like to stop – list what you can do to stop it – for example instead of stop gossiping, use support a gossip free culture
• What can they do to impact their co-workers and patients in a more positive manner
• How do they want the team to show up for work every day
• How can they support each other more
• How can they communicate more clearly, timely and positively with the team and patients

Once you have completed the culture standards list, print it, frame it and put it on display in your meeting room or wherever the team will see it most often. Review it at your team huddles and meetings, whenever you hire someone new and whenever someone’s behavior deems it necessary. It is important and necessary for the entire team including the doctor(s)to make a commitment to live and maintain the culture standards even when it is difficult or they don’t feel like it. If a team member chooses to not support the culture standards they are choosing to no longer be a part of that culture.

Cultivating a culture by design takes a commitment from the entire team to support and hold each other accountable to the culture standards!