Culture Isn’t Only Vibes

Ever feel like your company's culture is mostly nebulous and hard to define? You know it’s there, but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is or how it got that way. Many leaders and teams talk about culture as a "vibe" or an unspoken feeling. They have a brilliant vision for what their culture should be - innovative, collaborative, autonomous - but they struggle with the day-to-day reality, where meetings are chaotic and communication is confusing. This chasm between the ideal state and the current state is a common challenge, and it’s where many well-intentioned cultural initiatives fall short.

Culture isn't a magical, mystical force; it's the operational reality. It is the sum of every email sent, meeting held, and unspoken rule followed. And yes, sometimes the unspoken rules have more impact on culture than the beautifully crafted team vision statements. When a team fails to address bad habits or define clear processes, a negative culture can form by default. The problem isn't always lack of vision, but a lack of a clear, actionable path to get there.

So, how do you bridge that gap and move from an abstract vision to a tangible, thriving culture? You give it a structure. Our work with leaders and teams revolves around helping them clarify their current state and articulate a clear path to their ideal future state. To do this, we often use what we’ve named our TENs Process - a process for articulating Traditions, Expectations, and Norms. It’s a process that can transform a cultural vision into a set of living, breathing practices - rooted in reality.

The TENs Process: A Blueprint for Creating the Culture You Want

The TENs process provides a blueprint for how a team will operate, helping them to define their identity and how they want their organization to function. It’s a simple practice, broken down into three key elements:

• Traditions are the established practices or rituals that create a sense of continuity and belonging. They are the "how we do things here" that build team cohesion. This could be anything from a weekly "Wins and Lessons" ritual at the start of a meeting to a team-wide celebration for a project launch. Traditions reinforce positive behaviors and make the team feel more connected.

• Expectations are the clear, accountable guidelines for behavior and performance that every team member is responsible for upholding. Unlike norms, expectations come with explicit accountability. For example, a team might establish an expectation that every meeting agenda must have a clear purpose and a designated owner for each discussion point. The accountability measure might be that after three meetings that don’t include these requirements a leader would lose the authority to call meetings until they’ve received approval from their supervisor. This approval would be granted after submitting the meeting purpose and discussion point owner in advance.

• Norms are the culturally ingrained ways of operating - the unspoken or informal behaviors that shape how things are typically done without formal accountability. Norms are the silent drivers of culture. An example of a positive norm is everyone staying off their phones during team meetings. A negative norm might be that it's normal to interrupt the team leader, which can derail meetings and frustrate others. The TENs process helps teams surface these unspoken rules and decide which ones to keep and which ones to change.

Here are a just a few of our favorite topics we encourage teams to take through the TENs process:

• Meetings

• Communication

• Employee Recognition

• Document Storage

• Tech Stack

• OOO Practices

• Data Reporting/Storytelling

• New Team Member Onboarding

Bringing TENs to Life

Implementing the TENs process is an active, collaborative exercise. As a team, you brainstorm specific topics that impact your work, like "employee recognition" or "communication protocols." Then, for each topic, you define and document the traditions, expectations, and norms that currently exist or that you want to establish. This process turns a vague desire for a better culture into a series of actionable, agreed-upon principles.

For example, a team that is struggling with communication might start with that as their topic. They would discuss their current communication norms - the constant stream of emails, a reliance on instant messages for major decisions, or a lack of clarity in directives. Then, they'd use the TENs framework to design their ideal communication culture. They might establish an expectation that all project updates must be shared in a single, defined platform to avoid confusion. A new tradition could be a weekly "15-minute huddle" where team members briefly share their priorities for the week. The norm might become that all team members are encouraged to ask clarifying questions without fear of judgment.

By engaging in this process, the team leader gains clarity on their own expectations, and the team gains a shared understanding of how to hold each other accountable and work together more effectively. In taking teams through this process, we have seen leaders realize that their teams were frustrated because the leader’s expectations were never clearly articulated or that they were the only one operating outside of the norms. The TENs process forced this much-needed clarity, and provided a path for growth.

A Sustainable Strategy for Cultural Change

Culture isn't a one-time workshop, it's a living entity that requires continuous engagement. Developing a strong culture doesn't happen overnight, and we encourage our clients to commit to a process of continuous articulation and revision. By working through each aspect of their team's operations using the TENs framework, they draft a clear plan for reaching their ideal state. This includes committing to revisiting their defined traditions, expectations, and norms, and making adjustments as needed.

Ultimately, keeping close tabs on an organization's culture requires a deep commitment to the very processes that shape the employee experience. We believe teams must spend significant time working through these critical aspects and continuously updating them to ensure their culture remains intentional and aligned with their goals.

Are you ready to stop wishing for a better culture and start building one? We would love to engage with you, either to help share how you could lead this process with your team or to be part of taking your team through this important work.