• Agile & Scrum Basics

How does it actually feel here?

New year. New project. New job. New team. Either way, you join the very first meeting. And even before goals, strategy and methods are discussed, something else happens. You sense something: whether there is space, or edginess. Or pressure. Or caution. Or connection. Following the first article in which we introduced this series on culture, in this article we explore what that very first feeling tells you about the culture of the organization you (are) working with. Not to judge that culture as right or wrong, but to understand what that culture does to you.

I have made it a sport, as soon as I walk into an organization, to turn on my radar. What is happening here? What exactly is not happening here? How do people look at each other? What are they saying? And perhaps more importantly, how do they say it? You can see the answers to those questions in how people look at each other. In how decisions are made. In who speaks up and who doesn’t. In whether there is laughter. Or silence.

I have learned to take that first impression seriously. Not as a judgment, but as a signal. Because that feeling says a lot about the dominant characteristics of the culture in the organization. Or, simply put, about the answer to that first question: how does it feel here?

No corporate culture is necessarily right or wrong

When I coach teams, I often ask that how-does-it-feel-here question within the first ten minutes. Not out loud, but in my head. And almost always my first impression matches surprisingly well with what is made explicit later.

What strikes me about this: no culture necessarily feels “right” or “wrong. But every culture invites certain behaviors and discourages other behaviors. And exactly that is interesting. So the question is not: what culture do you have? The question is: what does that culture do to you?

Four ways you can feel a culture

Innovate & Discover, Perform & Win, Control & Secure and Collaborate & Connect. If you look along those four well-known culture values from the Competing Values Framework, you can roughly identify four different ways you can feel a culture. Here we go.

1. Innovate & discover

Here it feels light and agile. There is room to try things. You don’t have to know everything beforehand. That gives energy, especially if you like to take initiative. At the same time, it can also cause restlessness. Not everything is clear. Not everything is completed.

Ask yourself:

• Does this energize or stress you?
• What do you need to function well in this context?

2. Performing & winning

Here you feel sharpness. Goals are clear. There is delivery. That can be hugely motivating, especially if you like focus and results. But it can also feel like pressure. Like it’s never enough.

Ask yourself:

• Does this acuity help you move forward?
• Or do you find that learning and reflection fade into the background?

3. Managing & securing

Here it feels predictable. Appointments are clear. Roles are clear. That gives peace of mind and reliability. At the same time, it can also feel heavy. As if change always has to pass ten steps first.

Ask yourself:

• Does this clarity give you guidance?
• Or does it inhibit you from taking initiative?

4. Collaborate & connect

Here you feel security. People know each other. There is attention to how you are doing. That can be very powerful, but sometimes syrupy when difficult choices are put off.

Ask yourself:

• Do you feel supported here?
• Or do you find that harmony sometimes becomes more important than direction?

What is your dominant culture?

Now if you look honestly at yourself:

• What feeling do you recognize most in your organization?
• Which description feels most like, “this is how things usually go around here”?
• And just as importantly, what does that mean for the other three?
  

After all, culture is never complete. If one feeling is dominant, other ways of doing things are necessarily less present. That’s not a problem, as long as you see it. Perhaps this is the most important question: what do we sometimes miss and what does that cost us?

In the next blog, I zoom in on leadership. Because what it feels like here doesn’t come naturally. It is strengthened or weakened every day by how direction is given. Want to spar about this in advance? This is where you can find me.