Top 3 Toughest Culture Challenges – And 3 Simple Solutions

Need help with culture challenges? You’re not alone. Every organization has its own flavor of issues, however, these three stand out as the most common for many teams:

Gossip: People talk about one another behind one another’s backs.

Apathy: A true sense that people don’t really care. They’re just going through the motions.

Silos: A lack of connection, communication or unity between one group, team, department and another.

3 simple solutions to begin to address these culture challenges:

1) The Gossip Solution: Call it out and cut it out. 

• Speak to gossip’s prevalence and the impact it has on the team – how it undermines people, how it diminishes trust and respect and how it’s simply unkind.
• Speak to how you’ve participated in this behavior.
• And that as a team, today is the day you all agree and commit to stop perpetuating, and participating in, indirect, triangulating, plays-us-small gossip.
• Ask your team members to physically stand up if they commit to stop gossiping.
• Ask your team to then take a look around the room and state, “This is your team. This is our team. Then speak to who you know your team to be – committed, hard-working people trying to do their best every single day.”
• Then give your team the tools to communicate kindly, candidly and constructively.

2) The Apathy Solution: Witness their success and/or their struggle.

Apathy is the result of not knowing I (or my work) make(s) a difference. Your team must know they matter – that their contribution matters. That if they go above and beyond, it matters. If they slack, it matters. Show them they matter with these two simple techniques:

• Acknowledge and appreciate their contribution and say what it means to you and the impact it has on accomplishing the organization’s mission. In short, “Without you, without the work that you do, we couldn’t X.”
• Acknowledge and notice if someone is struggling. If you have someone on your team who is struggling to accomplish their work – ask them about it. Get curious. What’s going on their world?

3) The Silos Solution: Create connections.

Use our speed dating activity to create meaningful connections between any two groups of people in your organization and watch the magic happen.

And yes, you can do this

A lot of organizations think culture challenges are insurmountable and they simply “come with the territory.” They think they have to live with them. You don’t. You can do this. And it doesn’t have to be hard nor take months to resolve. Use these simple solutions and see quick results to some of your toughest culture challenges.