Culture Correlations: Building High-Performing Teams from Day One

Welcome to this week's edition of Culture Correlations! Today, we’re diving into how to effectively build high-performing teams from day one, drawing insights from our recent Instill Culture Lab discussion with Rhiannon Gallagher, an organizational psychologist.

The Importance of Intentional Team Formation

Rhiannon emphasized the critical need for founders and leaders to prioritize the time to intentionally create and author the type of culture that will yield the best outcomes for their unique business. 

Data shows that companies with clear and strong cultures are 5.5x more likely to outperform their peers. The best business idea can fall short without the right team. She highlights that:

1. Defining Culture: Leaders must be honest about the type of culture they want to create. For an innovative company, an empowered culture is essential, while a hierarchical culture suits businesses needing attention to detail and specificity.
2. Purpose-Driven Success: The single element that drives success in an early-stage company is a strong sense of purpose. This purpose fuels motivation and engagement, leading to better performance and outcomes.
3. Use The Appreciative Inquiry Model: This model is one of the best for establishing a vision, mission, and values because it focuses on the positive aspects of an organization. By highlighting what works well, Appreciative Inquiry fosters a strong, positive culture. It involves discovering strengths, dreaming about future possibilities, designing actionable plans, and delivering results. This strengths-based approach aligns team strengths with organizational goals, encourages innovation and engagement, and drives sustainable performance improvements, making it ideal for building a cohesive and motivated team culture.

Challenges of Not Being Intentional

1. High Turnover: Early-stage companies with a lack of clear culture and team alignment can face 50% higher turnover rates, increasing recruitment and training costs. High turnover can cost startups significantly, often around $15,000 per employee.
2. Low Engagement: Employees who do not feel connected to the company’s vision are 33% less productive. For early-stage companies, disengaged employees can result in critical setbacks and loss of momentum.
3. Inefficient Decision-Making: Culturally unintentional teams with unintentional formations often fall prey to poor decision-making and problem-solving. This inefficiency can result in 30% slower project completion times, severely affecting early-stage growth and competitiveness.

What is Appreciative Inquiry and Why It’s a Leading Model For Culture Formation

Appreciative Inquiry is a strengths-based approach to organizational development that focuses on identifying and leveraging the positive aspects of an organization. Rather than concentrating on problems, it encourages teams to explore and amplify what is working well. This approach involves several phases:

1. Discovery: Identifying and appreciating the best of what is.
2. Dream: Imagining what could be.
3. Design: Planning and prioritizing what should be.
4. Destiny/Delivery: Implementing the proposed design.

Appreciative Inquiry is a leading model for creating high-performing early teams because it fosters a positive and collaborative environment, encourages innovation, and aligns team strengths with organizational goals. By focusing on positive potential, teams are more motivated and engaged, leading to sustainable performance improvements. A critical component of the model is storytelling, which helps create a compelling vision and mission. Story-driven missions matter because they give people mastery, autonomy, and purpose. Crafting a specific and engaging story behind your mission ensures it resonates with employees, inspires action, and provides clarity for decision-making and prioritization.

Common Mistakes Founders Make

• Generic Values: Avoid generic statements like “integrity” without context. Instead, craft unique, story-driven mission statements. Misaligned values can lead to 20% higher employee turnover.
• Lack of Revisit:  Ensure to connect your team’s behaviors, incentives, and evaluations to values. Lack of activation can result in a 25% decrease in implementation speed.

How Instill Can Help

At Instill, we offer AI-driven tools scientifically designed to help you create an intentional and authentic mission, vision, and values in a highly scalable way. Get live scores on how your values are displayed in everyday life and establish a digital system of record for your culture to ensure it thrives. 

Until Next Time,

The Instill Team