1.2 Culture
The culture of a research team describes the character of a team's internal work climate and personality. This is shaped by its core values and entrenched behaviours – the normal way things are done which create work practices and styles of doing things. The first strategy in influencing your team culture is to express team values during a new team member's induction.
Creating the right culture is important early in the life of a research team. This means you will need to be explicit in describing and modelling the behaviours that support the values you want to become standard.
As a leader of a research team you can develop a supportive culture by being supportive of research team members, being friendly and considerate, showing regard for team members as individuals, and by trying to understand their problems. Become aware of their goals. For instance, many team members will be developing their careers and may be looking for opportunities to establish their researcher credentials. Be willing to include them as authors of research papers when they contribute.
A key part of creating a positive culture is to create an atmosphere free from conflict and where differences of opinion are handled constructively. This requires just treatment of your colleagues, showing trust in your team members, and being flexible and open to points of view other than your own.
As the research leader, you need to be a model of how research team members interact and relate to each other, showing consistency between what you say and what you do and cultivating a 'can do' attitude.
Your attitude to the university administration, support staff, and external contributors will also affect the behaviour of team members. Being positive and understanding towards university administration, and promoting a proactive attitude towards administrative tasks, will keep the project running smoothly and provide a positive example. The values you display as a research leader will strongly influence the team culture. Research team members like to see their leader display values and attitudes they themselves are expected to display.
Examples of values that build a culture which encourages creative research are:
- Personal values of truthfulness, trustworthiness, and integrity
- Respect for others
- Ethical business principles, including worker safety and environmental sustainability, and consistency between what is said and done
- Creation of standards guiding how managers and employees interact and relate to each other
- Demonstrating a 'can do' spirit (being proactive)
- Taking pride in doing things right (focus on high quality)
- Taking responsibility and being accountable
- Open-mindedness and willingness to learn.
Unhealthy cultures can be recognised by a highly politicised internal environment in which issues are only resolved on the basis of political clout. Such a culture loses energy to political infighting, creates a disregard for high ethical standards, and feeds 'ego gratification' by senior team members.
To change a preexisting problem culture you need to talk openly about its problems and discuss new behaviours that will improve matters. You need to identify those facets of the present culture which are conducive to reaching goals and those which aren’t. You also need to specify what new actions, behaviours, and work practices should be prominent in the new culture and follow up with visible, definite actions – either substantial or symbolic – to ingrain a new set of behaviours, practices, and cultural norms.
Modules
