The Power of Team Culture

Behind the success and failure of teams lies team culture. But what exactly is culture? How and why does it contribute to success and failure? In this course, you learn how to recognize aspects of team culture of which most people are typically unaware. It is often these seemingly unimportant aspects that have the greatest effect on the outcomes of group tasks. Your recognition of them enables you to form, join and lead teams more effectively. You also come to appreciate the role of ritual and symbols in the daily operation of teams, as well as in situations of change and crisis. Knowledge of the ideas and information in this class enables you to be a better team player and a more effective team leader.

In this unit, we will begin by defining the "team" and then proceed to explore what enables teams to function, the role that culture plays in every team, and how "habitus" and "cultural fit" could affect our performance in specific teams.

Sometimes we must take a step back and view cultural differences from perspectives different from what we're used to. Cultural boundaries exist everywhere. Differences can be found within one culture as well. Have you ever considered that a smile isn't just a simple natural response? In this unit we delve deeper into culture and the differences amongst various cultures, including corporate culture.

Rituals and symbols can be found in every team. They can evoke affect, or feeling, as you will see. Speech, or stories have symbolic meaning too and can do wonders to motivate a group of individuals. In this unit we will examine a number of rituals and symbols, as they exist in their various forms, and discover the way in which they are utilized in teams.