A positive culture is one in which the environment is collaboratively crafted and nurtured to enable all members to flourish. Unfortunately, more often than not, culture in general practice is aligned with hierarchical structures which does not enable positivity.
The good news is that, with sufficient will, organisations can create a different way of being, a new sense of ‘how things get done around here’. It’s not easy or quick, and requires all members to be involved, but it is definitely possible and ultimately worthwhile because culture eats pretty much everything else for breakfast. It trumps all.
Real teams with a positive, progressive, learning culture all share the same characteristics:
The benefits of this are that both colleague and client satisfaction levels rise, with greater colleague engagement leading to lower levels of errors, stress, injury, sickness absence, intention to quit and turnover. Plus, we see a reduction in bullying and harassment from both colleagues and clients.
The culture of a team is everyone’s responsibility. It cannot be imposed; it needs to be agreed and nurtured by all team members.