The 3 dimensions of Team Culture

Approach

A team’s approach to work can be either structured or dynamic.

Structured approaches lead to detailed, documented processes that tell team members what to do in many situations. Dynamic approaches lead to loose or undocumented processes and ask team members to be flexible in their work.

Focus

A team’s focus can be either internal or external, depending on the type of work they do and the type of information they use to make decisions.

An internal focus develops in teams tasked with improving aspects of their own organization, like operational efficiency and employee morale. An external focus comes with the mission to affect the outside world, the organization’s place within it, or the organization’s interactions with it.

Style

The working style of a team is defined by how team members interact to get work done.

Teams can either have a collaborative work style or an independent work style. In collaborative teams, tasks are completed and decisions are made with the input of multiple individuals. In independent teams, each team member “owns” their own tasks and decisions and sees them through without input from others.