7 WORKPLACE

CULTURE MISTAKES
and how to avoid them
Boost your people, productivity and success
 WELCOME
A healthy workplace culture is critical
You know that vibe. When you walk into your workplace and the air feels a bit wrong, that
there is an energy, a feeling, maybe it is disharmony or ambivalence or maybe it is stress and
tension. Whatever it is doesnt feel quite right and it is hard to put your nger on. Maybe it
is something to do with your workplace culture.

Research shows that a healthy workplace culture is essential for creating a team that is
productive and forward-looking; one that is courageous in developing and implementing
new ideas. While feeling good and being happy is an important part of a healthy culture,
there is a lot more to building a harmonious and synergised team. You want that great vibe. WORKPLACE
CULTURE MISTAKES
Disharmony and unhappiness in workplace culture costs businesses and organisations
across Australia heavily. The chief culprits are presenteeism, absenteeism and staff
& how to avoid them
turnover which are estimated to cost Australian businesses and organisations $87 billion
each year off the bottom line not to mention the lost opportunity cost of underperforming
teams.

Lets start to unveil that mystery. I would like to share with you seven common mistakes I
see being made around workplace culture. This is not to give you a rap across the knuckles
like my piano teacher used to do to me. It is to help identify missteps and stumbles in your
workplace culture, then highlight where you can bravely start affecting cultural change in
your organisation today.

Grab a cuppa and read on to nd out how you can heal your workplace culture.
 Too Hard Basket
The mind holds the key to creating change

The idea of improving workplace culture is often scrunched up into a ball and thrown into the waste paper
basket marked too hard.

Lets break down the too hard. It can often look like one of the following:

We tried a two-hour workshop, but nothing changed. In fact it might have made things worse
Ive tried talking with my team, but they resist change
Im not sure where to even start
I dont feel like Im heard when I bring up difcult subjects
Speaking up about the things that arent working is scary. Im sure they will come back on me
Its a great idea and would be great to consider, but its too much work
Too Hard Basket solution
The mind holds the key to creating change
The solution can start with you. Looking at
improving workplace culture does have a
bunch of challenges to be sure. It requires a
sometimes scary level of awareness, that
deeply truthful kind rst as individuals and
then as a team. Its about taking small steps
towards building a culture that is like a fertile
garden; where you can grow both as
individuals and as an organisation.

Cultural change in a team or organisation

needs you to believe, believe that collectively
you can and that it will make a difference. As
a team, believe you have the power to create
a culture that pulses with productive and
intuitive happenings. One that has the whole
is more than the sum of its parts going on.

Do you choose to have a growth mindset

that believes an improved workplace
culture is possible? Are you willing to
make that shift?
 The lines of communication
Two-way communication multiplied by many

Culture comes alive with language. And the way that language is used creates a particular culture. In
Indonesian, there are no past and future tense, and the culture is very in the present. German language is
very precise and again their culture follows suit.

The way in which communication works in your organisation shapes the culture in the same way. Too often,
communication is like rain it falls from above but returns in an evaporated form, leaving those at the
bottom feeling unheard. One of the biggest complaints I hear is that team members dont feel like they are
heard. And, if they do feel heard, they often say what they are sharing isnt validated or worse, it is stored
away and used against them in the future. As a result, they dont feel its safe to communicate openly and
honestly.

There are times communication gets clogged up. Disagreements, blame, nger pointing, criticism and fear
create communication blockages. At times the whole lines of communication can get shut down and
unwilling to work.
The lines of communication
Two-way communication multiplied by many

solution
Building awareness of your organisations
communication patterns both in structure
and dynamics is the rst step. This helps
you determine how communication shapes
your team, your organisation and your
success. And how it colours the experience
of everyone involved. Once you have this
awareness, you can start to communicate
more consciously and encourage your team
to do the same.

Investing in communication skills

development will help make your team
more productive and efcient, and improve
your workplace culture for everyone.
 A wave of blame
And I wish and I wish and I wish

The effects of blame slinging in a workplace creates an environment that is psychologically and emotionally
unsafe. Have you ever seen that memorable scene in the movie Stand By Me, where, at a pie eating
competition, a wave of people throw up on each other? That is a good representation of what a culture of
blame looks like. One person feels bad and they throw up blame on someone else, who in turn throws up
blame on someone else, and on it goes.

I see far too many organisational cultures that not only have blame residing in them, but also seem to
cultivate it. Whether it is due to a leftover idea that if people feel they have done the wrong thing, they will
work harder or because blame has become such an intrinsic part of how we communicate that it seeps into
every corner of an organisation or business like a green and stinky fog.
A wave of blame
And I wish and I wish and I wish

solution
Creating a blame-free culture is a process,
where the key elements are learning how to
change the way responsibility works in your
organisation and how mistakes are dealt
with. It takes commitment, a slow and steady
mindset and communication shifts to create
a situation where leaders learn how to
quickly quell the blame fog.

Creating a blame free culture improves the

safety, harmony and productivity of your
workplace. And it can start with as small a
change as one person stopping blaming
others.

Are you ready to take the rst step towards

eradicating a culture of blame?
 The stick and the carrot
Faster, faster, higher, higher

Do you remember your school days, where you got a gold star for great work and a trip to the principals
ofce for all that mischief you got up to? We were kept in line with a series of reward and punishment do
the right thing and get carrot, do the wrong thing and get stick. And it did keep us all in line. But we did a
lot of things that our interest wasnt sparked by or that we plainly didnt want to do.

You want to get the most out of your team. They are dedicating their time, skills and knowhow to your
organisation and that holds so much potential. Just like at school, incentives and rewards are often used to
get more out of your team. This can result in pushing, cajoling and containing your team. Do you see this
happening in your workplace?

The problem is that this is all extrinsic motivation its all outside of the individuals in your team. This
creates a situation where all these extrinsic carrots and sticks need to keep coming and your team needs
to continue being monitored. And more importantly, extrinsic motivation doesnt connect with their heart
and soul it isnt coming from within them. Motivation that comes from within has a potent energy that
needs only to be stoked
The stick and the carrot
Faster, faster, higher, higher

solution
So how do you engage the internal
motivation of your team? For a start, it is
about sharing the heart. You are looking for
where the heart of your organisation meets
the hearts of your team members.

If you can link these hearts together and link

the strengths of your team with your
organisational needs, then mountains will be
scaled. It is about building decision-making
ownership. Allow your team to buy into what
is being created.

Connecting the heart of your organisation

to the hearts of your team members is the
key to motivation.
 Potential leakage
The possibilities are endless

Potential. It is like an enigma, isnt it? Like a beautiful oasis that you walk across deserts to nd, from which
you drink the nectar of life. Maybe that is a little dramatic. It is a beautiful place within each of us and we
hope that we are all walking towards it. Imagine what you and your team would all be capable of if you were
all working at your best every day and if you kept improving and expanding. What difference would that
make to you and your organisation?

The challenge is that the culture in your workplace could be stopping this from happening. Any number of
dynamics could be squashing your teams potential. Lack of acknowledgment, a high level of judgment,
micro management, not acknowledging and using individuals strengths, conict, and a culture of blame are
some of the culprits. Like putting them in a maze with the oasis on the outside.
Potential leakage solution
The possibilities are endless

The rst step towards helping your team

realise its potential is to start paying
attention. Notice the things they do well and
the aptitudes and strengths that they have
both the ones they get to use and those they
dont. Pay attention to what their interests
are and what they get excited about and start
to show acknowledgment and appreciation
for them, developing your own
style for doing this.

Its important to note that everyone has

different mindsets about reaching their
potential. Supporting your team to have
mindset shifts that keep them self-aware and
growing can be invaluable. Ask questions of
your team about what their dreams and
visions are and what excites them.

Find ways to support your team members

by giving them tasks that are increasingly
aligned with what is close to their heart.
 Busy busy bees
Too busy to be productive

How are you? Busy! This has become such a common exchange. How many times have you been part of
this exchange today? And this week?

I dont know how and when this happened, but somehow being busy becomes synonymous with
achievement. Its characterised by a mindset of do-do-do and always doing more; always queuing up the
next thing. This momentum creates more busyness and more doing.

The problem with busyness is that it tends to become reactionary. It means you are focusing all the time on
the little things that need to be done that are demanding your time. It doesnt allow you to get the space
you need to be able to look at the big-picture and improve your systems and call on your creativity and
intuition. It can have you stuck on a hamster wheel with no way to get off. And this takes its toll. It can lead
to stress, burnout, and loss of heart and motivation for your job. What if we changed being busy to being
productive and spacious? How would this change your working day? How would it change your teams
working day
Busy busy bees
Too busy to be productive
solution
To move from being busy to productive, the
rst thing that needs to change is your
mindset around what it means to be busy. As
long as you align being busy with being
successful, nothing will change. And this
change needs to happen both in your
leadership and in your team.

You can also bring in pauses. These are

points in the working day where you stop
working and either do something else from
stretching, to chatting with colleagues, to
doing nothing at all. It is important to both
encourage this behaviour in your team, and
set clear and caring boundaries around it.

Understand that being busy is often

counter-productive.
 White knuckles
And with a deep breath

There is a constant tension between directing and autonomy. It is like holding the reigns while riding a horse.
You want to be sure that you are going the right way but if you hold the reigns too tightly, then you are going
to get a cranky horse that will toss its head and you will ght the journey the whole way. As a leader, you
want your team to do and create what is needed. You are ultimately responsible for the outputs of your team
and as such, there is a need for a certain level of control.

Problems in workplace culture occur when there is no space for autonomy. This happens when team
members dont feel they have the freedom to run with their own ideas or feel that they have ownership of
what they are creating. This can lead to them not sharing their ideas leading to lost opportunities and can
cause the team to lose motivation, enjoyment and passion for their work.

Does this resonate with you? Are you wondering how you can release your grip a little, step more into macro
management and start to incorporate ideas and problem solving from your team? How can you validate your
team members and introduce a bit more freedom to each persons role, to give them the room to own the
process a little more?
White knuckles solution
And with a deep breath
If you nd this difcult, using coaching to
help you nd ways to loosen your grip can be
invaluable. Theres maybe a story within you
that is giving you white knuckles and
draining you. Addressing this can be
life changing.

Create space for autonomous

decision-making, so your team members
have the freedom to run with their own
ideas.
 At the end of the day
KUDOS TO YOU
Mistakes are beautiful. Lets celebrate them,
for this is a key way we learn and grow. We
didnt learn to walk without falling down, and
we never mastered anything that didnt
involve making mistakes. But it can be difcult
to make mistakes, see where it has gone wrong
and make changes as a result. Kudos to you for
picking up this booklet, and having a read and
being prepared to explore your workplace
culture.
If you have identied a few places where your
workplace culture could benet from some
tweaks (or overhauls!), then lets do a little
happy dance. It is the perfect place to initiate
change. From this rst step, you will not only
improve the wellbeing and motivation of your
team, you will also lead them to greater
productivity and success. This is to be celebrated.
I have provided you with a few initial steps in this
booklet. Every organisation and every team is
unique and I would love to support you beyond
taking that rst step.
To make the next step towards a connected,
productive and success-orientated workplace
culture, book a free Clarity Session with me. We
will talk through your unique needs and discuss
the best way forward for you and your team.
Email me now to book your free session
at trish@trisheverett.com.au
who is trish Everett?
Trish Everett is a highly qualied* communications consultant and mindset coach. She specialises in
helping organisations build connected, innovative and success-orientated cultures in order to reduce
costs and improve workforce productivity and effectiveness.

Trish has been helping people and organisations build healthy and productive connections for 17 years
both in the workplace and through her academic research. She is passionate about connected
communication and how it contributes to creating thriving workplace cultures both at an organisational
and at an individual level.

Apart from her consultancy work, Trish is also a highly regarded lecturer in the School of Health Science
at RMIT University, where she is a specialist in the eld of wellness and lifestyle and wellness coaching.

Trish offers her clients and students profound insights, delivered in simple and easy to digest approaches
that have helped hundreds of people connect more powerfully and bravely create positive change. She is
a quirky, systems-thinking, connection geek who would love to share her insights and experience with you
and your organisation.

* M.Wellness, M.Com, GradDip Ed, GradCert IT, B.Bus

7 WORKPLACE
CULTURE MISTAKES
and how to avoid them
Boost your people, productivity and success

t r is h ever et t . c o m. au /