To start, what is culture? There are many ways to describe it, but the one I use most often is: Culture is the bandwidth of effectiveness you consistently operate inside of as a team.
The first way Culture impacts your performance -
For any team, there is a level of performance below which they will never fall. That’s because someone, at some point, will take one for the team and pull an all nighter, take a bullet, work through the weekend, cancel their vacation, or take a personal risk. Then they use all their best skills to pull it through for everyone else. That’s what defines the “floor” of your performance.
The second way Culture impacts your performance -
There is also a consistent ceiling to your performance, and it seems like a glass ceiling because you keep knocking your head against it and you don’t know why. That glass ceiling is created, and held in place, by the conversations you are not allowed to have and the things you won’t say.
Consider a whole list of things that people don’t and won’t say to each other even when they know damn well they need saying. There are people you will talk to openly and freely, and people you hold back with, work around, avoid, and even tear down when they are not there to see it happening. The glass ceiling of your performance is the element of your Culture that has anyone in the organization stay silent, avoid, nod and smile, and pretend.
So, the floor of your performance is determined by what you are willing to do. The ceiling of your performance is determined by what you are willing to say.
