[Alicia Davis] So Stacie, we’ve created a new program: Elevating Skills of Experienced Leaders. And part of that, actually, the beginning of that, starts with how to build culture and how to be really intentional about it. And that seems to be a really hot topic, doesn’t it?

[Stacie Watson] It really is. You know, we talk in many of our videos about this idea of culture sort of being like the water that you’re swimming in, and you may or may not be that aware of it, but sometimes it can be a little warmer, or sometimes it can be a little cooler or murky. And you know, culture sort of evolves around us, and unless we’re intentional about it, sometimes the way that culture evolves, whether it’s organizational culture or even the culture within a team, isn’t exactly what serves the team or serves the organization in the best ways. And so, you know, we’ve decided to put together some just materials and processes and exercises that really can support individuals and leaders in thinking about what culture have we created, and is it the one we want? Right?

[Alicia Davis] Yeah, exactly. And one of the activities that we put in the new program, and that you’ve done a number of times with groups, is to literally just have everybody on the team write down in five words or less how they would describe the culture. And I think you’ve seen, there can be a kind of a wide range of perception that happens even on the same team, and it can be a really helpful starter for a really important conversation.

[Stacie Watson] Absolutely, absolutely. You know, if we all write five words down and three of them are pretty similar, that’s a great foundational start, right? Like we have a strong sense of at least some elements or aspects of the culture we’re really sharing, and then there might be some differences in the other words. Sometimes, though, with teams, you get very different words, and that’s kind of, as we would say, the Nancy Drew clue, that you might want to do, you know, dig a little deeper to understand well, what’s going on here, and what culture do we want? What would serve us, right?

[Alicia Davis] That’s right. That’s right. And so we have a session coming up, in addition to what we do in our other programs, we’ve got a session coming up in our Learning Academy on December 10, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. on Creating an Intentional Culture. So if that’s a couple of hours that you think would be helpful in terms of exploring what your culture is and how to really reinforce that and co-create it with your team, we’d love to have you, so you can always check us out at TLStransforms.com, and I’m Alicia Davis…

[Stacie Watson] I’m Stacie Watson…

[Alicia Davis] Thank you so much.

[Stacie Watson] Thank you.