Environments

Find your environment.

Are you an eagle or a lion?  Maybe you are a dolphin or a frog.  I am not asking you about your spirit animal or which animal you most closely relate to.  I am asking you to think about what environments you thrive in.

An eagle soars in the sky, a lion roams the savanna, dolphins play in the ocean, and frogs hide out in the wetlands.  There are countless animals all over the planet, and there are countless environments for these animals all to thrive in.  Take an animal out of their habitat, and they die.  Prevent an eagle from flying, and they starve.  Put a frog in the desert, and they dry up.

What makes you think you will thrive on just any team or in just any organization?  What makes you think your team members can just thrive on your team?

Take some time and understand what environment you excel in.  What type of ‘animal’ are you, and what do you need to survive?  Think about these same questions for each of your team members.  Be open to seeing and hearing clues to their preferred environment and work culture.  Do they like to work on specific tasks, and do they like a predictable schedule?  Do they prefer to help on everything, and do they love learning new things everyday?

There are so many companies and organizations in the world, each with their own culture and work environment.  Huge companies could have 300,000 people all over the globe; you are just a number working on a specific task, day in and day out.  There are small companies with 30 people; you wear many hats, and each day is different and crazy.  There is everything in-between.

(Use your past to understand where you thrived.  Have you thrived?  Maybe you are still looking for that perfect environment.  Life is too short to be in a culture that is killing you.)

Focusing back on your team, are their team members who are not meeting the expectations or maybe a person who is difficult to work with?  There are many different reasons for this, take your time to try and understand the exact one, and we will offer more help on different topics in other blogs, but do not leave out the work environment.  Are these folks in a less than optimal work culture for them to succeed and excel?

Get to know your team.  Understand what drives them and where they are comfortable.  As you get to know these things, are you able to help them see the similarities and positives, or are you able to adjust things to make them feel more at ease?

(By no means does a leader need to adjust their culture for each individual.  That would be detrimental to the team.  Leaders set the culture, so understand that you do and what that culture does look like.  Having that knowledge will help you find and recruit the best talent matches.  Culture and talent will yield results.)

Maybe not, maybe there is nothing that overlaps between your culture and the employee’s preferred culture, so what can you do to help if this is the case?  By taking the time to get to know the person, you can help them understand their optimal environment.  Share your observations with them.  Show them this blog, and ask them to think about it.  In the extreme case that they may need to move on from your team or organization, help them to do so.  Don’t just drop the person suddenly.  After helping them understand their preferred culture, help them find those organizations or teams with that similar culture.  Offer up thoughts on how to find those environments, and help them get there.  Get a hold of your contacts to see if they can help, or offer up to be a reference.  It is tough seeing a team member go, but in some cases it is for the best.

One aspect of excelling as a leader and manager is understanding work environments.  Just like in nature, there are different environments better suited for the different plants and animals.  The organization you work for has a culture, and the team you are building has a culture.  Are you suited to your organization’s culture, and is your team suited to your team culture?  Pay attention as those that are more comfortable in their environment will thrive.