Leading Teams: culture and change

01

What team culture really is

In simple words

Culture is "how we do things here". It is like the unwritten rules of a playground game. Nobody reads them out, but everyone learns them by watching what happens.

Before this course: Leading People: feedback, delegation and meetings (course 9.4.2). There you practised feedback, one-to-ones, delegation, purposeful meetings and labelling advice as research, company report or tip. In course 9.4 you learned psychological safety and clear goals and roles. Now you lead a whole team: its culture, its changes and its hard cases.

Key facts

Team culture is the set of shared habits, beliefs and unwritten rules that shape how people behave in a team.
A widely taught framework (Edgar Schein's levels of culture) describes three layers. Treat it as a framework, not a test result:

Layer	What it is	Example
What you can see	Routines, spaces, tools, how meetings run	Meetings always start 10 minutes late
What people say they value	Values posters, mission statements	"We value punctuality"
What people really assume	Unspoken beliefs that drive behaviour	"Being late has no cost here"

The say-do gap. When the stated values and the real behaviour disagree, people follow the behaviour. Look at what is rewarded, what is tolerated and what leaders spend time on. This is a practical observation, not a measured finding.
Leaders shape culture by their reactions. What happens after a mistake, a late delivery or a disagreement teaches the team more than a speech. Course 9.4 showed that psychological safety is linked with more learning behaviour.
Teams mix cultures. Members from different countries, generations or professions may have different habits about directness, hierarchy and time. Ask about them instead of assuming.

Step by step

Take a team you belong to or lead (work, school, club, volunteer group).
Write three things anyone could see in a week (routines, meetings, messages).
Write the values the team says it holds (from a website, a poster or what the leader says).
For each value, write one recent example where behaviour matched it and one where it did not.
Write one unspoken assumption that explains the gap ("being late has no cost here").
Note what leaders reward, tolerate and spend time on.
Check: your page has the three layers, at least one say-do gap and the assumption behind it.

Watch on YouTube

Erin Meyer: working across culturesUMN Carlson School of Management · YouTube · youtube.com

Videos by other creators on YouTube, for reference. They are not made by or affiliated with The Future Market.

LESSON 01What team culture really is

LESSON 01 / ANIMATED LESSON / AI VOICE00:00 / 01:05

Voice

Read the video script

[Host] "Every team has a culture, whether you design it or not."
[Text on screen: SEE · SAY · ASSUME] "There is what you can see, what people say they value, and what they really assume."
[Screen: poster 'We value punctuality', clock showing a late start] "When words and actions disagree, people follow the actions."
[Host] "So watch what gets rewarded, what gets tolerated and where the leader spends time. That is the real culture."

Try it now

Write a one-page "culture snapshot" of a team you know: three visible habits, the stated values, one say-do gap and the unspoken assumption behind it. Ask one team member if they agree.

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Copy this, open Claude, paste it, and Claude will walk you through the lesson step by step.

For a grown-up: Claude is for adults (18+). Copy this, paste it into Claude, and use the answer to explain the lesson to your child.

I'm learning "Leading Teams: culture and change" on The Future Market. Lesson 1: "What team culture really is".

What the lesson teaches:
- Team culture is the set of shared habits, beliefs and unwritten rules that shape how people behave in a team.
- A widely taught framework (Edgar Schein's levels of culture) describes three layers. Treat it as a framework, not a test result:
- Layer - What it is - Example
- What you can see - Routines, spaces, tools, how meetings run - Meetings always start 10 minutes late
- What people say they value - Values posters, mission statements - "We value punctuality"
- What people really assume - Unspoken beliefs that drive behaviour - "Being late has no cost here"
- The say-do gap. When the stated values and the real behaviour disagree, people follow the behaviour. Look at what is rewarded, what is tolerated and what leaders spend time on. This is a practical observation, not a measured finding.

The exercise I'm working on:
Write a one-page "culture snapshot" of a team you know: three visible habits, the stated values, one say-do gap and the unspoken assumption behind it. Ask one team member if they agree. ---

I'm stuck. Please:
1. Explain the main idea in plain, simple words with one everyday example.
2. Walk me through the exercise one small step at a time. Ask me what I've done so far before giving the next step.
3. Don't just give me the final answer. Help me do it myself, and check my work when I share it.

I'm a parent helping my child (about 8 years old) with a lesson called "What team culture really is" from the course "Leading Teams: culture and change".

Here's what the lesson says:
Culture is "how we do things here". It is like the unwritten rules of a playground game. Nobody reads them out, but everyone learns them by watching what happens.

The activity:
Write a one-page "culture snapshot" of a team you know: three visible habits, the stated values, one say-do gap and the unspoken assumption behind it. Ask one team member if they agree. ---

Please explain this so an 8-year-old understands: short sentences, a fun everyday example, and no hard words.
Then give me 3 simple questions I can ask my child to check they understood, and a way to do the activity together, one tiny step at a time.

Open Claude

My notes

I learned this

02