Work Culture Assessment Results
Your assessment reveals you're in the foundation building stage of work culture development. You likely have organizational values or therapeutic principles on your website that communicate your approach to clients, but you haven't yet translated these into specific work culture norms that guide how your team members interact with each other daily.
The Distinction Most Practice Owners Miss
Work culture norms are different from your outward-facing organizational values. While your website might list values like "compassionate" or "trauma-informed" to communicate your therapeutic approach to clients, work culture norms guide how your team members interact with each other daily. Things like how you handle conflict, make decisions together, or support each other during challenges.
These internal norms may align with your public values, but they need to be specifically defined for your team's working relationships. Many practices have beautiful mission statements but lack explicit agreements about what happens when team members disagree, how feedback gets shared, or what to do when someone feels disconnected from the group.
This is about moving beyond platitudes to embodied practice. It's about creating the working agreements and relational systems that actually shape your workplace culture day to day. When values aren't consistently practiced and embodied through your relational systems, they create mistrust rather than connection.
Why Values Get a Bad Rap
You've probably seen workplaces where values are posted on walls but not backed up by actual behaviors or systems. This is why "company values" often feel hollow or performative. The difference lies in moving from abstract concepts to concrete, co-created agreements about how your team shows up together.
For example, many practices might list "authenticity" as a value, but the way authenticity shows up in each work culture gets defined differently based on that team's specific context, who they serve, and how they operate together. One practice's definition of authentic communication might be "we address concerns directly with the person involved," while another's might be "we create space for processing emotions before problem-solving."
The magic happens in the co-creative definition process, not just choosing the right words.
What Your Current Experience Likely Looks Like
Right now, you're probably managing culture through scattered approaches:
Addressing conflicts as they arise without clear frameworks
Hoping new hires will naturally "get" your practice's unspoken expectations
Finding yourself as the constant mediator when team dynamics get tense
Wondering why some team members seem naturally collaborative while others remain distant
You might catch yourself thinking, "I shouldn't have to tell them how to be professional" or "Why does everything come back to me?" You're carrying the weight of being the culture creator, culture police, and culture repair person all at once.
This exhaustion isn't a reflection of your leadership abilities. You were trained to be an excellent clinician, not to navigate the complex relational dynamics of team leadership.
What Work Culture Norms Actually Look Like in Practice
Here are examples of how website values translate into actionable work culture norms:
Instead of "We value respect": Transparent Communication - When practiced, we speak with clarity, kindness, and honesty. We address concerns directly with the person involved rather than discussing with others first, knowing that open dialogue strengthens trust and prevents misunderstandings.
Instead of "We believe in teamwork": Collaborative Support - When practiced, we take responsibility for our individual roles while actively offering and seeking support. We recognize that our collective capacity exceeds what any of us can accomplish alone, and we celebrate both individual contributions and team achievements.
Instead of "We embrace growth": Repair & Accountability - When practiced, we acknowledge that interpersonal ruptures will happen, and we embrace the process of repair. Accountability isn't about blame; it's about taking responsibility for our impact, making amends, and ensuring our working relationships remain strong and intact.
Notice how each norm includes specific examples (what would a video camera capture?) and explains the underlying intention. This gives team members concrete guidance for navigating real workplace situations.
The Three Dimensions of Work Culture Norm Mapping
Your Path Forward: The Three Shifts
A release from isolation
You recognize that you're not alone in this challenge, and this isn't a reflection of inadequate leadership. You simply weren't taught how to create community in workplace settings. The sense of being the only one focused on team dynamics begins to shift as you discover there are specific, learnable approaches for shared culture stewardship.
A shift to collective stewardship
With explicit work culture norms and co-creative processes, you invite your team to become stewards of culture alongside you. Instead of being the primary interpreter of "how we do things here," everyone can reference shared agreements, practice them together, and offer supportive accountability.
Responsibility becomes more evenly distributed. Team members begin initiating repair conversations, referencing shared norms during meetings, and taking ownership of collective culture health.
A rediscovery of joy
After months or years of feeling stretched by team dynamics, you reconnect with what drew you to leadership in the first place. You find fulfillment in the authentic connections being cultivated and feel energized by the collaborative problem-solving that emerges when everyone shares responsibility for relational health.
“Naming and defining work culture norms fosters clarity, alignment, and shared responsibility within your group practice. ”
What You Can Start This Week
Notice Your Hidden Norms Your practice already has unspoken norms. Notice what happens when team members disagree during a meeting, someone makes a mistake with a client, or a colleague seems overwhelmed. What are the unofficial rules your team follows in these moments?
Choose One Area to Define Pick where you most often find yourself stepping in. Is it communication during meetings? How feedback gets shared? Write down what you wish you saw, then ask: "If a video camera captured my team practicing this beautifully, what would it record?"
Ready to explore this further?
Schedule a complimentary consultation to discuss your specific team dynamics and determine what approach would work best for your practice.
What Phase 1 Development Looks Like
When you're ready to move from informal culture management to systematic culture development, here's what the process involves:
Co-creating 4-6 specific work culture norms that address the relational patterns you're actually navigating
Defining each norm in behavioral terms so team members know exactly what it looks like in practice
Distinguishing between work-focused norms and relationship-focused norms within your team
Making norms visible and accessible so they become living agreements rather than forgotten documents
Introducing norms in a way that invites genuine ownership rather than top-down compliance
This isn't about overlaying someone else's culture template onto your practice. We work with your existing relational ecosystem, uncovering what's already working beneath the surface and giving language to the collaborative dynamics you want to cultivate.
For practice owners ready to dive deeper:
Book your 90-Minute Work Culture Intensive to create immediate action steps for your specific development phase.
We'll work together to:
Identify your practice's unique relational strengths and challenges
Co-create 4-6 work culture norms specific to your team dynamics
Draft behavioral definitions that feel authentic to your practice
Plan your team introduction strategy that builds genuine buy-in
Create an implementation timeline that honors your team's capacity