A January Culture Check-in: Creating the Conditions for a Strong, Thriving Culture

The holidays are over, but there are still long weekends ahead. It can be a strange in-between time — not quite settled, not quite at full pace.

January can also be a helpful time for a culture check-in.

Here is a checklist to help you build and nurture a strong team culture in your organisation.

As volunteers, staff, and governing groups come back together, it’s a natural moment to reflect on shared values and the way people work together. Not as a big formal exercise, but as a chance to notice what’s working well, what feels stretched, and what would be helpful to strengthen as the year unfolds.

Culture grows through the conditions created

Culture isn’t something that can be designed and rolled out. What can be done is to create the right conditions for culture to grow.

A useful way to think about culture is through a garden metaphor. The garden beds can be built and the seeds planted, but how the garden looks over time depends on how it’s tended — how it’s nurtured, cared for, and cultivated by the people in it. Culture works in much the same way.

Below are three practical ideas for creating the conditions for a strong and thriving culture.

1. Create shared values

Values are the signals that give direction, meaning, and purpose. An organisation’s values sit underneath how it feels to be part of, and how it shows up in the world.

A simple but powerful question is:

“What’s important to us about how we work together?”

Asking this of team members, volunteers, teams, or governing groups opens up meaningful conversations. Different teams may name different values — and that’s okay. The focus is on identifying the values that show up across groups. These shared values form the foundation.

Without clearly defined core values, organisations can drift into an ongoing identity wobble. Shared values help clarify how people work together, how those being supported are treated, how the organisation delivers on its purpose, and how it relates to others.

2. Show values in action through behaviour

Values help inform culture, but behaviour is what determines it.

Time can be spent capturing and framing shared values, but if those values aren’t reflected in the behaviour of leaders, they remain words on paper. Governing groups, team leaders, and volunteer leaders set the tone. How they behave provides a model — and permission — for everyone else.

Creating space for teams to talk about what values look like in everyday practice can be powerful. What do they look like on an ordinary day? In a difficult conversation? Under pressure? Capturing these discussions as shared guidelines helps turn values into lived behaviour.

3. Create a safe psychological environment

Strong cultures are built where people feel safe to be human.

This means creating an environment where people take responsibility for the impact of their behaviour on others — and where everyone plays a part in maintaining that. When shared guidelines for working together are in place, it becomes easier for anyone in the team to respectfully call things out when behaviour goes off piste.

A psychologically safe environment is one where positive intent is assumed, open and honest conversations are encouraged, disagreement is respectful, and solutions are worked through together. It’s an environment where feedback, questions, and ideas are welcomed, mistakes are treated as learning opportunities, and people feel valued, heard, and appreciated.

January doesn’t need to be about rushing back in. It can be a gentle reset — a chance to check in on culture and make small, intentional shifts that shape the year ahead.