The importance of a team charter
At the end of every two-day culture definition workshop, my clients and I distil the outputs into a culture charter. This document becomes the permanent record of what the team agreed and how they'll work together.
Many teams will hold annual offsites or team-building workshops to discuss culture. Most waste the opportunity by making two fundamental mistakes:
First, they stay theoretical. Teams talk about ‘respect’ and ‘collaboration’ without defining what these actually look like in practice. When everyone returns to their desks, they interpret these concepts differently, and nothing changes.
Second, they don't document the agreement. Without a written record, there's no accountability. Six months later, no one remembers what was agreed, let alone follows it.
Culture is the shared values, behaviours and practices which shape an organisation’s work environment. To make it real, teams must define - practically, without management speak! - the specific behaviours expected, the principles of collaboration, and how they'll prevent stagnation.
Here's what accountability looks like in practice:
Vague: ‘We need to treat each other with respect.’
Actionable: ‘We won't talk over each other in meetings. We'll communicate empathetically, even under pressure. We'll acknowledge that mistakes happen and respond with curiosity rather than blame. When someone's struggling, we'll offer support rather than criticism.’
Vague: ‘We need to work better together.’
Actionable: ‘All X project communication happens in the Teams channel. We post documents there, not via email. We meet in person every other Thursday to reconnect and update progress. We share ideas that improve the way that we work.’
This detail emerges only through genuine conversations between team members. If you skip this you'll never create belonging, shared accountability, or pride when people uphold what they've agreed.
The charter summarises the workshop outputs whilst retaining enough detail to guide daily behaviour. It becomes the reference point; awards recognise those who uphold it, performance conversations address those who don't. Teams discuss ‘culture moments’ in meetings which serve to reinforce what works and evolve what needs improvement. Behaviours improve, practices evolve and change sticks.
Some teams have also used their charter to do the following:
Values demonstration – Values mean nothing until you define how they're lived. The charter makes this explicit.
Marketing – It communicates who you are, what you do, and crucially, how you do it.
Recruitment – It informs interview questions, ensuring candidates understand the behaviours you expect of them before they join.
Culture evolves continuously, so you should update your charter every 12-18 months or when significant change occurs. Some teams bring me back once a year to facilitate this process to ensure they not only have honest conversations, but also identify how the world of work has evolved.
Workshops create energy and alignment. Documentation creates accountability and permanence. If you run the workshop without creating the charter, you've wasted everyone's time. If you write it down, you've built the foundation for sustainable high performance.
