We often talk about the culture in our firms. We should be talking about the micro-cultures in our firm.

Every firm culture is an abstract composition of numerous micro-cultures. If you have 15 offices around the region, you have 15 micro-cultures. Well, actually, you might have 100 micro-cultures if you start looking even closer at the department and project team level.

Here’s why this matters. It’s not the culture of the firm that matters, it’s the micro-cultures that have the greatest impact on your team members.

As a senior leader, if you aren’t sniffing out these micro-cultures, you may be missing key problems. Problems that are causing turnover, Problems that are harming the quality of the work product, Problems that are costing the firm money.

My advice?

Get closer to the front lines more often. What are you hearing from the project team members? Where are the challenges? What are the beliefs? People will tell you all sorts of things if you ask and then listen carefully.