Culture, team charters & ways of working
Clarifying how you want to work together at your best
Every organization has a culture – whether it’s named or not.
Culture shows up in how decisions are made, how conflict is handled, how people treat each other when things get hard, and what happens when priorities compete. It lives in meeting dynamics, informal norms, and the stories people tell about “how things really work around here”.
At Tilia Consulting, we support organizations to make culture visible, intentional, and workable – so it becomes a source of clarity and strength rather than friction or fatigue.
When culture and ways of working deserve focused attention
Culture and team charter work is especially valuable when:
teams are growing, changing, or reorganizing
new leaders or members are joining
roles, expectations, or decision-making feel unclear
the same tensions keep showing up
values are named, but not always lived
people are tired of unspoken rules and misalignment
In these moments, culture work isn’t “soft” or “nice to have”. It’s often the most practical thing you can do.
Creating the right conditions matters. A thoughtfully designed space helps people slow down, focus, and engage differently than they would in a regular meeting.
What this work is really about
As with all Tilia engagements, culture and team charter work is designed for real participation, not polished answers.
At its core, our culture and team charter work helps groups slow down and answer a few essential questions together:
Who are we, really, as a team or organization?
How do we want to work when we’re at our best?
What will help us stay aligned when things get messy?
This work can take many forms: from a focused two-hour session, to a half- or full-day retreat, to a multi-session process over time. For distributed teams working across locations or time zones, it can also be designed as a meaningful in-person gathering that helps people reconnect, reset, and realign.
We design every culture session in response to the specific group and context, creating space for teams to:
articulate shared values and purpose
name the behaviours that support those values
surface “slippery” behaviours that pull teams out of alignment
agree on how to navigate tension, conflict, and difference
Rather than relying on assumptions, teams create clear, shared agreements they can return to over time – even (and especially) when things get hard.
Values in practice (and in tension)
Most organizations have stated values. Fewer have had honest conversations about what those values look like in practice, or what happens when they’re in tension.
Culture work creates space to explore:
where individual values align with organizational values
where tensions naturally arise (and why)
how competing priorities or pressures can pull teams off course
what alignment and misalignment actually look like day to day
Naming these dynamics doesn’t create conflict. It creates clarity; and gives teams language to navigate complexity, uncertainty and difference during their day-to-day work.
Making culture tangible (and less tense)
Conversations about culture can feel abstract, or emotionally charged, if they stay at the level of words alone.
That’s why we often integrate LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® into culture and team charter work.
Building LEGO® models allows people to:
externalize ideas and experiences
talk about something, rather than about each other
explore differences safely and productively
make invisible dynamics visible
The result is deep insight, rich conversation, and a process that feels playful and engaging without losing rigour or depth.
Using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® helps teams make culture and ways of working visible — surfacing perspectives, tensions, and shared meaning in a way that feels engaging and grounded.
Culture as something you practice
Culture isn’t something that you set once and forget about. We encourage teams to treat their charter or culture agreements as living agreements that are regularly revisited, updated and used as:
a touchstone during moments of change
a way to onboard new members
a guide for feedback and reflection
a shared commitment to how work gets done
When culture is practiced (not just stated) it becomes a source of resilience, trust and clarity.
Exploring culture, team charters, or ways of working?
We design culture-focused retreats, workshops and facilitated processes that help teams articulate who they are, how they want to work, and what will support alignment when things get hard.
