Core Beliefs Behind Catalyst
- Tara Giambrone
- Aug 27
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 27
There are 5 core beliefs behind our work at Catalyst. We infuse them into our offerings and our approach co-creating with organizations.
1 | Work can and should have a healthy, psychologically safe culture.
2 | Healthy work cultures where staff feel valued, appreciated, and heard are the most productive.
3 | It doesn’t matter where you sit in the organization – everyone can impact their work culture and lead from where they are.
4 | Attaining a healthy work culture is not as hard or daunting as it seems, and it’s something everyone in the organization wants and benefits from.
5 | The skills it takes to attain and maintain a healthy work culture can and will improve your personal life as well.
Over the next few posts, we’ll go over each of these beliefs and what we need to address them in the structures of an organization.
1 | Work can and should have a healthy, psychologically safe culture.
We all have amazing ideas and ways to improve our work. Like me, you probably have shared those ideas to hear “we tried that before, it won’t work” or “it's just the way things are here”. There is nothing worse than watching your great idea not even launch. No wait, there is. It’s having to deal with the unexpected and totally unprofessional outburst of a colleague or supervisor. These things can ruin our day, sometimes our week, and even alter our relationships with someone permanently. Healthy work cultures provide the tools, resources, and structure to communicate effectively and productively – avoiding the emotional toll.
The backbone of a healthy culture is behavioral expectations and the skills to attain them. Not just what the final product looks like, or what you need to do to get there - it also includes how you get there. For instance, what are the group norms for how a team communicates to one another or stakeholders? To achieve this, the expectations for a healthy culture needs to start with onboarding and be embedded in training structures.
Unfortunately, many organizations onboarding and training processes were developed organically, birthed out of necessity, and usually do not include professional development skills (think high-EQ communication, psychological safety, accountability, etc.) that build healthy, high performance work cultures. They often leave a lot to be desired from the perspective of a new employee, who wants to learn the best way to do their job quickly, and the supervisor, who wants new staff to be independent as soon as possible, which is why inside From Onboarding to Succession Planning we’ve included an evaluation and upgrades to your onboarding, training, and leadership development.