Especially during these extraordinary corona times, it is important to keep the conversation going and working on a pleasant working environment with attention for each other. That is why APH has refined an online game called ‘Culture Talk’ that departments and teams can use to keep an open discussion regarding several cultural themes. Against the backdrop of the current transition and changes in workplace, three culture themes - Safe and direct; Collaboration and appreciation; Results-orientation – give direction to the desired culture change.    

With cultural awareness, groups and individuals can begin to understand the impact of culture on the success of organizations and the people within them. They can more easily identify the behaviors that enable them to meet goals and create positive outcomes; or, they can highlight concerns and shift away from undesired results. Above all it is a great teambuilding exercise and lots of fun! 

A first pilot with one of the APH-research groups within the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences of the VU was enjoyed by the team, raised awareness of important cultural issues and led to a number of concrete actions to improve the research group culture.

Short description Culture Talk

The purpose of Culture Talk is to talk about cultural themes that are deemed important for our everyday work, by asking the following questions:

  • How do we behave toward each other now?
  • How would we like to behave toward each other?
  • How can we achieve that?

The work format is strongly action motivated (‘we strive for…’, ‘we want…’).
The work format contains about eight questions per culture theme. You do not get to see these in advance. To get an idea of the type of questions, here are some examples:

Question Refers to
Do you think that there is enough prioritization within your team? Results-oriented – We prioritize more sharply.
What keeps you from reporting errors to your colleagues or supervisor? Safe and direct – We report mistakes and missed targets faster so we can better address the consequences and learn from them.
Can you give an example of a cross-team collaboration that the rest of the organization can learn from? Collaboration and appreciation – We are committed to the goals of Amsterdam UMC/VU/UvA as a whole and strengthen collaboration and engagement among organizational units.

Practical information about Culture Talk

Playable online

    Maximum group size: approx. 8-10 people (via Zoom - random break-out rooms so teams are mixed up), with 1 game leader (who has the first birthday in the calendar)

      Duration: 2 hours

      • 10 min: Explanation of the purpose and rules of the game
      • 90 min: Culture Talks
      • 20 min: Refleciton on Culture Talk and the take-home for the players

        If you are interested to learn more about Culture Talk please contact Seta Jahfari: seta.jahfari@amsterdamumc.nl