The Sourdough Secret: Why Building Team Culture Requires Daily Feeding
A month or so ago, I tended to my sourdough starter, the same ritual I have performed every morning for a number of years. I enjoy making bread from scratch; the daily practice becomes almost meditative. But I have to be honest, I neglected my starter for a few days. Those few days became a few weeks, and unfortunately, the starter perished, requiring me to take a small portion and start building from scratch once again.
It struck me how remarkably similar building team culture is to nurturing a sourdough starter: both require unwavering consistency, daily attention, and an understanding that the magic happens in the accumulation of small, intentional actions over time.
Just as sourdough relies on wild yeast and beneficial bacteria working together in harmony, healthy team culture emerges from the complex interplay of trust, psychological safety, and shared purpose. The baker cannot simply mix flour and water once and expect bread they must feed their starter consistently, creating the right conditions for the culture to thrive. Similarly, leaders cannot declare a culture change and expect transformation. Culture, like sourdough, is a living system that demands constant nurturing through daily micro-moments of leadership. When we respond with curiosity instead of judgment, when we acknowledge someone's contribution, or when we create space for vulnerability, we're feeding our team culture just as surely as a baker feeds their starter.
The patience required for sourdough teaches us something profound about culture building that many organisations miss. I've worked with leadership teams who expected immediate cultural transformation after a single workshop or team-building session, much like expecting fresh bread from a neglected starter. In my experience facilitating groups over the past decade, I've learned that meaningful culture change operates on what I call "sourdough time." It took 12 weeks in one mentoring programme I ran before a disengaged teenager finally opened up with a simple "good, thanks" during our weekly check-ins. That consistency of creating the opportunity, without judgment or pressure, eventually yielded the breakthrough. The teenager's trust didn't emerge from a grand gesture but from the reliable presence of a safe space, offered consistently week after week.
What makes sourdough so fascinating is its resilience and adaptability. A well-maintained starter can survive neglect, changes in environment, and even disasters but only if it's been properly established through months of consistent care. Team culture exhibits the same resilience. When trust and psychological safety have been cultivated through countless small interactions, teams can weather significant challenges, navigate conflict constructively, and adapt to change whilst maintaining their core identity.
The beauty of the sourdough metaphor lies in its reminder that excellence isn't achieved through perfection but through persistence. Some days your starter might look sluggish, just as some days your team dynamics might feel off. The key isn't to panic or abandon the process but to maintain the consistent practices that create the conditions for growth.
Whether it's holding space for difficult conversations, celebrating small wins, or simply showing up authentically day after day, these seemingly mundane acts of cultural feeding compound over time. Like the baker who trusts that their daily attention will eventually yield the perfect loaf, leaders must trust that their consistent investment in relationships and psychological safety will eventually transform not just their team's performance, but their capacity to bring their whole selves to the work that matters most.