Culture is the Cure for Marketing Teams

Why happy marketing teams “heal” faster in turbulent times

I’ve worked for several marketing teams in my time as a writer, and they’ve all had their fair share of chaos. I’ve survived layoffs, I’ve watched a company’s entire finance team go up in metaphorical flames, and I’ve watched fledgling rebrands take off only to come crashing back down. Oh, and I first entered the marketing world in 2020, approximately three months after COVID had hit. What I’m trying to say is that I’m convinced that “marketing” and “turbulence” just go hand in hand. Remember when AI hit the scene? Yeah, I’ve been riding that rollercoaster, too.

Here’s what I’ve noticed: when things get chaotic, leaders tend to reach for more output: more meetings, more tracking, more urgency, more “just push through.” But not the leaders at Liger. They understand that culture (not pressure) heals a team and keeps them feeling confident that hard times are merely temporary.

You won’t catch me saying “we’re like a family!” because that’s not our culture at all. Sure, we love each other, but our culture is also highly strategic. Thanks to our shared behaviors and standards, work still gets done when things get tough. It’s my evidence that “happy” marketing teams recover faster and produce work they really believe in.

First: what do we mean by “culture?”

And what do we mean by “happy?”

At Liger, we treat culture as foundational because it determines whether your strategy can actually live in the real world. Culture is the invisible operating system underneath everything: how you communicate, how you make decisions, how you handle conflict, how you treat time, how you define “good,” and what happens when someone drops the ball. We’re very intentional in how we express and maintain our values, creating a culture feedback loop that feels natural and holds steady.

“Happy” is more subjective, but I’ll argue that a happy marketing team is one that feels safe and effective, even when conditions are stormy.

In practice, happy marketing teams tend to have:

Clarity: people know what matters most right now
Trust: people assume positive intent and don’t fear blame
Respect for focus: deep work is protected; meetings are scheduled sparingly, and always with a distinct purpose
Healthy conflict: feedback is direct, never passive-aggressive
Recognition: good work is noticed (and celebrated)
Agency: people own outcomes and “big picture” results
Shared standards: “quality” isn’t a mystery or a moving target

There’s a reason culture fit and shared working styles matter so much in marketing specifically. Marketing depends on collaboration and smooth communication, and when a team is truly aligned, problem solving speeds up and misunderstandings are rare.

What “healing” looks like for a marketing team

Rather than going “back to normal,” marketing teams that heal restore their ability to operate with confidence.

Healing looks like:

Spiraling into shame? Finger-pointing? Not here. A team that heals can reset after a miss without any drama
People can name what happened and learn
The team regains momentum
Trust stays intact (or gets rebuilt quickly)
Work feels meaningful again

So, why do happy marketing teams heal faster?

Happy teams heal faster because their culture is already doing “immune system” work behind the scenes.

Here are the biggest reasons:

1) They don’t waste energy on self-protection

In fragile cultures, turbulence triggers politics: covering yourself, managing optics, hedging in case things go wrong. Totally draining.

In healthy cultures, people spend less energy defending themselves and more energy solving the problem.

2) They move faster because they share the same definition of “good”

When a team doesn’t share standards, turbulence turns everything into a debate. Every project becomes personal. Edits sting.

Happy teams have shared expectations, making feedback clearer, editing faster, and quality easier to repeat.

3) They have leaders who absorb chaos

I mentioned our leadership team earlier in this blog, but the point bears repeating: one of the most underrated culture skills is “shielding,” and that’s precisely what Liger’s leadership team is great at. They know how to identify priorities and keep employees moving towards meaningful progress.

Bottom line: teams do better when leaders build trust through honesty, presence, and clear communication about what’s going well and what isn’t.

4) They feel valued, so they’re more resilient after a hit

If quality work is the fire, recognition is the gasoline that keeps it burning.

When people feel invisible, turbulence can feel like proof that their work doesn’t matter. When people feel valued, turbulence becomes a problem everyone’s committed to solving.

Even in informal manager-to-manager conversations, you’ll see this clearly: creatives often want to know their leader is on their side and that good work is seen and defended.

5) They treat culture like a system

Happy teams have repeatable practices that hold them steady when the environment gets shaky, like:

Weekly priority resets and check-ins
Clear intake rules (so every request doesn’t become an emergency)
Pre- and post-project debriefs (always learning)
A shared language for quality
A consistent cadence for recognition

Culture as the cure (Operation game edition)

If you want the Valentine’s Day version of this metaphor: culture is Cupid with a stethoscope. It’s love, but practical. It listens, diagnoses, and helps.

If you want the Operation version: turbulence is the buzzer.

In unhealthy cultures, the buzzer goes off and everyone panics. In healthy cultures, the team slows down just enough to be steady. The buzzer will go off from time to time. What matters is being cool and calm when it does.

Check your ego at the door

One of the highest compliments a marketing team can receive is that no one has an ego. A healthy culture encourages this exact dynamic by taking work seriously without making it personal and encouraging open communication.

Happy marketing teams heal faster because their culture makes it easier to trust, to reset, to learn, and to keep moving without breaking the people doing the work.

So yes, culture is the cure. Working at Liger proves that point to me every single day.