The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

Product Information

In this article, we will review some of Coyle’s insights into how great culture develops, how it can fuel collaboration, and how to sustain it. About the Author Align Language with Action: “Many highly cooperative groups use language to reinforce their interdependence.” Pg. 166 Why do certain groups add up to be greater than the sum of their parts, while others add up to be less?

Creating safety is about dialing in to small, subtle moments and delievering targeted signals at key points.” Pg. 75 Polzer points out that vulnerability is less about the sender than the receiver. ‘The second person is the key.’” Pg. 104 Great cultures, Coyle has found, are built on three essential skills: safety, vulnerability, and purpose. Within this framework, he shows us how we can better serve our teammates, ourselves, and our shared purpose. Traditions – recurring activities or events that hold symbolic meaning within the group or organization and help reinforce culture, create a sense of identity, and foster belonging. Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek is a fantastic read all about how leaders can create organizations and cultures that allow workers to go home at the end of the day feeling fulfilled by the work that they do. By creating an environment built on trust, teams will pull together, again and again, to help their tribe not just survive, but flourish.The three “lessons” in The Culture Code remind me of the three must-haves for motivation that Daniel Pink outlined in Drive. Pink identified purpose as one of the most effective motivators for people. Like Pink, Coyle sees purpose as one of the most effective motivators for teams. Team members need a shared sense of purpose to spark collaboration, build trust, and drive positive change. Daniel Coyle is the New York Times bestselling author of The Culture Code, which was named Best Business Book of the Year by Bloomberg, BookPal, and Business Insider. Coyle has served as an advisor to many high-performing organizations, including the Navy SEALs, Microsoft, Google, and the Cleveland Guardians. His other books include The Talent Code, The Secret Race, The Little Book of Talent, and Hardball: A Season in the Projects, which was made into a movie starring Keanu Reeves. Coyle was raised in Anchorage, Alaska, and now lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, during the school year and in Homer, Alaska, during the summer with his wife Jenny, and their four children.

The DARPA Red Balloon Challenge is another brilliant case study about how people can cooperate when vulnerability is shared and support invited in a way that is reciprocal and offers mutual benefit. That is, he points out — the whole point of groups: “combine our strengths and skills in a complementary way.” Groups succeed because their members primarily communicate a powerful idea: we are safe and connected. In the case of a group, it’s the sum of all beliefs and values among your team, as they relate to achieving your common goal. That goal might be something straightforward, like selling the most phones any company has ever sold, but ideally, it’s about something bigger, like making phone users feel special and that they have good taste. Which one do you think Apple’s built on?When all these attributes, codes, and signals present themselves in a positive way, the culture will be positive and support the growth of team members, fostering high levels of engagement and successful collaboration. When these attributes, codes, and signals are negative, culture will turn toxic, team members will experience low morale, performance will suffer, and retention will drop. They are energized and engaged, but at their core their members are oriented less around achieving happiness than around solving hard problems together.” Pg. 55 One of the most difficult things about creating habits of vulnerability is that it requires a group to endure two discomforts: emotional pain and a sense of inefficiency.

What is one thing that I don’t currently do frequently enough that you think I should do more often? the most effective listeners behave like trampolines. They aren’t passive sponges. They are active responders, absorbing what the other person gives, supporting them, and adding energy to help the conversation gain velocity and altitude.” Pg. 163 In a group setting, vulnerability is about sending a clear signal that you have weaknesses and you could use help. When this behaviour becomes a model for others, you can set the insecurities aside, start trusting each other, and get to work. He is leveraging the Allen Curve. His projects tend to succeed for the same reason the creative cluster projects succeeded: Closeness helps create efficiencies of connection. The people in his orbit behave as if they are under the influence of some kind of drug because, in fact, they are.” Pg. 72 Sentence-Summary: The Culture Code examines the dynamics of groups, large and small, formal and informal, to help you understand how great teams work and what you can do to improve your relationships wherever you cooperate with others.The truth is, first and foremost groups succeed because their members communicate one powerful overarching idea: we are safe and connected. Ensuring that everyone has a voice is easy to talk about but hard to accomplish. This is why many successful groups use simple mechanisms that encourage, spotlight, and value full-group contribution. For example, many groups follow the rule that no meeting can end without everyone sharing something.” Pg. 83

So what went wrong for the students? According to Skillman, they succumbed to "status management." Whereas the Kindergarteners just dived headfirst into the project and tried to build the highest tower they could, the MBA students fixated on who was in charge, who should occupy what role, and who had what skills to offer. Hence, the MBA students ran out of time, and were ineffective in their problem-solving. If we look at the Kindergarteners, they just merrily began trying and failing, and eventually learned through trial and error. Their process was chaotic and enthusiastic, and perhaps unorthodox, but it was also supportive and collaborative. There were no egos, no jostling for position, and most importantly, no fear. Embrace the Discomfort: “One of the most difficult things about creating habits of vulnerability is that it requires a group to endure two discomforts: emotional pain and a sense of inefficiency.” Pg. 166 The interesting thing about Givechi’s question is how transcendently simple they are. They have less to do with design than with connecting to deeper emotions: fear, ambition, motivation.” Pg. 153 But revealing these shortcomings and sharing these less-than-perfect moments with the group sends the signal that it’s not only okay to make mistakes but also unavoidable, so we should embrace and learn from them to move forward and closer to achieving our goals. Remote work is on the rise. Already half of all Americans do at least part of their work from home. And while that wouldn’t be possible without modern technology, it’s still remarkable how many people jump on the opportunity if it presents itself. According to Daniel Coyle, it’s simple: our homes are the safest places we know.The term “culture code” describes the attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, norms, and shared values that exist within a group or organization—a collective personality that guides and influences how group members interact. We focus on what we can see—individual skills. But individual skills are not what matters. What matters is the interaction.” Pg. xvii Purpose makes vulnerability and safety possible because it keeps employees united to not only work together toward a vision but also to support each other in the process. It greases the wheels of collaboration by keeping individuals motivated to work together for a positive outcome. This lesson focuses on creating cooperation and boosting collaboration within groups and between individuals.