Why The Greatest Teams Succeed — The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
By: Sarah Cy
Tags: Book, Inspiration, Love, Life Lessons, Writing

Introduction: When Two Plus Two Equals Ten

CULTURE: from the Latin cultus, which means CARE.

Chapter starts with the spaghetti competition story: Peter Skillman challenged 4-person groups to create the tallest structure out of uncooked spaghetti, a string, and tape and a marshmallow. The kindergartners won, the business students were second, the engineers were dead last.

SKILL 1 — BUILD SAFETY

Chapter 1: The Good Apples

Will Felps U of New S Wales study: researcher mole Nick is designed to be a monkey wrench, trying to make experimental groups work badly. But one group was resistant to his poison because there was a member who kept defusing his comments.

Chapter 2: The Billion-Dollar Day When Nothing Happened

Bill Gross: invented internet advertising. Owned Overture, an LA company that was competing to build a search engine. But as we all know, Google won. In part because Larry Page posted a note to about ads to a wall: “these ads suck,” an employee named Jeff Dean saw it, and long story short, Google created AdWords and became famous.

Belonging cues: If the author gave you a tricky puzzle, then later gave you a note with (not useful) tips from a previous puzzle solver who “wanted to share a tip with you,” you’d actually be motivated to work harder.

You’re also more likely to lend your phone to someone who says “I’m sorry about the rain, can I borrow your phone?” than to someone who says “can I borrow your phone?” out of the blue.

The point is, there must be an unmistakable signal that you are safe to connect with people here. Small signals can have big effects, but they can’t be given only once. You have to establish a narrative, a relationship.

Belonging needs to be continually refreshed and reinforced.

3 models of startups (Baron and Hannan sociologists study)

Star model: hire the best people. Professional model: build group around skill sets. Commitment model: focus on developing shared values and strong emotional bonds. This was the most successful model.

Chapter 3: The Christmas Truce, the One-Hour Experiment, and the Missileers

Why was there a Christmas truce in 1914?

Military scholars tell us that this is due to the fact that World War I marked the historical intersection of modern weapons and medieval strategy. But in truth, it was mostly due to the mud.

The German and British soldiers were engaged in trench warfare, so close to each other that they could hear (and applaud) each others’ songs.

Weeks of interactions before Christmas created “bonds of safety, identity, and trust” that paved the way for the Christmas truce. People could smell “the other side’s” cooking, hear their voices, etc.

To end the fraternizing, generals on both sides rotated troops and destroyed the sensation of belonging. The next Christmas, there was no truce.

Another story about India’s WIPRO call center. In the 200s, WIPRO had high turnover, and workers couldn’t articulate why they wanted to leave. Basically, they lacked connection to the group.

To solve this, WIPRO gave new workers standard training plus an additional hour NOT focused on the company, but on asking questions like “what’s unique about you that leads to your best performance and greatest happiness at work?” and then gave them a sweatshirt with the company logo and their name.

This one-hour intervention worked incredibly well, even after trainees forgot the training.

The point is to constantly give a stream of belonging cues: individualized, future-oriented belonging cues asking personal questions, a sweater with their name on it, etc.

Belonging cues answer basic questions:

Are we connected? Missileers at Minot air Force did horribly as a team because they weren’t. Do we have a shared future? The missileers were created in response to the Cold War, but after that, their mission no longer existed and the work was monotonous and had no way out. Are we safe? The missileers were hounded by superiors who would fire them at the slightest infraction.

Chapter 4: How to Build Belonging

Author: The greatest NBA coach is Gregg Popovich. Because his team, the Spurs, constantly “perform the thousand little unselfish behaviors…that put the team’s interest above their own.”

Marcin Gortat: “[Playing against them]…was like listening to Mozart.”

Something makes these players unselfish on Popovich’s team. But what?

Some elements:

Popovich communicates and connects closely. He talks about life, brings in news reports and asks people their opinions, gets into people’s personal space, and does it all with love and truth (and some yelling)

Popovich once spent 4 days hanging out and traveling with Spurs star Tim Duncan talking about everything but basketball, before Duncan decided to join the Spurs, because P wanted to see what D was like. (Was he tough, humble, unselfish?) That created a “high trust no bullshit” connection as a role model for other players.

Popovich asked direct, personal, big picture questions about things other than basketball, and create conversations during meal time.

Successful cultures are mostly NOT lighthearted places. They’re focused on solving tough problems together, and have many times of “uncomfortable truth telling” (Like Page’s “these ads suck”)

Stanford researchers found that one sentence in feedback helped students improve their essay writing skills considerably:

“I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.”

This tells kids:

You’re part of our group Our group is special, we have high standards I believe you can reach those standards

Aka: this is a safe place to give effort.

Popovich’s communication created 3 types of belonging cues:

Personal, close-up (body lang, behavior) Performance feedback (relentless criticism aka yelling, when warranted) Big picture perspective (convos on life and politics and history: life is > basketball)

Once, when the Spurs lost a game they should have won, Popovich had them gather at a restaurant to encourage the players. No speeches, just a ton of small, intimate conversations.

He also doesn’t use tech, but always communicates in person, up close.

Chapter 5: How to Design for Belonging

Tony Hsieh of Zappos wanted to “build an atmosphere of ‘fun and weirdness.’”

He started a Downtown Project in Las Vegas, acting like a human social app, connecting with everyone and connecting others.

Hsieh’s goal is to increase “collisions” — serendipitous personal encounters.

“When an idea becomes part of a language, it becomes part of the default way of thinking.” — Tony Hsieh

Thomas Allen, MIT professor, studied successful engineering firms: “Clusters of high communicators” drive successful projects. And it all boils down to distance between desks. Simple visual contact is extremely important.

He plotted the frequency of interaction against distance, and came up with the Allen Curve (related to the Dunbar Number of 150), a sudden steepness as the curve goes up.

Both basically mean: humans are designed to focus on a relatively small number of people within a finite distance.

He found that we’re more likely to contact (even digitally) people who are physically close to us.

“I never say very much; I don’t make any big pitch. I just let them experience this place and wait for the moment to be right.”

Chapter 6: Ideas for Action

Building safety is an improvisational skill. It’s about reading the situation and reacting quickly.

Things you can do:

Overcommunicate your listening : lean forward, nod, watch faces, steady stream of affirmations like “Yeah, uh huh, gotcha,” etc. Avoid interruptions: Take turns.

: lean forward, nod, watch faces, steady stream of affirmations like “Yeah, uh huh, gotcha,” etc. Avoid interruptions: Take turns. Be open about your faults/vulnerability : Especially if you're a leader. Actively invite input. You can say things like “I could be wrong, what do you think?”

: Especially if you're a leader. Actively invite input. You can say things like “I could be wrong, what do you think?” Embrace the bearer of bad moods : Don’t just tolerate, embrace. Make people feel safe to share tough feedback.

: Don’t just tolerate, embrace. Make people feel safe to share tough feedback. Preview future connection : Paint a vision of a great future. Ex: a coach would tell young ball-players “see that seat you’re sitting in? [a great player] sat there 3 years ago.”

: Paint a vision of a great future. Ex: a coach would tell young ball-players “see that seat you’re sitting in? [a great player] sat there 3 years ago.” Overdo gratitude : Say thank you A LOT. Popovich thanks each star player for letting him coach them. It’s not about thanks, but affirming the relationship. Chef at French Laundry and Per Se thanks the dishwashers.

: Say thank you A LOT. Popovich thanks each star player for letting him coach them. It’s not about thanks, but affirming the relationship. Chef at French Laundry and Per Se thanks the dishwashers. Hire painstakingly : Zappos even tries to pay trainees to leave after training so they get only people they want.

: Zappos even tries to pay trainees to leave after training so they get only people they want. Throw out bad apples : Know what bad apple behaviors are and have low tolerance for it. New Zealand All-Blacks = “no dickheads.”

: Know what bad apple behaviors are and have low tolerance for it. New Zealand All-Blacks = “no dickheads.” Create safe, collision-rich spaces : Great groups care about design. Create spaces that maximize collisions.

: Great groups care about design. Create spaces that maximize collisions. Make sure everyone has a voice : Use simple mechanisms like “no meeting can end without everyone sharing something.

: Use simple mechanisms like “no meeting can end without everyone sharing something. Pick up trash : Literally. John Wooden picked up trash in the locker room. Ray Kroc of McD’s did it too. Leaders do the menial work in a kind of “muscular humility.”

: Literally. John Wooden picked up trash in the locker room. Ray Kroc of McD’s did it too. Leaders do the menial work in a kind of “muscular humility.” Capitalize on threshold moments : When someone enters a group, that’s a crucial moment, more important than others. Make use of the first day.

: When someone enters a group, that’s a crucial moment, more important than others. Make use of the first day. Avoid sandwich feedback : Giving praise-critique-praise actually confuses people and makes them focus on one or the other. Separate the processes.

: Giving praise-critique-praise actually confuses people and makes them focus on one or the other. Separate the processes. Embrace fun: Laughter is a fundamental sign of connection/safety.

Ex: Toyota’s andon is a cord where any employee can stop the entire assembly line, giving power and trust to the workers and creating belonging.