My Favorite Read of the Month:
The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
My daughter Jessica sent me Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code. And I loved it.
“While successful culture can look and feel like magic, the truth is that it’s not,” writes Coyle. “Culture is a set of living relationships working towards a shared goal. It’s not something you are. It’s something you do.”
According to Coyle, leaders of successful groups/teams do cultureby “building safety, sharing vulnerability and mutual risk, and establishing purpose.
1. Leaders of successful groups *build safety*. Successful groups make people feel like they belong. Leaders constantly use “belonging cues” to build unit-cohesion.
Belonging cues are behaviors that create safe connection in groups. They include among others, proximity, eye contact, energy, mimicry, turn taking, attention, body language, vocal pitch, consistency of emphasis, and whether everyone talks to everyone else in the group.
Leaders ensure a “steady pulse of interactions within a social relationship.” These interactions answer the ancient, ever-present questions glowing in our brains and in the brains of those we lead: Are we safe here? What’s our future with these people? Are there dangers lurking?”
Coyle writes: “You won’t get the best out of people if they feel they have to compete for status. Cohesion happens not when members of a group are smarter but when they are lit up by clear, steady signals of safe connection.”*
One or two signals are not enough. As leaders, we must ensure that steady stream of signals that say: You are safe here. For in the words of Sam Rayburn, a Texas politician: “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.” Be a carpenter.
2. Leaders of successful groups *share vulnerability and mutual risk.*
A healthy culture exists when leaders and group members admit when they need help, and acknowledge failures. They’re able to talk openly and honestly about mistakes that have been made, and that way the whole group learns and does better next time.
One of the best things we can ask as leaders is: *Any suggestions?*
If you recall, Richard Ewell, the Confederate 2nd Corps Commander—who admittedly made more leadership mistakes at Gettysburg than any Confederate commander—failed on July 1st to ask for help when he should have. One 2nd Corps observer recalled the following conversation.
“General, there is an eminence of commanding position, and not now occupied, as it ought to be by us or the enemy soon. I advise you to send a brigade and hold it if we are to remain here,” Trimble said, adding, “it ought to be held by us at once.” Ewell replied, “When I need advice from a junior officer, I generally ask for it.”
3. Leaders of successful groups *establish purpose*. Leaders constantly share narratives as well as catchphrases to create shared goals and values.
The idea of “catchphrases” was new to me. In one example of a highly successful restaurant in New York City, Coyle explains how the use of catchphrases established an essential cultural ambiance for the restaurant. The owner has his team rehearse these catchphrases and practice them:
*One size fits one*
*Put us out of business with your generosity*
*To get a hug, you have to give a hug*
*Athletic hospitality*
Coyle writes that “every team or organization has priorities, whether you name them or not. If you want to grow, you’d better name them and you’d better name the behaviors that support those priorities. You name these priorities and behaviors by using and repeating “catchphrases.”
The key to building effective catchphrases is to keep them simple, action-oriented, and forthright. Here are some other examples of catchphrases from leading organizations. Create fun and a little weirdness (Zappo), Talk less, do more (IDEO), Pound the Rock (San Antonio Spurs), We are better together (Faculty Commons, Cru), Shoot, move, communicate (SEALS).
Catchphrases contribute an application to what we discussed under Language of Leadership and Flying the Flag. They can help us speak above the line, make the cause and attendant values visible and memorable, align and inspire our teams, etc.
Laurie and I are working up several catchphrases to guide our conferences. Here are some examples: “Honor Vendors as Friends, Root All Principles in Stories, Develop Hero-Makers, Each Conference Better than the Last One.”
Can you think of some catchphrases to use with the teams you lead?