# The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups - Daniel Coyle Synced: [[2023_11_30]] 6:03 AM Last Highlighted: [[2023_10_22]]  ## Highlights [[2023_09_29]] (Page 108) > Spotlight Your Fallibility Early On—Especially If You’re a Leader: In any interaction, we have a natural tendency to try to hide our weaknesses and appear competent. If you want to create safety, this is exactly the wrong move. Instead, you should open up, show you make mistakes, and invite input with simple phrases like “This is just my two cents.” “Of course, I could be wrong here.” “What am I missing?” “What do you think?” [[2023_09_29]] (Page 110) > Embrace the Messenger: One of the most vital moments for creating safety is when a group shares bad news or gives tough feedback. In these moments, it’s important not simply to tolerate the difficult news but to embrace it. “You know the phrase ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’?” Edmondson says. “In fact, it’s not enough to not shoot them. You have to hug the messenger and let them know how much you need that feedback. That way you can be sure that they feel safe enough to tell you the truth next time.” [[2023_09_29]] (Page 114) > Be Painstaking in the Hiring Process: Deciding who’s in and who’s out is the most powerful signal any group sends, and successful groups approach their hiring accordingly. Most have built lengthy, demanding processes that seek to assess fit, contribution (through deep background research and extensive interactions with a large number of people in the group), and performance (increasingly measured by tests). Some groups, like Zappos, have added an extra layer of belonging cues: after training is complete, they offer trainees a $2,000 bonus if they quit (about 10 percent of trainees accept the offer). [[2023_09_29]] (Page 120) > This is what I would call a muscular humility—a mindset of seeking simple ways to serve the group. Picking up trash is one example, but the same kinds of behaviors exist around allocating parking places (egalitarian, with no special spots reserved for leaders), picking up checks at meals (the leaders do it every time), and providing for equity in salaries, particularly for start-ups. These actions are powerful not just because they are moral or generous but also because they send a larger signal: We are all in this together. [[2023_09_29]] (Page 123) > My favorite method is Toyota’s use of the andon, a cord that any employee can use to stop the assembly line when they spot a problem. Like many organizational habits that ensure voice, this one seems inefficient at first, overturning the hierarchy by allowing a lowly assembly-line worker to stop the entire company. But a closer look shows that it creates belonging by placing power and trust in the hands of the people doing the work. [[2023_10_22]] > We put in some new systems, and they learned new ways of interacting. It’s strange to think that a wave of creativity and innovation can be unleashed by something as mundane as changing systems and learning new ways of interacting. But it’s true, because building creative purpose isn’t really about creativity. It’s about building ownership, providing support, and aligning group energy toward the arduous, error-filled, ultimately fulfilling journey of making something new. [[2023_10_22]] > Name and Rank Your Priorities: In order to move toward a target, you must first have a target. Listing your priorities, which means wrestling with the choices that define your identity, is the first step. Most successful groups end up with a small handful of priorities (five or fewer), and many, not coincidentally, end up placing their in-group relationships—how they treat one another—at the top of the list. This reflects the truth that many successful groups realize: Their greatest project is building and sustaining the group itself. If they get their own relationships right, everything else will follow. [[2023_10_22]] > Be Ten Times as Clear About Your Priorities as You Think You Should Be: A while back Inc. magazine asked executives at six hundred companies to estimate the percentage of their workforce who could name the company’s top three priorities. The executives predicted that 64 percent would be able to name them. When Inc. then asked employees to name the priorities, only 2 percent could do so. This is not the exception but the rule. Leaders are inherently biased to presume that everyone in the group sees things as they do, when in fact they don’t. This is why it’s necessary to drastically overcommunicate priorities. The leaders I visited with were not shy about this. Statements of priorities were painted on walls, stamped on emails, incanted in speeches, dropped into conversation, and repeated over and over until they became part of the oxygen. [[2023_10_22]] > Figure Out Where Your Group Aims for Proficiency and Where It Aims for Creativity: Every group skill can be sorted into one of two basic types: skills of proficiency and skills of creativity. > Skills of proficiency are about doing a task the same way, every single time. They are about delivering machine-like reliability, and they tend to apply in domains in which the goal behaviors are clearly defined, such as service. Building purpose to perform these skills is like building a vivid map: You want to spotlight the goal and provide crystal-clear directions to the checkpoints along the way. Ways to do that include: > • Fill the group’s windshield with clear, accessible models of excellence. > • Provide high-repetition, high-feedback training. > • Build vivid, memorable rules of thumb (if X, then Y). > • Spotlight and honor the fundamentals of the skill. > Creative skills, on the other hand, are about empowering a group to do the hard work of building something that has never existed before. Generating purpose in these areas is like supplying an expedition: You need to provide support, fuel, and tools and to serve as a protective presence that empowers the team doing the work. Some ways to do that include: > • Keenly attend to team composition and dynamics. > • Define, reinforce, and relentlessly protect the team’s creative autonomy. > • Make it safe to fail and to give feedback. > • Celebrate hugely when the group takes initiative. > Most groups, of course, consist of a combination of these skill types, as they aim for proficiency in certain areas and creativity in others. The key is to clearly identify these areas and tailor leadership accordingly. [[2023_10_22]] > Embrace the Use of Catchphrases: When you look at successful groups, a lot of their internal language features catchphrases that often sound obvious, rah-rah, or corny. Many of us instinctively dismiss them as cultish jargon. But this is a mistake. Their occasionally cheesy obviousness is not a bug—it’s a feature. Their clarity, grating to the outsider’s ear, is precisely what helps them function.