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The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by [Daniel Coyle]

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Daniel Coyle

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups Kindle Edition

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Talent Code unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups and provides tomorrow’s leaders with the tools to build a cohesive, motivated culture.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG AND LIBRARY JOURNAL

Where does great culture come from? How do you build and sustain it in your group, or strengthen a culture that needs fixing?

In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle goes inside some of the world’s most successful organizations—including the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six, IDEO, and the San Antonio Spurs—and reveals what makes them tick. He demystifies the culture-building process by identifying three key skills that generate cohesion and cooperation, and explains how diverse groups learn to function with a single mind. Drawing on examples that range from Internet retailer Zappos to the comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade to a daring gang of jewel thieves, Coyle offers specific strategies that trigger learning, spark collaboration, build trust, and drive positive change. Coyle unearths helpful stories of failure that illustrate what not to do, troubleshoots common pitfalls, and shares advice about reforming a toxic culture. Combining leading-edge science, on-the-ground insights from world-class leaders, and practical ideas for action, The Culture Code offers a roadmap for creating an environment where innovation flourishes, problems get solved, and expectations are exceeded.

Culture is not something you are—it’s something you do. The Culture Code puts the power in your hands. No matter the size of your group or your goal, this book can teach you the principles of cultural chemistry that transform individuals into teams that can accomplish amazing things together.

Praise for The Culture Code

“I’ve been waiting years for someone to write this book—I’ve built it up in my mind into something extraordinary. But it is even better than I imagined. Daniel Coyle has produced a truly brilliant, mesmerizing read that demystifies the magic of great groups. It blows all other books on culture right out of the water.”—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Option B, Originals, and Give and Take

“If you want to understand how successful groups work—the signals they transmit, the language they speak, the cues that foster creativity—you won’t find a more essential guide than The Culture Code.”—Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better

Print length

260 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bantam
Publication date

January 30, 2018
File size

2366 KB
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Popular Highlights in this book

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I'm giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.
6,434 Kindle readers highlighted this
Group performance depends on behavior that communicates one powerful overarching idea: We are safe and connected.
5,657 Kindle readers highlighted this
Cohesion happens not when members of a group are smarter but when they are lit up by clear, steady signals of safe connection.
5,076 Kindle readers highlighted this

Editorial Reviews

Review

Advance praise for The Culture Code

“I’ve been waiting years for someone to write this book—I’ve built it up in my mind into something extraordinary. But it is even better than I imagined. Daniel Coyle has produced a truly brilliant, mesmerizing read that demystifies the magic of great groups. It blows all other books on culture right out of the water. Read it immediately.”—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Option B, Originals, and Give and Take

“If you want to understand how successful groups work—the signals they transmit, the language they speak, the cues that foster creativity—you won’t find a more essential guide than The Culture Code. This book is a marvel of insight and practicality.”—Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better

“The Culture Code is a step-by-step guidebook to building teams that are not just more effective but happier. Whether you lead a team or are a team member, this book is a must-read.”—Laszlo Bock, CEO of Humu, former SVP of People Operations at Google, and author of Work Rules!

“Daniel Coyle has a gift for demystifying elite performance and breaking it down into empirical facts. This is indispensable for anyone looking to lead, build, or find an elite culture.”—Rich Diviney, retired Navy SEAL Officer and director of outreach for the Barry-Wehmiller Leadership Institute

“There are profound ideas on every single page, stories that will change the way you work, the way you lead, and the impact you have on the world. Highly recommended, an urgent read.”—Seth Godin, author of Linchpin

About the Author

Daniel Coyle is the New York Times bestselling author of The Talent Code, The Little Book of Talent, The Secret Race, Lance Armstrong’s War, and Hardball: A Season in the Projects. Coyle, who works as an advisor to the Cleveland Indians, lives in Cleveland, Ohio, during the school year and in Homer, Alaska, during the summer with his wife, Jen, and their four children. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction When Two Plus Two Equals Ten

Let’s start with a question, which might be the oldest ques- tion of all: Why do certain groups add up to be greater than the sum of their parts, while others add up to be less?
A few years ago the designer and engineer Peter Skillman held a competition to find out. Over several months, he as- sembled a series of four-person groups at Stanford, the Uni- versity of California, the University of Tokyo, and a few other places. He challenged each group to build the tallest possible structure using the following items:

• twenty pieces of uncooked spaghetti
• one yard of transparent tape
• one yard of string
• one standard-size marshmallow

The contest had one rule: The marshmallow had to end up on top. The fascinating part of the experiment, however, had less to do with the task than with the participants. Some of the teams consisted of business school students. The oth- ers consisted of kindergartners.
The business students got right to work. They began talk- ing and thinking strategically. They examined the materials.

They tossed ideas back and forth and asked thoughtful, avvy questions. They generated several options, then honed he most promising ideas. It was professional, rational, and ntelligent. The process resulted in a decision to pursue one particular strategy. Then they divided up the tasks and tarted building.
The kindergartners took a different approach. They did not strategize. They did not analyze or share experiences. They did not ask questions, propose options, or hone ideas. n fact, they barely talked at all. They stood very close to one another. Their interactions were not smooth or orga- nized. They abruptly grabbed materials from one another and started building, following no plan or strategy. When hey spoke, they spoke in short bursts: “Here! No, here!” Their entire technique might be described as trying a bunch of stuff together.
If you had to bet which of the teams would win, it would not be a difficult choice. You would bet on the business school tudents, because they possess the intelligence, skills, and ex- perience to do a superior job. This is the way we normally hink about group performance. We presume skilled individ- uals will combine to produce skilled performance in the same way we presume two plus two will combine to produce four. Your bet would be wrong. In dozens of trials, kindergart- ners built structures that averaged twenty-six inches tall, while business school students built structures that averaged
ess than ten inches.*

Teams of kindergartners also defeated teams of lawyers (who built towers hat averaged fifteen inches) as well as teams of CEOs (twenty-two inches).

The result is hard to absorb because it feels like an illusion. We see smart, experienced business school students, and we find it difficult to imagine that they would combine to produce a poor performance. We see unsophisticated, inexperienced kindergartners, and we find it difficult to imagine that they would combine to produce a successful perfor- mance. But this illusion, like every illusion, happens because our instincts have led us to focus on the wrong details. We focus on what we can see—individual skills. But individual skills are not what matters. What matters is the interaction. The business school students appear to be collaborating, but in fact they are engaged in a process psychologists call status management. They are figuring out where they fit into the larger picture: Who is in charge? Is it okay to criticize someone’s idea? What are the rules here? Their interactions appear smooth, but their underlying behavior is riddled with inefficiency, hesitation, and subtle competition. Instead of focusing on the task, they are navigating their uncertainty about one another. They spend so much time managing sta- tus that they fail to grasp the essence of the problem (the marshmallow is relatively heavy, and the spaghetti is hard to secure). As a result, their first efforts often collapse, and they
run out of time.
The actions of the kindergartners appear disorganized on the surface. But when you view them as a single entity, their behavior is efficient and effective. They are not competing for status. They stand shoulder to shoulder and work ener- getically together. They move quickly, spotting problems and offering help. They experiment, take risks, and notice outcomes, which guides them toward effective solutions.

The kindergartners succeed not because they are smarter but because they work together in a smarter way. They are apping into a simple and powerful method in which a group of ordinary people can create a performance far beyond the um of their parts.
This book is the story of how that method works.

Group culture is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. We sense its presence inside successful businesses, hampionship teams, and thriving families, and we sense when it’s absent or toxic. We can measure its impact on the bottom line. (A strong culture increases net income 756 percent over eleven years, according to a Harvard study of more han two hundred companies.) Yet the inner workings of ulture remain mysterious. We all want strong culture in our organizations, communities, and families. We all know that t works. We just don’t know quite how it works.
The reason may be based in the way we think about cul- ure. We tend to think about it as a group trait, like DNA. Strong, well-established cultures like those of Google, Dis- ney, and the Navy SEALs feel so singular and distinctive that hey seem fixed, somehow predestined. In this way of think- ng, culture is a possession determined by fate. Some groups have the gift of strong culture; others don’t.
This book takes a different approach. I spent the last four years visiting and researching eight of the world’s most suc- essful groups, including a special-ops military unit, an nner-city school, a professional basketball team, a movie studio, a comedy troupe, a gang of jewel thieves, and others.* I found that their cultures are created by a specific set of skills. These skills, which tap into the power of our social brains to create interactions exactly like the ones used by the kindergartners building the spaghetti tower, form the structure of this book. Skill 1—Build Safety—explores how signals of connection generate bonds of belonging and iden- tity. Skill 2—Share Vulnerability—explains how habits of mutual risk drive trusting cooperation. Skill 3—Establish Purpose—tells how narratives create shared goals and values. The three skills work together from the bottom up, first building group connection and then channeling it into ac- tion. Each part of the book is structured like a tour: We’ll first explore how each skill works, and then we’ll go into the field to spend time with groups and leaders who use these methods every day. Each part will end with a collection of concrete suggestions on applying these skills to your group. In the following pages, we’ll spend time inside some of the planet’s top-performing cultures and see what makes them tick. We’ll take a look inside the machinery of the brain and see how trust and belonging are built. Along the way, we’ll see that being smart is overrated, that showing fallibility is crucial, and that being nice is not nearly as important as you might think. Above all, we’ll see how leaders of high-performing cultures navigate the challenges of achieving excellence in a fast-changing world. While successful culture can look and feel like magic, the truth is that t’s not. Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are. It’s something you do.

* I chose groups using the following qualifications: (1) they had performed in the top 1 percent of their domain for at least a decade (where applicable);
(2) they had succeeded with a range of different personnel; (3) their culture had been admired by knowledgeable people across their industry and be- yond. To help guard against selection bias, I also looked at many cultures that weren’t so successful (see page 40 for an example). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01MSY1Y6Z
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bantam (January 30, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 30, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2366 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 260 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #15,771 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #14 in Business Teams
- #22 in Organizational Behavior (Kindle Store)
- #23 in Social Psychology & Interactions

Customer Reviews:
3,609 ratings

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Daniel Coyle

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Daniel Coyle is the New York Times best-selling author of the The Culture Code, The Secret Race, The Little Book of Talent, The Talent Code, Lance Armstrong's War, Hardball: A Season in the Projects and the novel Waking Samuel. Winner (with Tyler Hamilton) of the 2012 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Prize, he is a contributing editor for Outside magazine, and also works a special advisor to the Cleveland Indians. Coyle lives in Cleveland, Ohio during the school year and in Homer, Alaska, during the summer with his wife Jen, and their four children.

Customer reviews

5 star		78%
4 star		15%
3 star		4%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from the United States

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trefrog66

It's good but I have questions

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2018

Verified Purchase

Overall I loved this book. But several of the corporate cultures he writes about as being positive have since had sexual misconduct issues, or in some cases no women or few women to include in the cultures. I think it would make for an excellent follow up to examine how women and non-binary persons are accepted into the workplace using the advice in this book. Or how to alter corporate culture to empower all people.

I reached out to Daniel in the hopes that he had some thoughts. I haven't gotten a response, but here is what I said as it applies to the book:

Hello Daniel!

I just finished reading The Culture Code and I really enjoyed it. I'm a photographer and lots of your research connected to my own about putting clients at ease and communicating that failure is ok.

However, I did have one thought that I hoped you'd be able to offer some additional insight into. Some of the cultures you researched had/have issues with toxic masculinity. I was an improvisor in Chicago for over 10 years, and in many ways the trust used to build strong groups was also used as a vehicle to groom young women to trust terrible men. Similarly, John Lasseter stepped down as head of Pixar amid misconduct allegations. And the Navy SEALs still haven't had a women in the squad.

My question is, when strong culture comes from expressing safety and vulnerability, how can these institutions be viewed as strong when women's experiences have been so different? And in your research had you noticed any ways that other companies had dealt with toxic masculinity?

249 people found this helpful

Helpful

Wally Bock

A Great book with helpful insights, but there's a glitch or two

Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2018

Verified Purchase

There are a lot of books about culture and how to create a strong and healthy one. Daniel Coyle knew that a strong and effective culture is part of the secret sauce of successful organizations. He knew that “A strong culture increases net income 756 percent over 11 years, according to a Harvard study of more than 200 companies.” He thought he could look at strong cultures in a different way and write a book about it. Here’s how he puts it.

“I spent the last four years visiting and researching eight of the world’s most successful groups, including a special-ops military unit, an inner-city school, a professional basketball team, a movie studio, a comedy troupe, a gang of jewel thieves, and others. I found that their cultures are created by a specific set of skills”

Coyle started with a definition of culture that’s a little bit different than the norm. He says, “Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are, it’s something you do.”

So, what is it that you do? What do people in organizations that create strong cultures do that their peers in other organizations don’t do?

Coyle organizes the book into three sections, each one of which relates to a specific skillset. The three skills are: build safety; share vulnerability; and establish purpose.

There are several chapters about each skill. There’s a good mix of stories and studies. Coyle chooses his examples carefully and tells their stories well. He doesn’t use bullet points or frequent summaries, so sometimes you will work to tease out his meaning. You can get a sense of this if you review my highlights from the Culture Code on Goodreads.

Most business authors put summaries of key points or action steps at the end of every chapter. Coyle doesn’t. Instead, he includes a chapter at the end of every section, titled “Ideas for Action.” That chapter functions as a review of the other chapters in the section. I think that’s a good device, but I’d rather he also put his key points at the end of every chapter.

Coyle’s a good storyteller and he makes it a point to try to tell stories you may have heard before from an angle where you haven’t seen them before. One of those stories is the story about Tylenol and its credo. Another is the story of the founding of Pixar.

In telling those stories, Coyle leaves out some interesting and potentially helpful things. For example, he tells us about the meeting where Johnson & Johnson executives reviewed the company’s credo to see if it should be revised. We know there was a meeting. But Coyle never tells us whether they changed the credo or not at that meeting. He simply jumps ahead to the Tylenol crisis, where the credo became guiding principles for one of the most successful disaster recovery examples ever.

Then, there’s the story of Ed Catmull and Pixar. Coyle says, “If you set out to design a life that represented the perfect merger of art and science, you might design one that looks like Catmull’s.” Then, just below, after mentioning a little bit about Catmull’s parents and his early interests, he says “After college, he landed a job with George Lucas…”

Well yes, it was, technically, “after college,” but it was a full five years after Catmull got his PhD. And, after talking about the life as a model for the perfect merger of art and science, Coyle leaves out the fact that in his pre-Lucas and pre-Pixar days, Ed Catmull worked on projects for ARPA during the time he was working as a physicist.

Those are important things to know if you want to learn how Ed Catmull developed into the manager he is today. You can learn more about them in his book, Creativity, Inc, about his life and Pixar.

Special Note

Chapters 15 and 16 are worth reading, even if you skip everything else. Chapter 15 is “How to Lead for Proficiency” while chapter 16 is “How to Lead for Creativity.” The two skills are different and which one you choose as a manager will determine what values you treasure and what kinds of performance you optimize.

In A Nutshell

This is a book that will help you create a strong and supportive culture where you are. There are problems with the book, but they’re not big enough or consistent enough to really detract from the value. If you want to learn about how to create and maintain a positive and strong culture in your team or organization, buy and read The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle.

268 people found this helpful

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Steve Gladis

The Culture Equation: C = S + V + P

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2018

Verified Purchase

Strong cultures make teams work better and produce higher profits—according to a Harvard study, about 7% more a year. A healthy culture—one which protects the organization—is comprised of three critical elements: Safety, Vulnerability, and Purpose. In his well-written book, Daniel Coyle outlines a Maslow-derived model that starts with safety: You get the most honest responses and best effort from people when they feel safe and connected to a team. As a leader, you create a safe environment by listening, thanking people, helping people to interact, getting rid of bad apples, and by giving all people a voice. Next, vulnerability starts with the leader admitting flaws, thus making it easier for others to admit theirs. “I need your help,” becomes the message when leaders are vulnerable. And an attitude of “we can do this thing together” results. Many stellar organizations have their own versions of this vulnerability tenet that makes them stronger. Practice vulnerability by the leader: Going first, communicating expectations, delivering negative feedback in person, listening well, aiming for candor not brutal honesty, and embracing discomfort. Finally, purpose completes the culture code (Safety—Vulnerability—Purpose). Purpose-driven questions are “What is this all about and why are we doing what we do?” Purpose is about the higher calling of work—not about the what or the how of work, rather about the why of it. Establish purpose by developing and enforcing priorities—especially in group relationships. Also, support proficiency and creativity separately but equally, develop memorable culture slogans, measure what matters most, develop symbols (artifacts) of culture, and set the behavior bar high and with specific, defined actions.

84 people found this helpful

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Dave

Actionable Steps to Change Culture

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2018

Verified Purchase

If you liked Good to Great this book is for you. If you want to create a high performance culture Daniel Coyle gives you plenty of examples of successful business cultures, failed cultures and why they failed. His examples are punctuated with the source documents successful cultures use. He also shows you how and why creative cultures, for example Pixar, require a different cultural design than a service company such as Zappos. This, in all of the business books I've read, was new. Definitely worth a read.

50 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

markr

easy reading about leadership - told in real life anecdotes

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 21, 2018

Verified Purchase

I was little disappointed by this book. If you not read many books about leadership, then this would be a really good place to start. It is easy reading, and the points are made through real life examples and stories rather than theory, The disappointment for me is there was very little here that can't be found elsewhere, but if you are new to all of this then it would make a really good introduction - so much of the work of team building seems counter intuitive at first, and this book covers that well

11 people found this helpful

kat j

What was best was how actions and behaviours were clearly illustrated that ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2018

Verified Purchase

Fab book. Really interesting little anecdotes that illustrate quite complex theory and psychology. What was best was how actions and behaviours were clearly illustrated that could be applied by any individual committed enough to try. Have shared with my entire leadership team and it has had a profoundly positive effect on our business. Would definitely recommend. Writing style had a lovely tone and wasn't all about the writer. Buy it.

13 people found this helpful

Pads

An all time great of the performance literature realm

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 7, 2019

Verified Purchase

If you work in a team, but especially if you lead one, this book is not good; it is absolutely fantastic. This ranks as one of the most important learning resources in existence in terms of group performance. Buy this book now, immediately read it five times, implement everything in it and watch your culture become the primary driver of results in your business or team. Then buy Talent Code, another game changer from this author, and repeat the process.
The best thing about this book is that the principles within it have a cumulative effect; the more you implement, the more often they are repeated and the longer they remain in place, the more acute and sustainable the positive results. Whether you are running a FTSE100 business, or coaching a Sunday League football team, you must read this book.

7 people found this helpful

Jules

A great read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2020

Verified Purchase

A fascinating insight into what can be achieved when minds are in harness and committed to delivering above-and-beyond results.

Lots of examples, case studies and creative thinking here - this is a must for anyone working in a team or looking to encourage people to achieve their true potential.

An easy to engage with book, clearly written and with lots of inspirational pointers.

A great read.

One person found this helpful

Brododendron

Inspiring read with easily actionable points

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 13, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is an inspirational read and a call-to-action for any team looking to be more successful. The book takes examples from the best teams on the planet including Pixar, The Navy Seals and the airline industry and draws lessons from these into inspiring but actionable points that can be implemented in your own team. I will be using this as a reference from time-to-time to help cultivate my own team's growth.

5 people found this helpful