The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

by Daniel Coyle

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 status 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.

(A strong culture increases net income 756 percent over eleven years, according to a Harvard study of more than two hundred companies.)

Skill 1—Build Safety—explores how signals of connection generate bonds of belonging and identity. 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.

Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are. It’s something you do.

Nick is really good at being bad. In almost every group, his behavior reduces the quality of the group’s performance by 30 to 40 percent. The drop-off is consistent whether he plays the Jerk, the Slacker, or the Downer.

First, we tend to think group performance depends on measurable abilities like intelligence, skill, and experience, not on a subtle pattern of small behaviors. Yet in this case those small behaviors made all the difference.

Safety is not mere emotional weather but rather the foundation on which strong culture is built.

When I visited these groups, I noticed a distinct pattern of interaction. The pattern was located not in the big things but in little moments of social connection. These interactions were consistent whether the group was a military unit or a movie studio or an inner-city school. I made a list: • Close physical proximity, often in circles • Profuse amounts of eye contact • Physical touch (handshakes, fist bumps, hugs) • Lots of short, energetic exchanges (no long speeches) • High levels of mixing; everyone talks to everyone • Few interruptions • Lots of questions • Intensive, active listening • Humor, laughter • Small, attentive courtesies (thank-yous, opening doors, etc.)

Belonging cues possess three basic qualities: 1. Energy: They invest in the exchange that is occurring 2. Individualization: They treat the person as unique and valued 3. Future orientation: They signal the relationship will continue These cues add up to a message that can be described with a single phrase: You are safe here. They seek to notify our ever-vigilant brains that they can stop worrying about dangers and shift into connection mode, a condition called psychological safety.

Overall Pentland’s studies show that team performance is driven by five measurable factors: 1. Everyone in the group talks and listens in roughly equal measure, keeping contributions short. 2. Members maintain high levels of eye contact, and their conversations and gestures are energetic. 3. Members communicate directly with one another, not just with the team leader. 4. Members carry on back-channel or side conversations within the team. 5. Members periodically break, go exploring outside the team, and bring information back to share with the others.

Group performance depends on behavior that communicates one powerful overarching idea: We are safe and connected.

It was normal. Google personnel were interacting exactly as the kindergartners in the spaghetti-marshmallow challenge interacted. They did not manage their status or worry about who was in charge. Their small building produced high levels of proximity and face-to-face interaction. Page’s technique of igniting whole-group debates around solving tough problems sent a powerful signal of identity and connection, as did the no-holds-barred hockey games and wide-open Friday forums. (Everyone in the group talks and listens in roughly equal measure.) They communicated in short, direct bursts. (Members face one another, and their conversations and gestures are energetic.) Google was a hothouse of belonging cues; its people worked shoulder to shoulder and safely connected, immersed in their projects.

“These are massive effects,” says Dr. Gregory Walton of Stanford, who performed the Steve’s tip experiment and others. “These are little cues that signal a relationship, and they totally transform the way people relate, how they feel, and how they behave.”*2

feels like it happens from the inside out, but in fact it happens from the outside in. Our social brains light up when they receive a steady accumulation of almost-invisible cues: We are close, we are safe, we share a future.

Cohesion happens not when members of a group are smarter but when they are lit up by clear, steady signals of safe connection.

You we will hate with a lasting hate, We will never forgo our hate, Hate by water and hate by land, Hate of the head and hate of the hand, Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown, Hate of seventy millions choking down. We love as one, we hate as one, We have one foe and one alone— ENGLAND!

Hulse and Ferguson, like so many others, were astounded. But it was not really astounding. At the point when the British and the Germans stepped out onto that field, they had already been in conversation for a long time, both sides sending volleys of belonging cues that lit up their amygdalas with a simple message: We are the same. We are safe. I’ll go halfway if you will. And so they did.*2

The group two trainees, on the other hand, received a steady stream of individualized, future-oriented, amygdala-activating belonging cues. All these signals were small—a personal question about their best times at work, an exercise that revealed their individual skills, a sweatshirt embroidered with their name. These signals didn’t take much time to deliver, but they made a huge difference because they created a foundation of psychological safety that built connection and identity.

“It’s so easy to be insulated when you’re a professional athlete,” Buford says. “Pop uses these moments to connect us. He loves that we come from so many different places. That could pull us apart, but he makes sure that everybody feels connected and engaged to something bigger.”

“Food and wine aren’t just food and wine,” Buford says. “They’re his vehicle to make and sustain a connection, and Pop is really intentional about making that connection happen.”

One misconception about highly successful cultures is that they are happy, lighthearted places. This is mostly not the case. They are energized and engaged, but at their core their members are oriented less around achieving happiness than around solving hard problems together. This task involves many moments of high-candor feedback, uncomfortable truth-telling, when they confront the gap between where the group is, and where it ought to be. Larry Page created one of these moments when he posted his “These ads suck” note in the Google kitchen.

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

Yet they are powerful because they deliver a burst of belonging cues. Actually, when you look more closely at the sentence, it contains three separate cues: 1. You are part of this group. 2. This group is special; we have high standards here. 3. I believe you can reach those standards. These signals provide a clear message that lights up the unconscious brain: Here is a safe place to give effort. They also give us insight into the reason Popovich’s methods are effective. His communications consist of three types of belonging cues. • Personal, up-close connection (body language, attention, and behavior that translates as I care about you) • Performance feedback (relentless coaching and criticism that translates as We have high standards here) • Big-picture perspective (larger conversations about politics, history, and food that translate as Life is bigger than basketball) Popovich toggles among the three signals to connect his team the way a skilled director uses a camera. First he zooms in close, creating an individualized connection. Then he operates in the middle distance, showing players the truth about their performance. Then he pans out to show the larger context in which their interaction is taking place. Alone, each of these signals would have a limited effect. But together they create a steady stream of magical feedback.

You are part of this group. This group is special. I believe you can reach those standards.

It is easier to get into Harvard than to get a job at Zappos.

Collisions—defined as serendipitous personal encounters—are, he believes, the lifeblood of any organization, the key driver of creativity, community, and cohesion.

My job is to architect the greenhouse. This is a useful insight into how Hsieh creates belonging because it implies a process. “I probably say the word collision a thousand times a day,” Hsieh says.

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

The most successful projects were those driven by sets of individuals who formed what Allen called “clusters of high communicators.” The chemistry and cohesion within these clusters resembled that between Larry Page and Jeff Dean at Google. They had a knack for navigating complex problems with dazzling speed.

The distance between their desks.

But the more he explored the data, the clearer the answer became. What mattered most in creating a successful team had less to do with intelligence and experience and more to do with where the desks happened to be located.

We were really surprised at how rapidly it decayed” when they moved to a different floor. “It turns out that vertical separation is a very serious thing. If you’re on a different floor in some organizations, you may as well be in a different country.”

The key characteristic of the Allen Curve is the sudden steepness that happens at the eight-meter mark. At distances of less than eight meters, communication frequency rises off the charts.

Get close, and our tendency to connect lights up.

(One study found that workers who shared a location emailed one another four times as often as workers who did not, and as a result they completed their projects 32 percent faster.)

Creating safety is about dialing in to small, subtle moments and delivering targeted signals at key points.

Relatedly, it’s important to avoid interruptions. The smoothness of turn taking, as we’ve seen, is a powerful indicator of cohesive group performance. Interruptions shatter the smooth interactions at the core of belonging.

Of course, not all interruptions are negative: Creative sessions, for example, often contain bursts of interruptions. The key is to draw a distinction between interruptions born of mutual excitement and those rooted in lack of awareness and connection.

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?”

“To create safety, leaders need to actively invite input,” Edmondson says. “It’s really hard for people to raise their hand and say, ‘I have something tentative to say.’ And it’s equally hard for people not to answer a genuine question from a leader who asks for their opinion or their help.”

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.”*1

Importante

Overdo Thank-Yous: When you enter highly successful cultures, the number of thank-yous you hear seems slightly over the top. At the end of each basketball season, for example, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich takes each of his star players aside and thanks them for allowing him to coach them. Those are his exact words: Thank you for allowing me to coach you.

This is because thank-yous aren’t only expressions of gratitude; they’re crucial belonging cues that generate a contagious sense of safety, connection, and motivation.

Here is the unheralded person who makes our success possible.

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.

Eliminate Bad Apples: The groups I studied had extremely low tolerance for bad apple behavior and, perhaps more important, were skilled at naming those behaviors. The leaders of the New Zealand All-Blacks, the rugby squad that ranks as one of the most successful teams on the planet, achieve this through a rule that simply states “No Dickheads.” It’s simple, and that’s why it’s effective.

Create Safe, Collision-Rich Spaces: The groups I visited were uniformly obsessed with design as a lever for cohesion and interaction. I saw it in Pixar’s Steve Jobs–designed atrium,

Create spaces that maximize collisions.

“We used to hire out our food service to a contractor,” said Ed Catmull, president and cofounder of Pixar (of whom we’ll hear more in Chapter 16). “We didn’t consider making food to be our core business. But when you hire it out, that food service company wants to make money, and the only way they can make money is to decrease the quality of the food or the service. They’re not bad or greedy people; it’s a structural problem. That’s why we decided to take it over ourselves and give our people high-quality food at a reasonable price. Now we have really good food and people stay here instead of leaving, and they have the kind of conversations and encounters that help our business. It’s pretty simple. We realized that food really is part of our core business.”