#388： Why Group Culture Is So Important to Success
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Summary
Daniel Coyle, author of The Culture Code, argues that it all comes down to culture. In his new book, The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle explains how the famous Christmas Truce during World War I can teach us about the factors that create positive group cultures, including action steps you can implement in your organization.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Have you ever been
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part of an organization where everyone and everything just seemed to click? People are
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motivated and things get done. Contrast that experience with being part of an organization
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that feels toxic. Demoralization, cynicism, and infighting emotionally drain the people who work
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within it, and dysfunction reigns. Why do some organizations thrive and others flounder? My guest
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today argues that it all comes down to culture. His name is Daniel Coyle, and he's the author of the
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book The Culture Code. Today on the show, Dan and I discuss how cultures are formed and what the famous
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Christmas truce during World War I can teach us about culture formation. Dan then shares the factors
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that create positive group cultures, including action steps you can take to implement these in your
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organization that you lead or belong to. If you're a leader in any capacity, this includes being a dad.
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You don't want to miss this episode with a lot of actionable advice. After the show's over, check out
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the show notes at aom.is slash culturecode. And Daniel joins me now via clearcast.io.
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Hey, thanks for having me, Brett. It's great to be here.
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So I've long been a fan of your work. Your book, The Talent Code, had a big impact on me.
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You've got a new book out, The Culture Code. So you spent most of your career putting out books
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about the science of talent. Curious, what led you to shift to how groups work and function? And
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is there a connection between the two topics? Yeah, it's kind of funny you ask that, actually,
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because there very much is. I can pinpoint it, actually. It was just a certain moment that I
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saw that got me going on this. I was visiting this Russian tennis club called Spartak that's
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produced all these champions. And I was at a talent hotbed trying to see how they do what they do,
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an individual talent. But I was there watching their coach. And a little girl walked into the
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tennis club. And she was about eight years old. And she had a tennis racket in a shopping bag.
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And it was obviously her first day coming to be part of this talent hotbed. And the coach walked
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over and did just this 10-second interaction. She said, hey, introduce herself and said, I want you
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to do something for me to the little girl. And she said, I want you to catch this ball. And she tossed
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the tennis ball. And the little girl caught it. And it was just real simple interaction. But it was
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huge. It changed that tennis place from this scary new place into a home. And it made it safe. And it
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made her connect with this group. And you saw those kind of connections in these talent hotbeds that I
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visited. They weren't just extraordinary individual talent. They were doing something as a group that
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seemed really powerful and really mysterious. Because as we all know, when you're around a great
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culture, a group of super cohesive people, it kind of feels different. It feels awesome.
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If you're in a great restaurant or a great school or around a great family, there's a vibe. And we
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have all these words for it. We'd say, oh, they have great chemistry. But what's that made of?
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That's not magic. That doesn't come from outer space. That actually is a thing that you can understand,
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study, learn. And as I explored in the book, you can learn to do it. It's a skill.
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You know, and so visiting, it sent me on this journey of visiting these super cultures. You
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know, these cultures like Navy SEAL Team 6, like Pixar, like the San Antonio Spurs, who consistently
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have a knack for being way more than the sum of their parts, who are able to create this amazing
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chemistry and cohesion. And there's a pattern to how they do it. And that's kind of what the book is
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about. That pattern, how to learn how to do that.
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So it sounds like a good group culture allows individuals to flourish and express their talents
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Exactly right. Exactly right. And we typically think of culture as being kind of just super
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personal, like connected to their identity. Like, oh, the SEALs are the SEALs because they're
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SEALs, man. You know, it seems really, or like, you know, San Antonio Spurs, like they've just got that
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feel. But it turns out that's not true. You know, they're doing it because of the way our brain is
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wired. You know, there's some very simple signals that leaders send in those places. And at these
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places, I kept encountering these leaders who were incredibly good at sending these special three or
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four simple signals that would let people's defenses drop, that would create connection and
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cohesion and therefore help people grow. In most workplaces, in most groups, everybody has a sort of
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secret second job. And their secret second job is protecting their status and being careful and
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watching their place. And in these places, they're able to achieve so much because nobody's worried
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about that because they have communicated in such a way as to create safety and create cooperation
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and trust. And that doesn't happen by magic. That happens through signals.
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Right. So these signals, we'll talk about what they are. And some, as you will highlight,
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a lot of leaders are very intentional about this, but I'm curious, do group cultures form,
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even if you're not consciously or intentionally forming one? And if so, what's the default that
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They do. We're built for it, right? We're just built for it. If that's how the human brain is
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wired evolution, it was really helpful to combine into groups for the last hundred thousand years of
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human history, right? If you were by yourself, you probably weren't going to survive. If you're in a
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group, you probably could. So we're wired to form culture just like that. So, and culture kind of
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abhors a vacuum. It will fill. And the default culture would be whatever the pop culture is at
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the time. Whatever the most default behaviors are that the most powerful people happen to have in
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that group, they will follow that culture. It's almost like, I don't know, a sled going down a
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snowy hill. It will just fall into those tracks of whatever the powerful people are and what the
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popular general stream culture is. The danger of that, of course, is that you're not ready to
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actually accomplish anything. It creates comfort, which is what you're sort of seeking,
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some kind of status and safety and comfort. But if it comes to doing a job, good cultures are more
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like, they're not just about being comfortable. They're more like, they're sort of like athletes.
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Like if you think of each culture as an entity, and that entity is kind of like an athlete in that
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it sees a target. It works together toward that target. It connects together. It moves in a
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coordinated fashion, not kind of a haphazard way. And the best cultures are able to get way
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beyond that default status. The default status works for the time being, but it doesn't work
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when you've got a challenging goal, when you've got a threat, when you've got a real opportunity,
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then you've got to have a culture that's got some real fiber to it that actually has got a clear
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sense of vision, purpose, and connection. Okay. So vision, purpose, connection. So that's what a
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positive culture looks like. I think oftentimes when, particularly the day when people think,
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oh, this company has a good culture, like everything, everyone's fun loving, they're happy,
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they're shooting Nerf guns at each other. Are those things necessary for a positive culture,
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or is it something else? It's so interesting. When I visited those places, these places,
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I visited, I visited nine different sort of super cultures. They varied a lot. You know,
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they were in sports and they were in the military and they were in retail. They were in all kinds of
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businesses. And the feeling that you got in them, you'd sort of expect that kind of happy,
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happy, fun, fun. Not true. What you have is people sort of engaged in hard, the engagement of having,
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solving hard problems together. It's exciting. It's thrilling. It's engaging. There's sort of two
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kinds of fun. And this is the way to think about it. There's shallow fun, which is Nerf and foosball
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and laughter. And there's deep fun where you're owning a problem, wrestling with it together and
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working with excellent people. And at the great cultures, I always saw that second type of
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engagement, that sort of deep fun. And a lot of people, after they leave those cultures,
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they miss it so much that they go back. I mean, I talked to numerous people who would leave the
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San Antonio Spurs or the SEALs to go do something else. And then they would come back. And it wasn't
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because the SEALs and the Spurs are these joyful, fun, lighthearted places to work. They're not.
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They're really hard. But to have a group of super connected people trying to achieve something great
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is an addictive thing for certain people. And so it's that addiction that they end up sort of
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craving and unable to give up. And that's the kind of bond that they're able to create.
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Yeah. And you talk about, you mentioned the Spurs, Greg Popovich. Guy has a temper. He's like former,
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I think, military. And he just, you know, yeah, he's got a short temper. But people, his players
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love him. So what is he doing? Is he just making people feel engaged and a part of the team?
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Oh, it's so incredible what he's doing. It's great. What you say about a temper is absolutely
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right. I mean, there's this collection of YouTube clips. If you feel like Googling Greg Popovich
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screaming or yelling, it's fantastic. Like, he erupts like nobody else has erupted. And he directs most of
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his lava at his players. And it is not pretty to look at. It's very, very tough feedback. But
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what he actually does at the same time is he loves them. He takes care of them. On the day that I
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visited, he did a couple things that really embodied that. They had lost the night before.
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A guy had missed a couple big shots. Popovich walks in and he immediately starts connecting to players,
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going around, physically touching them, wrestling with the guy who had made the bad shot, asking where
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they ate dinner last night. Food is actually his vehicle for connection. He is constantly creating
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moments around food, gathering the team around food, making reservations for them, ordering the wine.
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At the end of the year, all of his coaches get a keepsake book of all the places they've dined
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together and all the wines they've drank together. He turns that in a vehicle for connection. But he also
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does a thing where he explores them as individuals. The day I was there, they got in the room to watch
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a video. And I thought they were going to watch a video of the game film. But what popped up on the
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screen was a video from CNN about the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights March. And he
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then starts a discussion about that. These are all educated, highly educated, mostly African-American
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athletes. And he's asking them tough questions like, what would you have done back then? He takes
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them seriously as individuals and he cares for them in very simple ways and in very deep fatherly ways.
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And those signals are the ones that go right next to the screaming and yelling. As one coach said,
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he does two things. He tells you the truth and he loves you. Those two things. And because he delivers
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both of those signals at once, they both can take, they both can have an effect. If you just had a
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coach who's all about love, that doesn't create any learning. If you just had a coach that's all
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about screaming, that doesn't create any connection. By delivering love and truth at the same time,
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he's able to build relationships. I mean, relationships are like a sport. There's a physics
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beneath it that he has absolutely mastered. And it's about those two things, love and truth at the
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same time. And that's why his players love him so much. Well, speaking of this idea of connection
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and the importance of it in forming a positive group culture, you highlight or you look to the
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Christmas truce, the famous Christmas truce that happened during World War I. First,
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kind of for those who aren't familiar with it, kind of explain what happened and what went on there
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that allowed that truce to happen in the first place. Yeah. It's sort of the most kind of insanely
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sentimental moments in the history of the planet, right? You see it sometimes on cheesy television
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stations and it's usually rendered as this highly sentimental thing. You had groups of troops in World
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War I in the, in the Belgian and Flanders in this horrible cold mud. And on Christmas Eve, they both,
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and they've been sort of killing each other for months on Christmas Eve, they both get both sides,
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get out and meet and exchange gifts and warm conversation. And it's this, this beautiful
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sort of coming together of adversaries. And it's a famous, famous incident. Now, normally that's
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usually interpreted as this, as this, you know, sort of heartfelt, you know, beautiful thing about
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the power of Christmas, which it is, it's, it's true, but there's something deeper going on there.
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When you look closely at the Christmas truce, it really shows you the power of what I would call
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belonging cues that when you are in proximity with someone and when your identities are linked and
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you're sort of doing the same thing as these soldiers were on both sides, they both felt the
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cold, the same. They both were sort of being or bossed around by far off generals. They spent
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weeks in close connection, listening to each other, saying, listening to each other, move that has a
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massive effect. Proximity works like a drug on us. Proximity works like a drug. And so that's what
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this showed to really be a, that you put two people as different as they might be in, in close
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proximity to each other, even if they're trying to kill each other, um, and give them some shared
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meaning of Christmas, some shared thing. It will ignite the kind of connection that you see in good
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cultures. It will ignite warmth. It will ignite, you know, brotherhood and fraternity. Proximity is
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much more powerful than we think it is. And so finding ways in our own groups to create these kind of
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moments can, can go a long way toward making people connect. You know, right now in America,
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we have this huge divide between red and blue, between Trump and not Trump. And it seems unbridgeable.
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It seems absolutely unbridgeable. But in fact, I think we'll find that, um, there are ways to,
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there are ways to get around it that aren't that different from what we saw, um, in Flanders and
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World War I. So, I mean, that brings an interesting point. Proximity, physical proximity. This isn't just
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like, you know, online proximity. Like you're, you're saying it has to be physical proximity for
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this to actually happen. That's what you see in great cultures. It's a challenge in the, in a
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digital world, but that's what you see in great cultures. There's no drug like face-to-face
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contact for creating connection. That's how we're built. You know, a video conferencing can be a
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powerful tool, but it doesn't replace person-to-person contact. There's so much more information there.
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There's so much more emotion there. I mean, that's what you see in these great groups.
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There is not a lot of video conferencing. They are together. There's something and an effect there
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called the Allen curve, which really shows the relationship between the number of interactions
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and the amount of creativity and physical distance. And the closer the physical distance goes, the
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number of the amount of creativity and the number of connections go off the charts. Being on the
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different floor of a building is like being in a different country, but you can measure your
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creativity by measuring sort of the relative proximity of, of talented people.
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All right. So get together. And we've had people on the podcast before to discuss that. For example,
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there's a veterans organization called team RWB. And what they do is they just get together,
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get veterans and civilians together to exercise together. And they say that, that is just like
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shared suffering. Like that really brings people together, no matter their background.
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That's think of CrossFit. Think of soul cycle. Think of all these things that have,
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these businesses that have taken off like rocket ships, their real asset is what you just talked
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about. Suffering together creates bonds. And if you think about any business that's gone through a
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crisis, and certainly some of the places I studied in the book had gone through crisis. Pixar went through
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a crisis. The SEALs have gone through a crisis. Those crises end up being this fuel for relationships
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and connection that ends up driving the organization for years to come. So, you know, there's a lot of
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cliches about pain being gain and about suffering being opportunity and about crisis being a wonderful
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thing. They happen to be true when it comes to culture and relationships. They happen to create
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this kind of connection that you do not get in normal life.
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So let's talk about an organization. Well, we talked about the Germans and the British
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having this truce. Keeping on with this military theme, you also highlight the US Minutemen
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Misslers as an example of culture going bad. What's going on there? Is there a lack of connection
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there, a sense of belonging? First, tell us about the state of the culture in the Missler program,
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and why is it so bad? Yeah. Well, as part of the book, I went around looking for the worst culture
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ever. And I was looking for several bad cultures. But ironically, the one I found was the culture of the
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people who are taking care of our nuclear arsenal, unfortunately, that they have had a series of
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mishaps, terrible morale, drug busts, cheating scandals that would rival anything anywhere.
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And so I spent some time researching and investigating why that is. These are officers
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in the military? Why do they keep misbehaving? Why is the culture there so awful? And it turns out
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that what is driving that culture is a fear. The fear, a lack of future, and a lack of connection.
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It basically is sort of the perfect opposite of what happened at the Christmas truce.
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Here, you've got people isolated in these silos for hours on end and days on end as they monitor
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the missiles. They're down at the bottom of these sort of giant silos. They are tested. And if they
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don't score perfectly, they're punished severely. So it's long, very, very complicated sequences of code
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that they have to memorize. If they miss up one time, because this is zero tolerance,
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this is nuclear weapons, they get pitched out. That causes a tremendous amount of anxiety,
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fear, and ultimately cheating. And the other thing is they don't really have a shared future.
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The nuclear threat that they were built to combat has largely gone away. More lately,
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maybe they've been a little bit more better, but there's no real future for them in the Air Force.
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So they've got this combination of no future, no shared connection, and intense levels of fear and
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perfectionism. And it absolutely destroys the culture. The conditions destroy the culture.
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These are not bad people. When they leave the service, they're decent people. But if you had
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to create perfect conditions to demolish safety, and safety really is at the absolute core of any
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culture, a sense of safety, security, and connection. Without that psychological safety,
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they can't function. And they do a terrible job, and the culture is terrible because of those
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conditions. Have there been steps made to correct that?
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Interestingly, the first step was kind of this top-down, you guys got to shape up,
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fear-based, and that absolutely didn't work. The next inspection after that, they found the people
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playing video games on their phones when the specters arrived. So they did not improve.
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There's been a more recent attempt to really reckon with the fact that we need to provide these people
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a path into this and out of it, a future that goes beyond it. We need to reconsider the testing
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system, which now punishes anything less than perfectionism, to make it more human. And there's
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been some great work done by Bruce Blair, a former missileer who now teaches at Princeton to change
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the culture there. But any culture change is slow, so it's hard to make that change.
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Well, let's talk about the culture change. Let's say there's a guy listening to this show right now.
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They're in a work team that the culture is toxic, or maybe they're in a volunteer organization where
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the culture is just terrible. Can one person have a lot of influence in turning that around,
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or is it just too late and you just have to eject and cut your losses and try again somewhere else?
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I hate to say it. I think the answer is B. If you're not a leader, it is really, really hard. If you
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are one person in a big toxic culture, the healthiest thing you can do is leave. It's very,
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very difficult to turn around a train that is moving down the tracks. If you are in a position
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of leadership or have access to a position of leadership or the leadership actually wants
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to change, that's a very different equation. Changing a culture is sort of like coaching
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an athlete. You have to figure out where you're at, figure out where you want to go, identify some
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key behaviors you want to change, celebrate those changes, facilitate and franchise out those changes.
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There are cool ways to do it that I get into in the book.
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Yeah. So say if you're a leader and you're in that position, I mean, what are a few,
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just like a few of the things that you've seen leaders who've turned cultures around? What did
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they do? I mean, what were like the big things? Yeah, totally. They start by listening. Like
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they get one of the best examples. They start by really figuring out where the culture is at and
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why. You can't really change a culture without understanding where it's at and why. And one of
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the more effective ones I've done, this was a captain of a Navy destroyer. His name was Mike
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Abershoff, who's written some great books himself, but he was put on this destroyer. They were
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terrible. They were, they were one of the worst performing ships in the Navy. And the first thing
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he did was he had everyone come in his office and he asked him three questions. What should we keep
00:21:51.920
doing? What should we stop doing? And tell me one other thing that I might not know. And whenever,
00:21:58.420
when anyone made a suggestion that he thought was good enough to apply, he would apply it instantly.
00:22:03.880
He would announce it over the loudspeaker. So when you talk about giving people voice and creating a
00:22:09.600
sense of belonging and safety, which is really the core of any, that's the first skill of culture.
00:22:14.820
As I talk about in the book, the, that is number one, to give voice, to, to figure out where you're
00:22:20.720
at. And then from there, you have to identify some key behaviors, just like with a coach, coaching an
00:22:27.720
athlete, you have to identify key moves that you want to make and get better at. And I, and really
00:22:33.420
define the change you want to make, make that extremely, extremely explicit. And there was a healthcare
00:22:38.900
company that did it recently. And what they came out with was we really need to change the way we,
00:22:43.680
we innovate. And we really need to change how the speed of our innovation, that was the key behavior
00:22:48.100
that they felt like they needed to change. And they came up with a way of describing that,
00:22:52.120
which is a corny catchphrase, which is when you visit great cultures, there actually are lots of
00:22:56.800
corny catchphrases. And this one was good health comes first. And the good health comes first became
00:23:01.520
the thing that they encanted. And that, that message ended up being the key, ended up helping them
00:23:06.980
identify some key behaviors around innovation that they wanted to, that they were able to change.
00:23:11.140
But it's just like with, just like with an athlete, you need to identify those key moves,
00:23:15.980
name them, celebrate them when they happen and, and start measuring them hopefully.
00:23:21.120
And it's going to take a while. Don't expect this to happen in a month. It might take years.
00:23:25.180
If you had to teach somebody with a terrible golf swing to have a great golf swing,
00:23:29.080
you would not expect it to happen overnight. And that's what this is. You've got organizations that
00:23:34.400
are used to doing things a certain way and changes as we know is really, really, really hard. So
00:23:40.520
great cultures over communicate. They're not, they said they find many, many ways to send the signal.
00:23:48.060
You know, it's funny. We talked about the Spurs earlier and they've got a saying that some of your
00:23:52.700
listeners might know, pound the rock, pound the rock. That's there. It comes from a, from a book that
00:23:58.140
Greg Popovich read about a stonemason. Someone asked him why he was pounding this rock. And the answer
00:24:03.380
the stonemason gave was because when it splits, I won't know if it's the first blow or the last blow
00:24:09.080
that did it. That's why I keep pounding the rock with my hammer. So when you go to San Antonio,
00:24:14.080
you walk in their practice facility and you hear people saying that pound the rock, pound the rock
00:24:18.160
in the lobby, they have an actual rock and an actual sledgehammer in the hallways. They have that
00:24:23.720
quote written and posted in every language that the team speaks. And the team, the players at San Antonio
00:24:29.580
is like five different languages, different ethnicities represented. So they have it in
00:24:33.080
Serbian and they have it in French and they have it in Portuguese. That message is, it's like
00:24:38.960
ringing a bell. They, they ring it over and over and over and over again. So over communicating is
00:24:45.440
standard procedure. And I think that comes as a surprise to a lot of us who feel like, well,
00:24:50.120
we can just sort of say something a few times and hope people catch on.
00:24:53.940
We're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. All right. Part of getting ahead
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And now back to the show. So if you have that cheesy catchphrase, say it over and over and over again.
00:26:28.460
Exactly right. Because it's not really cheesy if it's a well-designed catchphrase.
00:26:32.600
It only seems cheesy. And so that kind of flooding the zone with kind of filling, think of it as
00:26:40.040
filling your people's windshields with navigational signals. It's really like GPS. You're trying to
00:26:45.420
teach them how to solve problems, how to react when there's a problem, what the goal really is.
00:26:50.320
And if you flood the zone with those in a really clear way, you'll soon see them making the right
00:26:55.220
response and then mimicking each other. And it grows from there.
00:26:58.520
So we've been talking about communication. So there's connection, which leaders can have a lot
00:27:02.660
to do and making people feel like they belong. One of those things is communication from the top
00:27:08.200
down, right? So making sure everyone is clear about the values and the missions of the group
00:27:12.360
through catchphrases that you repeat over and over. But what about communication within the group?
00:27:17.200
What do groups with great cultures, how do they communicate differently from
00:27:22.040
groups with bad or weak cultures? It's really striking. I mean, when I went there,
00:27:27.100
when I visited these places, I sort of thought they were going to be really smooth and they'd have
00:27:34.600
everything dialed in and they'd be perfect. I kind of expected to see that when you see the Spurs and
00:27:40.040
the Seals and Pixar. In fact, I saw something really different. They all had this moment where it was kind
00:27:45.640
of awkward, where they would have these awkward conversations, where they would be vulnerable with
00:27:50.680
each other. And they'd admit weakness. I didn't expect that. I expected it all to be about like,
00:27:55.540
they would just present as being really smart and strong. And they always knew the answer.
00:27:58.360
That's not what they do. Actually, they are constantly creating what are called vulnerability
00:28:02.900
loops, where one person admits a problem, a weakness, a truth, they're candid, and the other
00:28:09.460
person does it in return. Now, this is the way we're wired is we're kind of allergic to these moments,
00:28:14.740
right? Especially at work, most of us want to present ourselves as being competent. And we want to be
00:28:20.660
trusted and we want to say, everything's good. I got this. No problem. It turns out in great cultures,
00:28:25.460
you don't do that. You do the opposite. You say, hey, I'm really worried about this. Hey,
00:28:31.060
this isn't working. And it creates this incredible energized moment when, especially with leaders,
00:28:37.860
when a leader opens up and says, hey, what did I do wrong there? Anybody got any ideas?
00:28:42.700
But that is the fuel of good culture. Because when you admit weakness, you create closeness.
00:28:50.900
It's the ultimate strength, actually, to admit weakness to each other. And for the book, I've
00:28:56.060
ended up meeting the Navy SEAL commander who trained the guys for the bin Laden raid,
00:29:00.700
trained the teams for them. And through telling the story of the helicopter, the preparation,
00:29:05.820
the training, he happened to mention, he said, I screwed up. I screwed that up. That was his
00:29:11.080
phrase. I screwed that up are the most important four words a leader can say. I thought that was
00:29:15.420
just incredibly profound because I saw it every place I went. I screwed that up. It's the opposite
00:29:20.560
of what we want to say as a leader. We want to say, oh, I'm good. This is great. But in fact,
00:29:24.980
when you say that, you ignite an incredible amount of closeness and cooperation. It's kind of like,
00:29:29.440
that's just how our brains are built. And so great cultures take advantage of that wiring
00:29:34.060
and are able to create closeness through candid exchanges.
00:29:38.200
So if you're a leader, set the tone for that candidness by admitting when you mess up and
00:29:42.940
looking for feedback from others. But you also highlight Pixar and some other organizations
00:29:47.480
where that candidness, where people would say outright to people, they were very frank.
00:29:54.380
Right? Like, that sucks. I mean, I think you talk about the example in Google where some guy just
00:30:02.060
And you think, like, oh, in positive cultures, like, everyone be nice and friendly. But no,
00:30:06.120
you say, like, no, it actually is very awkward. It can be very, you know, the sting of criticism
00:30:11.020
can, I mean, from an outside perspective, like, whoa. But you actually argue that that's necessary
00:30:18.660
Absolutely. Well, the word vulnerability is really the word here. Great cultures share vulnerability.
00:30:24.160
It's not enough just to be vulnerable. They have to share it. And the word vulnerability comes from
00:30:29.880
the Latin, vuln, which is wound. So it really does hurt. Like, it really does hurt. But what I've found
00:30:36.640
in good cultures is that pain ends up when you sort of repeat it, make a habit of this, you end up sort
00:30:43.320
of getting used to it, almost like it's an emotional gym workout. Right? You sort of go to the gym and
00:30:49.500
your arms hurt when you lift a heavy weight, but you sort of expect it and you actually enjoy it.
00:30:54.280
And so what you end up seeing in moments like that, like the SEALs team, when he says,
00:30:58.940
I screwed that up, he almost, he's, he's okay with that. Like he said that a million times at
00:31:03.720
this point, and he expects to get hard feedback and he's ready for it. And so that pain sort of goes
00:31:09.040
away. But the, the deeper ways to help that pain, to help mitigate that pain beyond simple
00:31:14.520
repetition is to have the leader go first. Always. That's why, that's why Dave Cooper, this,
00:31:21.040
this Navy SEAL said, it's the most important four words a leader can say, because that gives
00:31:25.080
permission for everybody else to say it. If the leader folds his arms and pretends like there's
00:31:29.140
no problems, it's going to be really, really difficult to get people to be vulnerable in
00:31:33.000
that room and to expand and to, and to name weaknesses that everybody can see. But if the
00:31:38.120
leader goes first and the other thing you can do is to sort of celebrate failure. You know,
00:31:43.300
there's some places that have got a failure wall and they will post examples of, Oh, I, you know,
00:31:48.020
I made this call and it didn't work out or I'm screwed up with this client or whatever it might
00:31:51.520
be. And then the third way you can do it is to really enshrine it in habit, to make it a regular
00:31:58.680
meeting, a regular part of the meeting where people share what they screwed up on. It's in the Navy
00:32:04.460
SEALs do it. They call it an AAR, which stands for after action review. And it's a routine huddle
00:32:10.680
afterwards. And it's based on where do we screw up? What are we gonna do differently next time?
00:32:14.580
Well, it's very simple, short, quick. It's very frank. It can sometimes get embarrassed and heated
00:32:20.780
and emotional. But after you do a bunch of them, it becomes kind of routine and you begin to crave
00:32:25.300
it in the same way a good athlete begins to crave feedback on how it can be, how, how that athlete can
00:32:31.720
get better. Because that's what this is. This is about, you know, it's no longer sufficient for
00:32:38.200
businesses to simply sort of stand pat and execute. It's a learning contest, you know,
00:32:45.220
and business is a learning contest. And that means it's a culture contest. And if you have a
00:32:49.200
culture that is always hiding weaknesses, and is always sort of turning away from the truth,
00:32:54.640
and always trying to protect its feelings, that is not going to perform. And if you have a culture
00:33:00.780
that is doing the opposite, that is constantly sharing that weakness and constantly admitting where
00:33:05.660
there's a problem, that's a culture that has a chance to perform.
00:33:08.660
The Pixar example was one that I kept going back to. And I took my family to go see Coco last week.
00:33:14.920
Phenomenal movie, like every other Pixar. But you talk about in the book, like most Pixar movies that
00:33:18.640
have ever been made, like they started out terribly. And they've had to scrap it from the beginning,
00:33:23.720
because they have these sessions, these brainstorm sessions, or brain trust sessions,
00:33:27.460
they just viscerate, you know, just like totally tear down. And they go back. And because of that,
00:33:32.720
they've been able to put out these great, spectacular works of art because of that.
00:33:37.220
I think it's the brain trust meeting is like the greatest creative machine ever invented in
00:33:43.100
entertainment. It is absolutely, and as Pixar founder Ed Catmull says, it's the most important
00:33:48.540
thing we do, this meeting, which is awkward and tough and difficult. But it's where movies go from
00:33:54.500
being, as he says, from sucking to not sucking. That's the way Ed puts it. And he's right. And one of the
00:34:01.360
interesting rules of the brain trust that kind of might apply to some of your audiences,
00:34:05.480
the people who make the suggestions, or the people who point out the problems, like it's a meeting
00:34:10.860
designed to point out flaws. So everybody watches the movie, and everybody points out the flaws.
00:34:15.120
When Woody, the character from Toy Story first came up, he was really unlikable. Like he was,
00:34:19.700
the first versions of him were really harsh. And so everybody would say that, like, I don't like
00:34:22.960
this guy. This guy seems like a jerk, this character. I hate him. And that's where that gets
00:34:28.140
pointed out. But here's the rule. The person who points that out cannot suggest the fix,
00:34:33.300
is not allowed to suggest the fix. I can't say, well, he's not likable, but here's what you should
00:34:38.300
do. You should make him more Texan. I can't suggest that. I can just point out the flaw.
00:34:42.640
And that sounds kind of mean, but there's a deeper reason. And the reason is that that rule
00:34:46.780
maintains control for the director of the film. It made the creator, the person who invented Woody,
00:34:53.660
if you don't, if you give him the solution, he'll just do it. And then he's kind of given up
00:34:57.500
control. This is a way of having the person maintain control and accountability, ownership,
00:35:02.620
and responsibility over the project and not just have the powerful people say, hey,
00:35:06.640
put a blue hat on him and have him follow those instructions. So it's really an interesting way
00:35:12.080
of giving tough feedback in a way that maintains integrity of the project.
00:35:16.760
I love that. Let's talk about purpose. We've talked about connection. We've talked about
00:35:19.700
communicating effectively. I'm sure cultures with positive or groups with positive cultures have an
00:35:25.220
overriding purpose. How does that purpose develop? Is it something that can go from top down or do
00:35:31.700
members of the group need to contribute to that purpose? What did you find?
00:35:36.600
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you typically would sort of think that when you visit these places,
00:35:44.500
that you'd sort of see that purpose coming from inside. You'd think that if you got to the
00:35:49.100
got to the SEALs or San Antonio Spurs, that they would be kind of obviously, you know, having some,
00:35:54.320
it would sort of be in their heart, you know, that they would be kind of living that. But what we
00:35:58.560
actually see is a real concerted effort by leadership to constantly put purpose in their
00:36:03.940
windshield, to constantly be really specific about what they're going after. As human beings,
00:36:08.580
we kind of naturally forget what we're there to do. It's kind of weird to think that the SEALs
00:36:14.620
would have to kind of remind each other that the only easy day was yesterday, or that their job
00:36:19.480
is to shoot, move, and communicate, or that they're the quiet professionals. Those are all the sort of
00:36:23.320
catchphrases the SEALs always use. The SEALs actually say that to each other a lot. You know,
00:36:27.660
they repeat that. It's kind of weird to think that San Antonio has to remind itself to pound the rock
00:36:32.180
because they're playing basketball. They said this, and it's post on the wall, and it's a,
00:36:36.820
they walk by a sledgehammer and a rock every day and practice. But they do. They remind each other all
00:36:41.660
the time. So it's like this vision of leaders as kind of this radio station that is constantly
00:36:48.100
broadcasting, or maybe the windshield is the better metaphor, that constantly putting these signals in
00:36:53.580
the windshield that makes it really clear what it's about. But the other piece of that beyond simply
00:37:01.160
broadcasting it is digging it out, is figuring out what it is. What is the purpose? And how is that
00:37:08.440
changing over time? And that's another role that I saw really smart leaders play, constantly
00:37:14.020
reflecting on what is it we're about? And what stories can I tell that capture that? They were
00:37:22.260
really almost like composers, you know, where they're always listening for the tune and always
00:37:27.940
finding ways to play that tune to their people in ways that were meaningful and connective. It was
00:37:33.720
fascinating. So it was a very, the guy who embodied it the most was a guy named Danny Meyer, who's one of
00:37:39.800
the best restaurateurs ever. He runs Gramercy Tavern, Shake Shack, Union Square Cafe, a number of
00:37:46.180
wonderful places that have wonderful cultures. And he, being around him was almost like being around a
00:37:52.060
songwriter. He was constantly trying to come up with these, these ways of talking about their culture
00:37:56.740
and these stories, and asking people for stories, kind of digging them out of the ground and making them,
00:38:02.580
making them powerful. He would always want to talk about problems and how people reacted to
00:38:07.720
problems. And he came up with this sort of cheesy catchphrase, but it was restaurant servers are
00:38:13.100
surfers and problems are the waves. And he would sort of like to talk about that along with another
00:38:18.880
bunch of other sort of catchphrases that he did. But he was always sort of behaving as that composer
00:38:24.660
in chief, unearthing the stories and putting them in the windshield of his people.
00:38:28.380
So it sounds like what you're saying here is not necessarily do, does everyone in the group need
00:38:33.200
to contribute to the purpose? You hear these ideas like, oh, we're going to have like a, a vision
00:38:37.260
statement meeting where we get input from everybody. You necessarily, you don't necessarily have to do
00:38:41.360
that for there to be a purpose that everyone signs on to.
00:38:43.860
I don't think so. You know, there's a, there's a, there's a narrative element there. There's a story
00:38:48.660
element there that people really do get behind. And sometimes it's a person. It's like, you know,
00:38:54.020
Steve Jobs embodied the culture of Apple. Everybody knew what that felt like, what that,
00:38:58.220
what the behavior should be like, you know, very, very simple. But there are things that you can do.
00:39:03.400
And I, there's one that I've seen used effectively called, you know, culture capture, where you
00:39:08.280
basically try to solicit people's ideas and thoughts on who they are, on who the, who the group is,
00:39:14.440
what the group represents. And it's a wonderful way to kind of get material that the leadership can
00:39:20.380
then reflect back to the group on, and, and really using their voices to describe who they are.
00:39:26.460
It is, you know, those kinds of culture captures often can hinge on a couple of really good questions.
00:39:33.820
One good question that gets asked in good culture captures is, tell me a story about something that
00:39:39.120
would happen here that wouldn't happen anywhere else, which is such a basic question, but such a
00:39:43.760
powerful one. Tell me a story that would happen here in our group that would not happen in any other
00:39:48.820
group, in our industry or in our world. That can create, that question can create a really powerful
00:39:54.440
response in terms of finding stories that embody the mission and vision of the group. And the other
00:40:00.760
question that can provide a good response is, tell me what gets rewarded here. Tell me what,
00:40:07.020
what behaviors get rewarded here. That tells you a lot about a culture too. So, you know, define the
00:40:12.960
behaviors that get rewarded here. It can be a question that can really help unearth the purpose of a
00:40:18.500
group. So let's talk about this. There's different groups who have different objectives,
00:40:22.380
some are more performance-based where, you know, like the U.S. Minutemen Misslers, right? They have
00:40:27.360
to do certain tasks perfectly or effectively for them to include the job. But then there's more
00:40:32.220
creative type groups like Pixar is a great example. I think a lot of the principles he's talking about
00:40:36.940
applies to both, but are there differences in how culture should change or leadership should change
00:40:41.580
depending on the goal you're trying to reach, whether it's creative or performance-based?
00:40:46.320
That's a great question. No, there really are. There are deep differences. And I think the
00:40:50.040
athlete model will give us some insight into that. Like if you think of your culture as a giant
00:40:55.440
athlete, the whole group is like an athlete that has a task to do. Now, there's basically two types
00:41:01.040
of tasks that groups do. Groups are either good at sort of being very proficient, meaning they deliver
00:41:07.280
the same thing at the same time, in the same way, in the same manner, over and over again, like at a
00:41:12.180
restaurant or at a service industry. Boom, boom, boom. You want to hit the marks. Sort of like
00:41:16.760
making a good golf swing. Like you want your golf swing to be solid all the time. Then you have
00:41:20.820
groups who are about being creative, that want to create something new, that something has never
00:41:26.360
existed before. Somebody that needs to innovate. And that's somebody sort of like, I don't know,
00:41:31.320
like a soccer player weaving his way through traffic, inventing moves as he goes along. It's a very
00:41:35.940
different set of skills. You're not trying to have the perfect Ben Hogan golf swing. You're like
00:41:40.500
trying to be like Leo Messi and faking and fainting and inventing your way down the field.
00:41:46.600
Leadership in each of those cases does a very different set of purpose messaging and leadership
00:41:54.180
skills. When you are talking about creating a culture of proficiency, you need to behave kind
00:41:59.560
of like a lighthouse. You need to send a really clear signal about what behaviors you expect,
00:42:05.580
about how problem solving should be approached, about what you're about. You need to over send
00:42:12.780
all of those signals over and over again so that people understand what that is. You have to be
00:42:17.300
like Danny Meyer, inventing all of these catchphrases that describe exactly the behavior you want to
00:42:22.140
achieve. You want to celebrate those behaviors and capture them as much as you can and fill the
00:42:26.740
windshield with really precise examples of what you want and what you don't want. And when you're with a
00:42:31.600
creative team, you want to do something really different because you're not sure how they're
00:42:35.040
going to do it. You can't really say, we want this behavior because that'll impose on them.
00:42:40.320
Instead, you really focus on team composition. You want to get a team that connects and has this sense
00:42:46.200
of safety and connection together. And you focus on supporting the team, on putting big goals out in
00:42:52.020
front of them and on giving them the resources, the time, the expertise, the space that they need to
00:42:58.300
execute their vision. And giving them time and space is sometimes the hardest thing.
00:43:03.400
Supporting them through times when they don't get anything. You're not a lighthouse. You're more like
00:43:07.260
an expedition climbing Everest where you're sort of making sure their backpacks have got the right
00:43:11.720
crampons and pickaxes in them to climb to this difficult task of creating. A good model for that is
00:43:18.840
the Skunk Works program that we get in a lot of places. Places where Skunk Works, meaning sort of a
00:43:26.240
spinoff and innovation hub that is spun off from the main mothership. It was originally built,
00:43:32.080
it goes from McDonnell Douglas. It was originally to build special airplanes, but a lot of businesses
00:43:36.580
have had success spinning off of Skunk Works because you're able to create that kind of freedom.
00:43:42.000
Leaders are able to support them and leaders are able to attend to team composition keenly
00:43:46.580
and behave in that supportive expedition aspect that's very different from a lighthouse,
00:43:51.920
but that is essential to sort of creating creative teams and creative cultures. Most cultures don't
00:43:57.620
fall neatly into one or the other. There's some creativity inside all proficiency and there's
00:44:02.300
some proficiency inside all creativity. But as a leader, if you reflect a little bit on what kind
00:44:08.100
of signals my people need now, it can really be helpful to think in that terms. What do they need
00:44:13.180
that's like a golf swing and what do they need that's like a soccer player? That's awesome. Well,
00:44:17.140
Dan, there's a lot more we could talk about. Where can people go to learn more about the book
00:44:20.300
and your work? Yeah, danielcoyle.com is one place. They can go check out and there's a few things
00:44:27.220
there. There's a culture quiz that people can use to sort of measure the level of safety in their
00:44:33.420
culture and a bunch of other tools and stuff that people can explore. Fantastic. Well, Daniel Coyle,
00:44:37.880
thank you so much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure. Hey, thanks so much, Brett.
00:44:40.940
Really appreciate it. My guest today was Daniel Coyle. He's the author of the book Culture Code. It's
00:44:45.020
available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at
00:44:48.860
danielcoyle.com. Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash culture code, where you can find
00:44:54.480
links to resources. We're going to delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition
00:45:07.300
of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of
00:45:11.040
Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. If you enjoy the show, got something out of it, I appreciate it
00:45:15.120
if you give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. Helps out a lot. If you've done that already, thank you.
00:45:18.600
Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member. If you think you get something out
00:45:21.960
of it, as always, thank you for your continued support. Until the next time, this is Brett.K.