Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

Motivation for Reading:

I often hear, in organizing, that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” That you can have an incredible plan, vision or strategy, and skilled individuals and leaders to execute on it, but at the end of the day, the culture of a group/team/organization, is what is make or break.

I bought Culture Code about 2 years ago because I was really interested group and team culture. I was curious to learn how some of the most successful groups used culture to accomplish big shit. I really like this book because it 1.) Has fun stories about groups (e.g., basketball teams, Pixar Creative Teams, kindergartners, etc.) who accomplish cool shit. and 2.) Is an easy read. So recommend you check-it out. And if you won’t, at least check out my half-baked reflections & thoughts on the book below :)

Also, in the spirit of Goodreads ratings, I’m going to give this book a 7/10.

Half-Baked Review:

Key Thesis: Group culture is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. It’s not the individuals (and their skillsets) that make for a powerful team, but rather the culture of the group. More specifically, in the book, there are three group elements to highly successful groups/teams. Strong team cultures:

  1. Build safety amongst the team

  2. Share vulnerability

  3. Establish purpose

I’ll go more into each of these below.

Key Themes:

  • Build safety amongst the team

    • Questions to ask: Are we connected? Do we share a future? Are we safe together?

    • Establish belonging cues:

      • Energy: They invest in the exchange that is occurring

      • Individualization: They treat the person as unique and valued

      • Future orientation: They signal that the relationship will continue

    • Team performance driven by five measurable factors:

      • Everyone talks

      • Eye contact

      • Direct communication

      • Side convos on the team (folks all engaging with each other outside the group)

      • Team takes break, wanders, comes back with fresh ideas

    • How to create safety and belonging

      • Over communicate that you are listening

      • Spotlight your fallibility early on, especially as a leader

      • Embrace the messenger

      • Preview future connection

      • Over do thank you

      • Be painstaking in hiring process

      • Eliminate bad apples

      • Create safe collision rich spaces

      • Make sure everyone has a voice

      • Pick up the trash (even leaders do the humble work)

      • Capitalize on the threshold moments and pay attention to the moments of arrival

      • Embrace fun

  • Share vulnerability

    • What: It’s about sending a really clear signal that you have weaknesses, that you could use hell

    • Question: How do you create ways to challenge each other, ask the right questions, and never defer to authority?

    • Ideas for vulnerability:

      • Make sure the leader is vulnerable first and often

      • Over communicate expectations

      • When forming new groups focus on two critical moments: one, the first vulnerability moment and two, the first disagreement

      • Listen like a trampoline

      • In conversation, resist the temptation to reflexively add value

      • Use candor generating practices like After Action Reviews, BrainTrust and Red Teaming

      • Aim for candor, avoid brutal honesty

      • Embrace the discomfort

      • Align language with action

      • Build a wall between performance review and professional development

      • Use flash mentoring

      • Make the leader occasionally disappear

  • Establish purpose

    • Name and rank your priorities: the integrity and culture of the group should be number one

    • Be 10x as clear about your priorities as you think you should be: repeat repeat repeat priorities

    • Figure out where your group aims for proficiency and where it aims for creativity (and the book lays at different strategies for fostering proficiency & creativity)

    • Embrace the use of catchphrases

    • Measure what really matters

    • Focus on bar-setting behaviors

Key Takeaway:

  • A group of ordinary people can create a performance far beyond the sum of their parts.. with strong team culture built on creating safety amongst the team, vulnerability within the team, and shared purpose amongst the team.

Fav Quotes:

“Vulnerability doesn’t come after trust—it precedes it. Leaping into the unknown, when done alongside others, causes the solid ground of trust to materialize beneath our feet.”

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

“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.”

“Building habits of group vulnerability is like building a muscle. It takes time, repetition, and the willingness to feel pain in order to achieve gains.”

“[Building purpose is...] not as simple as carving a mission statement in granite or encouraging everyone to recite a hymnal of catchphrases. It's a never-ending process of trying, failing, reflecting and above all learning. High-purpose environments don't descend on groups from on high; they are dug out of the ground, over and over, as a group navigates it's problems together and evolves to meet the challenges of a fast-changing world.”