Daniel Coyle has written a definitive book, The Culture Code, on how to build a great organizational culture. Based on his research with well-established cultures such as Google, Disney, the Navy SEALS and other organizations in the military, education, business, sports and entertainment sectors, Coyle has concluded that there are three essential skills for creating a strong organizational culture:

  • Skill One – Build Safety

 

  •  Skill Two – Share Vulnerability

 

  •  Skill Three – Establish Purpose

I have included below five ideas for each skill suggested by Coyle.

Skill One – Build Safety

  1. Overcommunicate Your Listening – When Coyle observed listeners in listening mode in organizations with great cultures he saw “head tilted slightly forward, eyes unblinking and eyebrows arched up. Their bodies were still and they leaned toward the speaker with intent. The only sound they made was a steady stream of affirmations – yes, uh-huh, gotcha – that encouraged the speaker to keep going, to give them more”. It’s also important to avoid interruptions as “the smoothness of turn taking, as we’ve seen, is a powerful indicator of cohesive group performance”.

 

  1. 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”.

 

  1. Preview Future Connections – This habit involves “sneak-previewing future relationships, making small but telling connections between now and a vision of the future”.

 

  1. Overdo Thank-Yous – “When you enter highly successful cultures, the number of thank-yous you hear seems slightly over the top. Overdoing thank-yous has “less to do with thanks than affirming the relationship…thank-yous aren’t only expressions of gratitude; they’re critical belonging cues that generate a contagious sense of safety, connection and motivation”.

 

  1. Make Sure Everyone Has a Voice – Establish team rules, procedures and mechanisms that value full-group contribution (i.e. having a rule “that no meeting can end without everyone sharing something)”. Coyle cautions, “no matter how strong the rule, the underlying key is to have leaders who seek out connection and make sure voices are heard”.

 Skill Two – Share Vulnerability

  1.  Make Sure the Leader is Vulnerable First and Often – Coyle quotes a Navy SEAL leader in saying, “I screwed that up are the most important words any leader can say”. There’s an underlying, deeper message in saying these words – “It’s safe to tell the truth here”. This vulnerability is a sign of strength, not weakness.

 

  1. Overcommunicate Expectations – Organizations with great cultures are “explicit and persistent about sending big, clear signals that established expectations, modeled cooperation and aligned language and roles to maximize helping behavior”.

 

  1. When Forming New Groups, Focus On Two Critical Moments –
  • The first vulnerability
  • The first disagreement

 “These small moments are doorways to two possible group paths: Are we about appearing       strong or about exploring the landscape together? Are we about winning interactions or about learning together”? 

  1. In Conversation, Resist the Temptation to Reflexively Add Value – “The most important part of creating vulnerability often resides not in what you say but in what you do not This means having the willpower to forgo easy opportunities to offer solutions and make suggestions”. A great expression to use is, “Say more about that”.

 

  1. Embrace the Discomfort – “One of the most difficult things about creating habits of vulnerability is that it requires a group to endure two discomforts: emotional pain and a sense of inefficiency”. The key is to understand that “the pain is not a problem to building a stronger group”.

Skill Three – Establish Purpose

  1.  Be Ten Times as Clear About Your Priorities as You Think You Should Be – Coyle visited many leaders in his research and noticed that, in their communications, “Statements of priorities were painted on the walls, stamped on emails, incanted in speeches, dropped into conversation and repeated over and over until they became part of the oxygen”.

 

  1. Embrace the Use of Catchphrases – “The trick to building effective catchphrases is to keep them simple, action-oriented and forthright: “Create fun and a little weirdness” (Zappos), “Talk less, do more” (IDEO), “Work Hard, Be Nice” (KIPP),“Pound the Rock” (San Antonio Spurs), “Create raves for guests” (Danny Meter’s restaurants)”.

 

  1. Measure What Really Matters – “Create simple universal measures that place focus on what matters”. Zappos replaced a measurement for call center workers of “the number of calls handled per hour” with what really matters – “creating a bond outside the conversation about the product”. While this can’t be measured precisely, its purpose is to “create awareness and alignment and to direct behavior toward the group’s mission”.

 

  1. Use Artifacts – Successful cultures have environments that are “richly embedded with artifacts that embody their purpose and identity” (i.e. battle gear for Navy SEALs, Oscar trophies accompanied by hand-drawn sketches of the original sketches at Pixar, etc).

 

  1. Focus on Bar-Setting Behaviors – The challenge of building purpose is to “translate abstract ideas (values, mission) into concrete terms. One way successful groups do this is to define their identity and set the bar for their expectations”. For example, “Pixar puts hundreds of hours of effort into the technical and storytelling quality of the short, stand-alone animated films that run before each of its features… These small efforts are powerful because they transmit, amplify and celebrate the purpose of the whole group”.

 

It is highly recommended to read Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code.