I was lucky enough to get a copy of this as an ARC from NetGalley - and devoured it!
I'm fascinated by the subjects of leadership and teams these days, mostly because I have experienced great team leadership in the past but too infrequently. After enjoying "Turn This Ship Around" -- this seemed like a great follow-on.
In the first chapter, the author describes an experiment in teamwork and collaboration -- conducted between two different groups: kindergarteners and college students. The goal was to build the highest tower with straws and marshmallows. The kindergarteners WON because they were entirely focused on the outcome, made changes and took feedback without being distracted by status management. That's something we all learn as we unlearn trust and vulnerability.
The book presents compelling case studies to support three sets of skills for building strong teams. First, you have to "Build Safety" -- create environments where it is ok to provide feedback regardless of status or role. Second, "Share Vulnerability" - describes how "habits of mutual risk drive trusting cooparation." Third, "Establish Purpose" -- by creating a shared culture that clearly defines the group's purpose, goals and how they do things.
Much like the mythical "work" of a romantic relationship or marriage, the author maintains that "Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal."
In building safety, there are some real physical patterns of interaction that help create a bond in a group, these include:
- Close physical proximity
- Profuse amounts of eye contact
- Physical touch (handshakes, fist bumps, hugs)
- Lots of short, energetic exhanges (no long speeches)
- High levels of mixing
- Few interruptions
- Lots of questions
- Intensive, active listening
- Humor, laughter
- Small, attentive courtesies
When is the last time that you were part of a group where you had that kind of experience? Would you ever want to leave that environment? He then describes "belonging cues" which are "behaviors that create safe connection in groups." This is basic NLP stuff combined with basic etiquette: taking turns, body language, vocal pitch, eye contact. These help signal energy, individualization and future orientation. These are all translated as "You are safe here" by the brain.
Just a few of these, once in a while, is not enough -- "We are built to require lots of signaling, over and over. This is why a sense of belonging is easy to destroy and hard to build."
Coyne also dives into the neuroscience that has been on my radar for much of 2018 -- and emphasizes that the amygdala is not just about perceiving threats but also plays "a vital role in building social connections." Those "belonging cues" are all transformed in your brain to help "set the stage for meaningful engagement."
The WWI "Christmas Truce" is one of the cases in this section -- and it's come up in popular media in my life several times this year alone. Basically - you throw a bunch of guys into very adverse conditions, and you find that creating environments that are rich in social belonging cues is critical to their survival and cooperation. However, as the battle dragged on -- this spilled over to "the enemy" -- and soldiers established "micro-truces" around meal times, bed time, using the latrine or picking up the dead, cumulating in a series of Christmas day truces across a pretty widespread geographic area. Respect the power of the amygdala!
By way of contract, another type of culture that is the opposite of belonging is described -- it was designed to break up cohesion and resulted in very poor work performance from otherwise very smart people in charge of massively destructive and dangerous weapons. You'd think people would pay attention to something as important as culture, right?
Coyne also addresses a popular conception that highly successful cultures are happy places: "They are energized and engaged, but at their core their members are oriented less around achieving happiness than around solving hard problems together."
This goes back to "this is a safe place (to give effort" -- creating connection, giving feedback, and communicating the big picture are important. But with the negative (say, giving feedback on poor performance) there is reward (belonging).
During the Cold War era, an MIT professor named Thomas Allen conducted research into what attributes were shared by successful projects. In addition to the projects being driven by “clusters of high communicators,” Allen found that the most successful teams sat close to each other and could establish eye contact with each other regularly.
Plotted on a graph, the increase in interaction against proximity is known as the “Allen Curve.” Physical “[c]loseness helps create efficiencies of connection” even with digital communication, studies show “we’re far more likely to text, email, and interact virtually with people who are physically close.”
Many studies since have demonstrated the importance of physical proximity – the informal interactions among colleagues are critical to building relationships that foster trust. In the past several years, it seems like this has resulted in a lot of companies tearing up their office environments to turn them into "open plan" work spaces without figuring out what works best for their teams. Not all teams are alike, and one size does not fit all when it comes to building strong teams.
To create safety, Coyne offers a few tips, including:
- Overcommunicate your Listening (and avoid interruptions)
- Spotlight your Fallibility Early On - Especially if you are a leader
- Embrace the Messenger
- Preview future connection -- connecting the dots between where we are now and where we plan to be
- Overdo Thank-Yous - that includes "thanks for letting me coach you" - as a way of affirming the relationship and "igniting cooperative behavior."
- Be Painstaking in the Hiring Process
- Eliminate Bad Apples
- Create Safe, Collision-Rich Spaces
- Make Sure Everyone Has a Voice
- Pick up the trash - make sure leaders are helping with tasks that are "menial" - rolling up their sleeves goes a long way to creating that safety
- Capitalize on Threshold Moments
- Avoid Giving Sandwich Feedback - handle negative and positive feedback as two different processes
- Embrace Fun - "it's the most fundamental sign of safety and connection."
In sharing vulnerability -- teams can demonstrate their willingness to accept the help and support of others in a way that makes the entire team stronger. The case study of two pilots and a passenger who happened to be a flight instructor crash landing a plane together -- resulting in the survival of 185 of 285 on board. Simulations run after the event failed to do nearly well as those three people -- resulting in crashes 28 times. Coyne analyzes the content of their communication and finds that they shared information in a way that was humble and allowed them to perform in the face of catastrophic systems failure (it's a fantastic story!).
Coyne then goes on to analyze the importance of social exchanges in the team environment -- the kind that open up shared vulnerability in a way that creates a "shared exchange of openness" that forms "the most basic building block of cooperation and trust."
The DARPA Red Balloon Challenge is another fantastic case study about how people can cooperate when vulnerability is shared and support invited in a way that is reciprocal and offers mutual benefit. That is, he points out - the whole point of groups: "combine our strengths and skills in a complementary way."
The Navy SEALs examples are fantastic -- and you have to buy the book so you can read and understand them. I especially like the description of how the SEALs were established -- and the type of training they undergo to reinforce team behavior. They learn how to move together, trust each other and figure things out as they go because they trust each other and they understand how things have to be done. He also goes into the rules around a complicated improv exercise with a successful comedy troupe where "Every rule directs you either to tamp down selfish instincts that might make you the center of attention, or to serve your fellow actors (support, save, trust, listen)."
Coyne also talks about the importance of overcoming authority bias to create successful groups -- "having one person tell others how to do things is not a reliable way to make good decisions." This is fascinating because it goes back to the premise of "Turn This Ship Around" where the goal was to make everyone in the team a leader -- creating a team of leaders who understand the problems that need to be solved and work together without regard for role or hierarchy is important for these successful groups.
The chapter on "The Nyquist Method" is fascinating -- it's named after a particularly nurturing engineer who created a safe space for his coworkers to share ideas and sparked ideas with them that resulted in greater achievements than if they had worked on their own. He then reviews other folks who perform similar catalyst roles in other environments - people who mostly just are good active listeners, encouraging others to dig deep and shape the solutions to their challenges. Again, NLP plays a role here - or "concordances" - body language that helps increase perceived empathy and in turn creates a safe environment for stronger teams and success.
Coyne is good about reiterating and building on the tips for creating these safe environments and strong relationships throughout his book. Primarily - listening, being willing to be open and vulnerable, using objective techniques for sharing information (like "Before-Action Review" or "After Action Review").
Taking us back to the previous point about successful cultures aren't always sunshine and rainbows -- "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."
Finally, the section on "Establish Purpose" is really fun to read -- as he goes to lengths to repeat, a lot of the slogans and catch phrases seem hokey or corny or obvious but the fact is that teams who create compelling, clear goals and articulate them like that are described as "high purpose environments" because they know what they are doing as a team. These catchphrases establish a link between a goal or behavior and "consistently create engagement around it."
He also talks about how positive feedback can create a "virtuous spiral" of success (and no need to mention how the opposite happens as well!).
These kind of heuristics "provide guidance by creating if/then scenarios in a vivid, meorable way" and function "as a conceptual beacon." These kinds of clearly articulated catch phrases make it easier to make decisions in support of specific team goals, such as "You can't prevent mistakes but you can solve problems graciously" or "If someone is rude make a charitable assumption."
The final tips include: Name and rank your priorities; Be 10x as clear about these priorities as you think you ought, determine where your team aims for proficiency (and for creativity), embrace the use of catchphrases, measure what really matters, use artifacts, focus on bar-setting behaviors -- and go buy this book if you want to learn more about what all those things mean!
REVIEW: The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
RATING: 5 stars
© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.
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