According to Me, The Series: “The Culture Code” by Daniel Coyle
This book is easy to follow and always intrigue you at every turn in unveiling the secret of such an abstract concept like culture. It starts by describing how a group of kindergartens working together can beat a group of MBA students at a certain group task and it sounds totally plausible. It all has to do with the team dynamics. Whereas, kindergartens simply do, express themselves honestly and transparently until the best action wins out, adults tend to do the politics, sizing each other up, being “เกรงใจ” etc. that hinder the progress.
To me, this book along with books on Netflix (“No Rules Rules”) and Ray Dalio (“Principles”) consistently say that transparency and honest feedback are important attributes of culture to create a thriving organisation (when more than two experts or successful precedences say the same thing, you can start to be certain it must be true and it must be working). Much has been heard about office politics and how unproductive it could be yet still happen. This leads to one important point in the book, “Safety”.
You feel safe when you feel you can be yourself and express your honest opinions among peer groups or to your leaders. When you feel comfortable, having the right chemistry with people around you, you feel safe. Fear is the most dominant primitive feeling human ever have. Once it takes over (in “unsafe” environment), you flee or spend energy and time worrying about potential insecurity. When you feel safe, then you can be productive and produce your best work since you don’t have to spend .
While the book never mentions “safety” in the economic sense, only the social aspect of it, I would note here that in terms of pay, this again is consistent with the concept of universal income where the idea is, give people enough income to live by (hence, security), and they will become more productive to the society at large. It is consistent with how most startups pay, enough that will take care of the basic needs, and then put everything else into equities for long-term future alignment with the startup. Again, when I see consistent evidences across multiple places, I take notice.
A similar concept to “Safety” or perhaps the consequence of it is “Belonging”. When people feel they belong to the group, they feel secured. The book demonstrated how a sports team that perform professionally, yet feels like a family can achieve something greater than others would have predicted. I think this will be more true or more apparent when the group face adversity and a set-back (the team lost after being so close to lifting the trophy, they regrouped and finally won the next year). It is this sense of belonging that will enable them to overcome obstacles.
Other concept of “Sense of Purpose” and “Common Goals” might be more obvious for a good team to have but also not so easy to establish. Lack of focus is something that may threaten this. Future uncertainties and things that may sway you off course are others. This is why some might say courage to follow through is more rare than vision.
Beyond this, it is clear culture is what people do. All can be explained by human psychology and instinctive nature. When you think about it, it is believable. Whether it happens to your organisation, it is up to everybody there but leaders will need to set an example and build environment that nurture it. Good news to me is that leader’s quality in creating such a good culture does not seem too far-fetch: many are just about being a decent human being!
Book summary by others can be found here.
https://www.getstoryshots.com/books/the-culture-code-summary/
