Daniel Coyle - The Culture Playbook: 60 Highly Effective Actions to Help Your Group Succeed

W here does great culture come from? How do you get it, or turn around a culture that needs fixing?

Most people believe that culture is determined by your groups identityby who you are. Strong, established cultures like Disney, Apple, and the U.S. Marine Corps feel so special and distinctive that they seem almost predestined. In this way of thinking, a groups culture is a fixed quality, rooted deep within its DNA. Certain special groups possess the gift of great culture; others dont.

Id like to argue for a different idea:

Your Culture = Your Actions

I believe culture doesnt depend on who you are but on what you do. Culture is not a gift you receive; its a skill you learn. And like any skill, it can be done well or poorly.

Youve likely experienced both good and bad cultures. You know the warm, energizing cohesion of strong culture, the chilly dysfunction of weak culture, and the lurching roller coaster of the places in between. What you might not know, however, is how much power you have to control, strengthen, and transform your groups cultureif you take the right actions.

Ive spent the past decade studying some of the most successful, cohesive cultures on the planetincluding the U.S. Womens National Soccer Team, Pixar, IDEO, the San Antonio Spurs, and others. In 2018, I wrote The Culture Code, which explored the science of building great cultureand which propelled me further into that world. Ive consulted with businesses, professional sports teams, and the military, as well as top-performing groups in education, technology, and the not-for-profit sector. Ive gone behind the scenes and studied what works, what doesnt, and why.

Early in my journey, I began capturing and analyzing the regimen of actions great groups use to build and sustain their cultures. Every time I encountered a useful methoda cohesion-building technique, a connective habit, a chemistry-igniting tipI jotted it down and tucked it away in a file I titled Good Stuff. As time went by, the file kept growingand growing. Eventually it grew big enough that I felt compelled to assemble the tips into a useful, shareable form. To create a catalog of field-tested culture-building actionsa playbook.

RULES FOR USING THIS BOOK

Rule 1:
Start Where Youre At

I ts tempting to assume that great cultures exist on a higher plane, in a happy, friction-free world where problems and disagreements happen rarely, and that everything they touch turns to gold. Let me emphasize: This is not true. Strong cultures wrestle with plenty of problems, disagree vigorously, and fail with regularity. The difference is, strong cultures experience these problems, disagreements, and failures within bonds of strong, secure connection, and they use them as leverage to learn and improve. (See Tip #23: Kill the Happy Smoothness Fallacy.) So dont start out chasing a tension-free fantasy, because that will only lead to frustration. Instead, take a skills-based approach. Begin by reflecting on where your group is strong and where its weak. Are you good at creating belonging, but do you struggle with creating purpose? Are you skilled at sharing risk, but less so at giving everyone a strong sense of connection? Start by building on your strengths; then address your weaknesses.

Its also important to keep in mind that while these tips are meant to apply to everyone, bias and unfairness can be baked into institutions and processes in a variety of insidious waysso its crucial to keep diversity, equality, and inclusion at the fore when implementing any of these actions.

Rule 2:
Create Conversations, Not Mandates

S ome of you, particularly leaders, may be tempted to use these tips to construct a top-down culture-improvement program for your group. Resist this temptation. Groups dont improve their culture by mere compliance; rather, they co-create a shared path and navigate it together. Use the actions that follow to generate reflection and conversation, and see where they lead you. To that end, Ive included a handful of activities and exercises to help you assess your groups culture, build your game plan, and track your progress.

Rule 3:
There Are No Rules

D ont think of this book as a rigid blueprint to be followed; rather, think of it as a set of proven actions that can still be improved. Test, tweak, and customize these actions to your groups individual needs. Figure out what works for you, and dont sweat the rest. Culture is always changing and evolving; your job is to continually adapt, respond, and perform the actions that keep it strong and healthy.

Most of all, let go of the outdated belief that great culture is reserved only for certain groups. Culture is not magic, and its never written in stone. Your groups culture consists of living relationships working toward a shared goal, and its built by the actions you take together, starting now.

THE STRUCTURE OF SUCCESS

Y ou might be starting out thinking, as many people do, that culture is the soft stuffthe warm and fuzzy intangibles. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Science has shown that strong culture is created by the continual exchange of three key behaviors, which form the sections of this book and also give us our starting point to begin building your groups game plan.