The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups | Daniel Coyle | RSA Replay

good afternoon everyone I'm Rebecca Ford manager of the RSA student design awards program which challenges emerging designers at university level to respond to complex social issues and I'm delighted to welcome you all here today for this special RSA Thursday event before we begin could I please ask you to turn your mobile phones to silent and we're filming today and live streaming over the web so very big welcome to those join us joining us online this event is part of the fabulous global festival of genius hosted by our friends at 92nd Street Y in New York so a big hello to everyone tuning in around the world to the hashtag for the event is hashtag RSA culture so please do also join the discussion on on Twitter now I'm absolutely delighted to welcome today's speaker Daniel Coyle as you may know Daniel is New York Times bestselling author of the talent code winner of the 2012 William Hill sports book prize of the year and sports book of the Year prize sorry here's a contributing editor for outside magazine and works as a special advisor to the Cleveland Indians baseball team his latest book the culture code demystifies the perceived magic of highly successful groups and has garnered praise from many quarters I particularly loved the mix of vivid storytelling compelling evidence and practical guidance in the book and the huge breadth of insights that are drawn from very different yet analogous context please join me in giving a big warm welcome to Daniel Coyle it's wonderful to be here with the RSA and with you I'd like to start by asking you to do something for me take a second and think about the most connected team that you've ever been on the most cohesive team it could be a team from school could be team from sports could be a group could be a family group could be work but think about that feeling not your performance think about that feeling what that feeling feels like to be on a team that is cooperative cohesive and connected have you got it so here's a question what's that worth what is that worth how does that add to performance how much would that add to performance we know that good groups are more than the sum of their parts how much more I'm asking you because there was a Harvard team that researched this they looked at ten groups that were the same except for culture one who had a strong culture and one had a weak culture and the difference in performance was 756 percent over ten years net revenue they were businesses net revenue over ten years which nicely frames why we're here because culture is performance because culture makes groups add up to more than the sum of their parts whether that culture is our community whether that culture is our family where there are that cultures our work our sports teams it adds up to something and the question really is what's this space made of the space between average and 756 if we could see it if we could feel it if we could know when we're moving up and moving down what would that be so today I'd like to spend some time thinking about a new mental model for this space a new way of thinking about this space and for giving you a few tools that you can use to navigate this space maybe even tomorrow and it starts exploring the space with a story and that story is about me I'm 10 years old and I'm focused on a really simple question actually obsessed with a question how do I get really really really really good at baseball good enough to play for I had thoughtfully narrowed it down to two teams the st. Louis Cardinals because they won all the time and the Cleveland Indians because they never won they never won they never won a World Series since 1948 I love those teams and I wanted to be a part of it however I ran into a little problem the first problem is that I was growing up in Alaska that's June if you can see the snow that's June 2nd problem I kept striking out when I got to the high-school age I couldn't play that well and so I decided I made a decision if I couldn't be a great performer I would study great performers I grew up to be a journalist and a researcher and my job essentially is to travel the world and look at great performers and see what makes them tick look at the science of great performance I married a girl from Ohio and moved to Cleveland about 10 years ago and one day my telephone rang and it was the Cleveland Indians they're finally called and they were in a bad spot they had been had one of the worst records in baseball the last five years the previous five years and they were looking to bring in new ideas and they had read some of my work and they said we want to bring you in and one thing led to another and I took a position as an advisor to the Cleveland Indians and then something even more surprising happened Cleveland started winning and winning and winning and winning and winning for the last five years we have the best record in the American League we have spent four hundred million dollars less than our rivals were a small market team that is adding up to more than the sum of our parts last year we broke a hundred-year-old record for consecutive wins so being on the front lines and watching that rocket ship take off watching that transformation set me on a journey to go around the world and look at great groups high performing groups groups like Pixar groups like Navy SEAL Team six groups like I do and seeing what they have in common and go into that question of how what is that space made of how do we get better at that how do we add up to more than the sum of our parts for the common good there's a story that we've told about this space a traditional way to think about this space about culture and it goes like this culture is the soft stuff it's the soft stuff it's complex it's nuanced it's something people have it's it's a quality that groups have it's sort of entwined with their DNA that's how we think of it as a quality and if we were to represent that traditional way of thinking about culture on screen it would look a little bit like this what is culture how do we get better culture well you want to have values right you don't have leadership you want to have trust you want to have teamwork and integrity and mission and purpose and honesty and integrity and cohesion and the list goes on and on this is a perfectly true list all this is in fact true but it's useless as a tool it's not a good tool how do we get better at culture well do this stuff right so it's a huge irony culture is by far the most important thing you do culture is by far the most important force in our community in our families in our organizations and our way of thinking about it is medieval is medieval so I want to give you a new way of thinking about this space and it starts with a group that maybe you've already known maybe you've already met these this group let me know what these are starlings right beautiful right these are starlings but this actually captures what it's like to watch a Navy SEAL team on a mission this is actually embodies what it's like to watch Pixar make a movie this embodies what good groups do then move at speed information flowing through the entire group solving problems in real time that's what great groups do and the funny thing is starlings have brains as big as a grain of rice they're not paying attention to values or mission or purpose what they are doing instead is pay doing the thing that all good groups do they're paying keen attention to signals of connection to paying keen attention to signals that share information with each other they're sharing accurate information and signals of direction and here's the thing you are not so different there's a deep human grammar of connection that we all are connected to signals not it's a language it's a language not of words but of signals signals that connect us signals through which we share information and signals through which we determine direction and it looks like this this is model for thinking about this space of culture how do human beings connect well we connect through safety we build safety when we get a signal of safety we connect how do we share information how do we share accurate information and groups we share vulnerability we open up to each other and tell each other the truth how do we determine direction how do humans determine what direction their group should go where that group is a family a sports team and organization or a community it's a story that story tells us what direction to go this is a functional map of how culture works it's a grammar of signals that we share and I want to walk through sort of in a primer way to speaking this language to you today learning how to speak connection learning how to speak vulnerability and learning how to speak story there's a moment in group life where connection either happens or it doesn't you're in a group everyone's excited about a project and people buy in we call that buy-in because people are literally investing in the group feeling connected and we know what that feeling feels like it's a wonderful feeling sometimes it happens in a in a fake way people seem bought in but then push comes to shove and they're not quite bought in they're not quite there it's a really mysterious moment in group life what makes people feel that connection in their guts that feeling that you felt when we first reflected on it in this session there's a man named Peter Skillman who's an engineer who dug into this question and the way he decided to explore that question was through a contest simple contest it was who could build the tallest tower with the following materials 20 pieces of raw spaghetti a yard of tape and a single standard sized marshmallow only rule marshmallow goes on top he had teams of four teams of CEOs teams of lawyers teams of MBAs and teams of kindergartners I'm not sure why I went here for kindergartners kindergartners right ready set go and all the adult groups start the same way they circle up and they begin to talk they talk they make a plan and then they improve on that plan they have more talking they improve on that plan then they divide up in roles and then they start to build and it looks gorgeous it looks smooth it looks cooperative it looks like the embodiment of perfect human cooperation the kindergartners not so much they basically start eating a lot of marshmallows and then they have hazard Li start jamming stuff together and taping and it looks like complete chaos and if you had to bet your life savings which group would win if you had to put your life savings in a suitcase and carry it over to the group you thought you would win you thought would win most of us would pick an adult group no question because that's the way our mental model of group performance works our mental model focuses on what we can see and what we see when we see intelligent cooperative experienced individuals working together we assume they will combine into an intelligent group when we see chaotic children jamming things together we assume it is going to be a chaotic group so let's see how our bet turns out there's tower height in inches there are the MBAs nobody was gonna bet on them anyway there are the lawyers they do a bit better there are the CEOs do a bit better but nobody touches the kindergartens they win every time and it's not even close and it seems like an optical illusion it seems like an optical illusion how does that happen that's because our mental model does not take into account the two most important factors of group performance status management and safety the adults look like they're cooperating in fact they are managing status with each other while they're talking there's a whisper in the back of their heads who's in charge here where do I fit in is it okay to say that nobody wants to be CEO of spaghetti incorporated the kindergartners work together and because they work faster and because they don't care and they're not worried about who is in charge they're able to iterate id8 and innovate more rapidly what gives you better feedback than your tower falling down perfect feedback how to fix it let's fix it together safety is not just some atmospheric feeling it is the core of good group performance it is by far the most important factor it makes you smarter that moment of connection I want to tell you about a great experiment that was done by a company called Wipro we normally think belonging sort of happens it's chemistry right it's just chemistry and what Pro was a call center and they were having trouble with creating a sense of connection in their people they were having trouble because working at a call centers a pain it's really hard to work at a call center answer calls all day every year 50% of their people would leave their retention was terrible so they tried to fix it they improved the facilities they improved the HR function nothing worked until in desperation they tried a one-hour experiment and they divided the group into two one group got a presentation for one hour about wit-pro they met a star performer and they learned all about the history of Wipro they got a tour of Wipro and they got a shirt with whipped pros name on it for the second group they flipped it instead of talking about whip Pro they asked questions about the trainees they asked tell me what happens on your best day what happens on your worst day if we were on a desert island marooned what skills would you bring to our survival we had a conversation about that and then they all got a sweatshirt with their name on it not with Wipro with the trainees name then spin the clock of forward seven months retention in this group goes up to hundred and seventy percent not seven percent not seventy percent two hundred and seventy percent why because they received a crystal clear belonging cue they created safety safety doesn't descend from the heavens by magic it is created in clear moments where you deliver a signal I see you we are connected we share a future so let's dig into the next word which is really all about openness when I was traveling around visiting Pixar and Navy SEAL Team six I kept having the same interaction where a leader would open up to me I was walking around Pixar and walking through a beautiful building and it was the most beautiful building I had ever seen and I'm from Alaska so I haven't seen many beautiful buildings but it was incredible and I said I said to the president Pixar ed this is the coolest building I have ever been in and he said actually this building was a huge mistake like a 20 million dollar building this building was a huge mistake we made the hallways too narrow we put the atrium in the wrong spot and what's more we made all those mistakes and didn't even realize we were making them stunning openness I better of a Navy SEAL commander who said the most important four words any leader can say are I screwed that up interesting if that seals were confident I kept getting those signals so I'd like to explore that a little bit with you are you up for doing an experiment okay we're gonna divide the room into two you're about to see three questions pair with the person next to you okay pair with the person next to you and you each get to pick a question from one of the columns this group here's our dividing line this is group B this is Group A so you'll pick a question from column a you each will ask that question to the other and you'll answer it so you'll each get a turn of asking an answer you only have two minutes okay so here you go here's a questions pick one of those three questions pick someone next to you ask and answer it here's B's pick someone next to you ask and answer that question ready go one more minute you have one more minute one more minute by ten seconds ten seconds ten more seconds all right well done well done should I crack a whip well done that's good wind it up please you guys are really yeah well that certainly set things off all right thank you thank you well done well done well done thank you well done well done all right I can tell you one thing I can confirm I can confirm that the R does not stand for reserved you could keep going all day I was gonna quietly slip out if that's okay if that's okay so interesting to observe that from afar group a started up instantly it was very quick the body just turned and they started right away this group there's sort of this and then but then when it got going it really got going if we were to measure the kind of energy level in the expression and the gestures this group sort of kept on ascending so what's the difference between those two columns just shout it out what do you think the difference is yeah yeah column a is a some facts that you can deliver Colby digs a little bit deeper there's something there there's layers there's a little disclosure there there's a moment as a moment and it's a moment called vulnerability where you have to disclose the root word of vulnerability is Vaughn which means wound it's a little painful to sort of dig into that for example if someone had asked me describe the last pet you owned I got that I got that I can crush that question that's an easy one right I got it kakapo 15 pounds name was Moby okay how about this is there something you've always dreamed of doing why haven't you done it screw that I'm good I'm gonna stick with the pets it requires a moment it requires a moment of vulnerability and openness what that's called is a vulnerability loop it's a loop because two people have to do it if one of you does it and the other doesn't it doesn't count what's interesting is when you create a vulnerability loop and then test cooperation and performance if we were to give you a test that measured your relative ability to cooperate like a puzzle you had to solve with your partner this group would score higher about 24% higher which is bizarre because normally we think our model of trust is I need to trust you before I'm vulnerable but we're wrong we have it exactly backwards when you are vulnerable it creates trust when you are vulnerable when you open up and have a vulnerability loop and share weakness and share truth it creates closeness and cooperation and the places that I visited operationalized that they didn't just leave it to free-range openness that's what that president of Pixar was doing he was sending a signal of openness that's why the Navy SEAL commander says I screwed that up or the four most important words a leader can say because they free up a conversation about what actually happened truth accurate information and good groups operationalize this like a habit the seals have something called an aar which is an after-action review after omission they circle up they talk about what went wrong what went right and what they'll do differently next time it's a hard meeting it's a hard meeting to have but it's incredibly powerful because it allows information to flow in the group for the common good so that moment of sharing weakness is what makes groups strong but let's move on to something bigger where's a group headed what's the story I want to tell you a story about any group can survive when the things are calm but there are some moments that define a group when a crisis happens and there's never been a crisis like the 1982 tylenol poisonings do you remember that a madman put arsenic in random bottles of Tylenol extra-strength tunnel and put them in the drugstore in Chicago and people took them unknowingly and died so Johnson and Johnson the maker of Tylenol gets a phone call one day says your product is being used as a murder weapon what happened next was remarkable and remains the gold standard of crisis response tylenol on its own invented tamper proof packaging in a matter of months they voluntarily pulled a hundred million dollars worth of product against the advice of the FBI the FBI thought it would cause a panic the tylenol pulled it anyway they dealt with unparalleled openness with the legal community and the public about this they responded like that group of starlings they all knew where to go at the same time question is how how did they do that well when you play the tape back the previous four years there was an executive at tylenol who created an intensive whole company conversation around a simple question what comes first what comes first does our shareholder come first their stock price come first did the doctors come first and what they decided and what they literally carved in Granite our users of our product come first by creating that conversation that awareness he created a purpose for that group and when the crisis happened they knew where TrueNorth lay they knew what to do what was fascinating about visiting these places is whenever I would go into one of these groups it always felt a bit corny and I was they always were repeating these sort of mantras over and over again these things like when you're in the Navy SEALs they talk about what do we do we shoot move and communicate the only easy day was yesterday that's another mantra another mantra they have is we're the quiet professionals they talk all the time about how they're the quiet professionals they talk about it over and over and over again and you see that in a group and I began to see it actually as a sign of a smart group purpose doesn't come from within it doesn't come from the heart it comes from the windshield it comes from leaders who fill the windshield of their group with a map of mantras that allow the people in that group to navigate to solutions there's a restaurant that it sums us up Danny Meyer's anybody ever eaten at Gramercy Tavern or the Union Square cafe they are the Pixar of restaurants incredible restaurants and they have amazing success Danny had one successful restaurant and then he opened another and the culture started to slip started to slip because he was what great looked like when he was in the restaurant everyone could look at him and say that's who we should be that's our culture but when he was gone half the time no one remembered that so Danny Meyer closed both restaurants and went on a retreat and started writing this it's just sort of their mantra map what is true north for us creating raves that's our job above all else creating race how do we do that and notice these things are all a little bit cheesy aren't they we read the guests we find the yes my favorite is mistakes our waves servers are surfers right a bit cheesy you feel like you're at summer camp that actually seems like a weakness it's a strength because he's realizing it's not about inspiration it's about navigation it's about in navigation and there was a moment recently I was having breakfast with Danny Meyer and someone tipped over a tray of glasses they fell to the floor and crashed and Meyer stops and he looks and I said what are you looking for he said one of two things is about to happen either they're gonna come together and solve this problem and the energy level is going to go up in this room or there's gonna be a hint of anger and resentment and the energy levels gonna go down fascinating and that's when this started to make sense to me loving problems athletic hospitality the excellence reflex smart leaders build these what's your version of that so we end up with that sort of the language that we're talking about but how do we bring that home I want to give you three quick ways to sort of bring that home three quick ways one is used the open face I saw this over and over again I would travel around to all these different groups and all the people have the same expression which was this this zygomatic arch is way up way up a symbol and an indicator in a signal of intense interest and curiosity about the person that face there was a Navy SEAL commander who says your face is always it's either closed or it's open open it secondly to do an aar all of us live in groups all of us do projects we finish a project we walk away there's a moment there if you take time to circle up if you take time to say what just happened well what didn't go well it's incredibly powerful thirdly to send the to line email this is from Laszlo Bock who did people analytics at Google send an email to people you work with and it just has two lines it says tell me one thing you want me to keep doing and one thing you want me to stop doing that's it it's a pretty easy email to send actually but it sends a very powerful signal I want to learn from you I'm not above you we're all learning together I'll throw in a bonus one actually that I started to use at home I spent time in all these cultures and started and you know that conversation you have with your children where you say how was your day how does that conversation usually go is that usually a good one in my house is not a good one how was your day fine okay hard to do that but if you instead lead with your failure if you lead with something you goofed up at I just had a speech and I called the the guy who organized it was named John Gordon I called him Peter like all day it was really I'm really classy on my part and I'm gonna bring that to my dinner table and I have a feeling it's going to be a good conversation so thank you very much for having me I appreciate the opportunity Thank You Daniel I'm gonna jump straight in and ask you a few questions myself before opening up to the audience for their questions so as well as observing lots of different teams you've been a part of a number of fascinating teams yourself you you mentioned your role in the Cleveland Indians baseball team so what's your best and worse personal experiences of group culture and perhaps you could tell us a little bit also about how much you have adapted your behavior and the signals that you use through writing this book sounds like you're trying to make me be vulnerable Becca I have to say I want to tell you about my dog know the it's funny I went on searching for the worst culture that was part of this process I want to search for and terrifyingly it happens to belong to the people who are in charge of the Minuteman missiles in North Dakota and Montana the American Arsenal it is the worst culture it is they fail in proficiency there's drug scandals there's cheating scandals and when you look at why that is they're they're they're officers in the bottom of a hole literally isolated from each other there's no career advancement out of it there's no a larger reason why they do it because the threat is largely gone and when they make a mistake they're punished severely they'll lose their position so it's this perfect unsafe environment that creates this horrible culture and it was sort of interesting how much it was a funhouse mirror of the great cultures that I saw that I saw the best culture I've been a part of actually is the Cleveland Indians it's they're incredible and the signature thing there is they are incredibly caring incredibly caring to me and my family but when someone leaves the way they treat someone who leaves is unbelievable they will prepare them for if they haven't job opportunity they'll spend hours preparing them for that interview that exit interview for their or the leaving so that care which is manifested in the way that people leave is ends up being the most memorable bit to me right now I'd like to talk a little bit about pivotal moments so for me one of the most powerful insights in the book was the fact that it's often in these pivotal crisis moments that successful cultures are are formed or reformed or strengthened you mentioned the Johnson Johnson tiny Tylenol incident there and it's it's International Women's Day today and it feels like we are at this really pivotal moment right now in terms of women's empowerment and addressing the power imbalances that exist in the world in so many groups and organizations and you know across different sectors across different parts of the world so I just like to invite your thoughts now on the role that power and and gender balance play in in creating successful groups all right that's a great question and it's nice to be here on this on this great day you know every group has got a either healthy or unhealthy relationship with power and what we've seen over the last few weeks and months is this crisis which is creating the wonderful thing about crisis is that it creates clarity a lot of the group's when you dig into successful groups most of them have had a moment of crisis most of them and that crisis ends up being a great force for clarity and good and it develops the moment when the mechanisms that actually build the culture cultural mechanism is sort of like physical training physical workout if you're going to be a healthy person you know that you need to have these mechanisms you do every day these habits and those habits get formed in moments like this you know you can't race right Pixar and the seals both had these terrible crises that really caused them to question their very reason for being and out of that was born the modern Pixar and actually the leaders of those places today are wistful for a crisis it's so hard they speak nostalgically about these moments of incredible urgency and terror and and they long for them be so this this I think this speaks it's easy to get caught up in the in the painful elements of this moment and and the difficult in this moment but there is a deep opportunity here to kind of reform the norms of how we interact and how power is distributed in all organizations and it's it's an amazing opportunity that that can lead to great growth okay so I'd like to talk now a little bit about how you identify these incredible organizations where there is a really positive culture you know there's increasing competition for talent these days and a lot of the graduates that I meet are well they're either looking to set up their own thing or are really seeking this kind of purposeful inclusive and you know empowering sorts of organizations that you describe in the book so what advice do you have to help people whatever stage they're at in their career to to really discern how cohesive an organizational culture is before they you know jump in there so if I was going to a job interview tomorrow let's say what questions could I ask or what other things might I do to really get beneath the skin of an organizational question what a cool program I would say three things first of all do that litmus test that Danny Meyer did when they were wait for a moment when the glasses drops see how they respond no problem does the energy level go up or down secondly ask this question tell me a story about your group that wouldn't happen anywhere else tell me a story that defines your group what is something that wouldn't happen to any other group in the world and third ask this question what gets rewarded around here try to figure that out what gets really rewarded around here and I guess the fourth thing I would add is talk to people who have left recently and if they are hesitant to introduce you to those people that's your first son yeah okay great great advice there thank the RSA is is a historic organization where over two hundred and sixty years old and we're also a stone's throw here from a lot of other historic and very big public sector organizations that are based on the road and Whitehall how much do you think the size and maturity of organizations impacts their ability to develop and and replicate successful group its massive its massive a culture really comes down to sort of often it's the few feet around us every day you know culture is the 15 feet around me every day and when groups scale and I saw this vividly at Google you know Google early days incredible incredible teamwork the founders would play roller hockey on their breaks everybody could bang into them talk about vulnerability and and and real giving feedback and they were very nimble and I was just at Google recently and it's a massive place and they have some real cultural struggles there's 64,000 people that work there now it is really difficult to scale the killer app of culture is face to face interaction and so finding ways to do that is an is is it is a huge challenge and you can kind of liken it to sort of domains in music you've got kind of the small coffeehouse and then you've got huge stadium rock and it's a different genre it's a different it's a different set of challenges but you always want to return to that 15 feet around you that those daily interactions that's where culture really happens and tuning into those moments of connection or lack of connection of openness or lack of openness or in a direction or lack of direction is is a powerful first step you know in your final chapter which is on purpose and that's something you also mention in your talk that groups need to really evolve and respond constantly to an ever-changing world the RSA actually has a future work center that is looking at some of the big challenges that we're facing in relation to work today and what in your opinion are the key external forces that groups are really having to navigate and respond to in the world today speed is one speed the whole world is turning into essentially a learning contest whether that's business whether that's charity whether that's sport whether that's art the speed of that and it's easy to get lost there's a tension with speed where you begin to just sort of chase speed for its own sake but actually you need to look deeper and realize what you're really about is learning and growth and so providing spaces for people to learn and grow in your organization isn't optional it isn't optional the idea that we can sort of stay the same and not learn new skills is not a possibility we have to do that and we have to build mechanisms to do that and one common problem people have in this area is they sort of review and development our two very distinct function review and evaluation versus learning right and we sometimes lump those together in our organization like we're gonna I'm gonna review your performance Rebecca and then or talk about what you can work on that's not smart actually you need to separate those two functions because to learn we need to take risks we need to fail we need to sort of be free of evaluation besides our own and when so you want to get your salary in your evaluation far from the learning process as you can and I've seen some progressive organizations import sort of someone who's not in the hierarchy they're simply sort of a Learning and Development Officer a coach if you will and you go to them and you say I want to learn to write better emails I want to learn to run better meetings and and they'll help you do that or you'll go to them and say I want to learn how to juggle and they'll help you do that too so I see these organizations that are really focused on we want to help you grow however you want to grow because in the end you can't do development to people people have to develop themselves so you need to build in an environment and an ecosystem in your company where they can do that which means resources yeah interesting food for thought I think especially as we approach the end of the financial year we're certainly all in the midst of our own development reviews at the RSA at the moment so now I'm gonna open up to the audience for your questions if you could please keep them brief and also wait for the microphone yes we'll start here thank you and don't thank you very much for a great sess talk today I'd really like to pick up on the point that you were just talking about around proximity I love what you've written the bounce in the book about the Allen curve this sense that relationships degrade once we go beyond eight meters distant from someone else you spoke a little bit about the challenges within larger organizations but I'm interested in your perspective on the challenges around dispersed organizations of whatever size so thinking about groups thinking about teams coming together working remotely working through online collaboration and the like how is it that we can really sort of establish all of these great processes really around sort of team development when we work working in a normal basis great question a couple of overarching thoughts first of all face to face is far better for building any kind of relationship if I give you a request in person and digitally you are 34 times more likely to give me a yes if I make it in person 34 times so we're not talking about a small effect 34 times so overarching try to be in the same room as much as you can other overarching thought is it differs whether you're working creatively or whether you're simply trying to be productive right simple productivity dispersed teams work quite well really there's no distraction you can do your job creativity they don't create if they don't they won't bring up the problems they won't wrestle with them they won't have the casual interactions that matter the most and so really deciding that so the two sort of rules I would say is be together as much as you can and think about it in terms of what creative work do we really need to be at it for and what productive work can we really do a part I thank you Jagan was fantastic loved your last book as well that's two two questions for May firstly the role of conflict and arguments and secondly related perhaps a superstar Talent real highly talented people write in a group and how that affects cohesiveness great question great question conflict an argument are the daily bread of these successful groups they are able to have healthy exchanges of views full and frank exchanges of views all the time because they are sending those sorts of intense signals of connection when you are connected then you can have those arguments that kind of argument is crucial the best idea wins right the best idea wins in these places and so they're constantly building that sort of foundation of connection so they can have that argument and so they can really embrace that argument your second question about sort of rock star talent extreme talent well the most of the groups that I visited had a simple rule which I will sum up in a non profane way as saying no jerks no jerks no no matter how brilliant no brilliant jerks actually it's a good way to say it no brilliant jerks they were very intolerant how brilliant the talent of someone who had come in and disrupt the group and the science for that is fascinating there's a bad apple study that I referenced in the book where they bring in a one person to be a bad apple in a four person group and the bad apple simply folds his arms a little bit and is apathetic and productivity goes down to 30 to 40 percent in that group instantly we are acutely sensitive it's because it's a safety signal right this group isn't gonna work everybody checks out so extreme and tolerance of bad apples that would be what I've seen no matter how talented the San Antonio Spurs sum this up there are the most successful National Basketball Association franchise in the last 30 years they have a scouting report that they put in all the players and there's a box at the bottom that says not a spur and no matter what it says on the top if that bottom box is checked they won't touch that player that player could be the second coming of Kareem abdul-jabbar and Michael Jordan combined and they would not draft him because he's not a spur that's how intolerant they are and really it's not intolerance its protection they're putting their culture first they're putting their relationships above all else two questions on this side towards the front we'll take the third very first and then the first row hi thank you and I really understand kind of the importance of leadership but I'm wondering the people who are kind of members and participants of successful groups do you find they can kind of replicate that in other groups or is it just still down to kind of the specific different cultures and leadership the leader has a high leverage position and this is just the way human beings are built though the shadow of leadership is very large but there are many examples of places where cultures sort of start at the middle and grew up where where there's a real power in the middle a lot of it has to do with the fact that our culture is really the 15 feet around us the 20 feet around us but there's a new have you guys heard about socio metrics socio metrics it is the science where they take little cards and hang them around your neck in an Orwellian way and then it captures the energy in your voice it captures whether we're face to face or if I'm two degrees away from you it captures who talks to who and you end up with kind of a satellite view fingerprint of an organization's interaction it's kind of stunning to see and what that data shows is that making small changes in everyday life especially like around the lunch table if you go from a four top to twelve top at work it increases idea flow and connection and conversation it's a simple thing that you can do in life but it makes a huge impact because you're just creating more collisions more ideas and informally what I saw in a lot of places where a lot of it was around eating and drinking you know because that's what we do every day that happens every day in every group and there were always these sort of informal groups that were very strong culture in themselves in the middle where it was all about that cappucino group or that have a pint group whatever that was and that's where that culture lived and breathed here at the RSA is RCTs or randomized coffee trials when any member of the organization yeah can sign up and we'll get randomly matched and then either person on a weekly basis I don't in your in your research did you reach any sort of insights or opinions about whether the the typical principles of target setting in individual bonuses helped or hindered a culture I'm from Alaska I answer most questions with those three words I didn't I did not dig in I'm not from the business I didn't take kind of a business point of view to looking at this looking at this question I know that what I did see was the kind of they would set up systems where they would give bonuses to each other if you and I had a great conversation and we both worked at Zappos I could give you 200 bucks just for being a good guy and I have a budget to do that which is interesting it's sort of taking that bonus idea and giving it to the people rather than having it be descend from the papal seat it actually is in control and a lot of organizations do that and I find that fascinating right now but I don't really I don't really have any deep data I am from Alaska I'm sadly there are a couple of questions on this side of the room we'll take one from the front row and then the third row I'm interested in groups first students and particularly students now very much focus on their group projects and have you looked at this groups for students and even groups of teachers and that whole area yeah right beyond marshmallow towers you mean yeah no that's that's it that's an interesting one I mean we see I think we see in in schools kind of an unparalleled opportunity to create culture you know we see we walk into a good school and you can feel that culture and some of the most intense early reads of this book have been from teachers who really see bringing the ability to bring this into their classroom but there is a physics underneath relationships so I don't have a deep answer to that question except to say that what a perfect sort of petri dish to grow a community where you are together every day you're involved in a big story together you're constantly connecting and constantly being vulnerable and we see that sort of school model it's almost like businesses are becoming more like schools in fact that's what at the Cleveland Indians where I advise we talk about ourselves as a baseball school that's the metaphor we use we have seven campuses different minor league teams and we have one graduate school the major leagues and that's how we approach life and it actually has been incredibly that is kind of unlocked a way of interacting for us so I don't know that this has affected schools as much as schools have kind of affected this in other words that's right Yeah right exactly that's right that's right so it sort of reaffirms the model I guess yeah thank you great question and did you find that the the highly successful groups tended towards being diverse or did they all kind of homogenized about they're really successful well hungry for diversity the San Antonio Spurs are the first team in the NBA to hire a woman assistant coach hungry for diversity but still battling bias we tend to hire people like ourselves and one of the kind of things that emerged from this which I will shamelessly steal from Adam grant who if you haven't read you should brilliant writer on a lot of this stuff is we tend to hire for fit we hear that a lot hire for cultural fit don't hire for fit hire for contribution but hire for fit we'll end up with a lot of people that look just like us and if we hire for contribution we'll end up with a diversity of voices and diversity of ideas which is really what drives innovation all the science around diversity says the more diverse that room is the better your ideas are so it's not just about being sort of moral it's about being smart another one on that side we've got a few hands out so I'm going to greet the questions now we'll take this one another one at the back and middle section you you've talked a lot about when things going right we've got examples of where culture inverted commas has gone wrong and how companies organizations what the first few steps might be to fix things yeah right right now a vivid example it's funny I spent a few years of my life in the cycling world doping and talk about a culture that's got things wrong and we've seen vividly in the last couple of days just how that can tip people into behavior that they couldn't have dreamed of and it's fascinating how powerful it is and I think the best sort of mental model for it is that it functions just the same way there's a sense of connection and belonging and they're sharing vulnerability and they're sharing weakness and there's a story there there's a story there and I think the piece that matters the most is the story the story of cycling for instance is everyone's cheating that's that's the story that's the story that drove that behavior people who cheat do not do it to cheat to gain an edge they actually do it to make it fair that's why you see indignation in Wiggins his voice that's why you see indignation in Armstrong's voice all the people who get caught are angry because they feel like they were right they were just leveling the playing field so when the story of the sport is broken is I think it is in some of our sports you have this bad behavior I would say that they're not necessarily bad people in a different environment they might behave very differently and I can say with assurance that if you were a pro cyclist in the early 2000s you could have said no for a while you could have said no for maybe even a year but most of us would ultimately have have joined because we're social animals and that's what we do you know we very few people would have taken the high road and say everyone else can cheat but I won't it's really hard to do it's really really hard to do so that story piece of culture ends up being massively important take three questions now so one from the back and then the middle section and middle over here yeah I was very struck by the obvious but nonetheless importance of reminder around vulnerability being the way to build trust and as somebody who works and has managed and led a lot of teams in the nonprofit sector one of the challenges that I come up against a lot is this idea of the identified person in a group on whom people sort of put all the bad stuff so you know the group ceases to function because it's one person's responsibility which of course is is not the case at all but it often becomes a barrier to build trust amongst the group and I just wonder if it's a a sort of scenario that you're familiar with and what tips you might have to try and sort of break that down how fascinating so because running out of time so hold hold that thought for one moment the questions don't group the question steven pinker said it last week he said do not group questions I trust him I trust him I'm with Steven I'm not grouping I can't even remember what I said a minute we'll do away with the great thing in that case what a cool question I think that that does that happens when it's a question about narrative it's question about the story what is your story and our story naturally centers on people what is Apple it's Steve Jobs right that's what Apple is what does Manchester United I don't know imagine Ferguson maybe would that be right not anymore not anymore used to be used to be Ferguson right so but being intentional about the story that you tell about your community about your group so that it doesn't naturally get centered there's a sort of a almost a natural biased weight of gravity that'll get focused on a human face but you're in control a little bit over what that story gets told so finding ways unearthing stories that you can share that aren't centered on one individual that are centered on the people you benefit I saw a cool example of this show the company's Square does the they were searching for a way to tell their story they found a Syrian refugee who had moved to Tennessee in America and it would open a falafel stand and was sort of saving and rescuing his family by using square and you know there are many ways to tell the story of square with data but that story brings people to tears when you see they sent a documentary team out to catch his story to capture that story of him and his family swiping on square and the power of that and so being intentional about unearthing those stories as opposed to letting whatever default story land on someone's face that you that you might end up with would be what I would say in my ungrouped response thank you my company or has given us and my team the opportunity to self-organize and one of the hesitations or concerns that we have as a group is the tension that will create between our group and the rest of the organization and so I was curious about what sits at that edge of the the group with the strong culture and perhaps a part of the organization or part of the community that doesn't yeah I've seen that tension some places too it can be difficult when there's sort of a group of cool kids or whatever you want to call them that are doing their own thing different than the residents the organization I would say building bridges would be my my two-word response building bridges between those places and make sure there's healthy communication and conversation across that divide but self-organizing is tough that's quite a task they've given you and I've seen groups do it successfully there's a wonderful orchestra I think they're called Orpheus that is completely self organized there's no hierarchy it's also really painful to watch them practice because coming to consensus on a piece of art is really difficult and so you see the advantages of hierarchy hierarchy is the skeleton in the system that lets the muscles work and so as you self-organized I would say keep hierarchy in mind as a potential positive go back to the marshmallow study with the kids and the adults so what age have you addressed that the kids start to become the adults and why what what are the underlying causes to why we're losing that that cohesive group culture do you do research here that would be a fascinating topic for a design study I don't know it's always been kindergartners in the study they've never looked up they're definitely at that unconscious marshmallow eating age I would I would they'll be really interesting at what and what point do you sort of feel the status anxiety of the RSA is most popular animates on our YouTube channel is by the educationalist Ken Robinson looking at divergent thinking in children and the trajectory of that so maybe give that a watch question thank you I had a follow-up on how do you spot positive culture and companies that I speak quite a lot too often senior management teams and everyone has this shiny values paper often I have a motto and a purpose and you mentioned purpose and psychological safety a lot of work being done with that but are there any sort of questions you can ask at that top level which really gonna give you a sense that this is a positive culture they have got psychological safety there or is it really impossible until you meet the teams and be with them I think it's very difficult I mean all the researcher on interviews showed that interviews are a terrible way to really assess how a relationship is gonna go it doesn't work very well so I would encourage you to sort of think like a journalist which means you operate from the outside in and you gradually move toward the center before you have the interview with the top have loads of interviews around them so that you can actually bring as much to that last conversation as you can in a journalist you always interview the most important person last and I would encourage you to do that in this case observe absorb and then go ask and see what you get but I wouldn't trust it very much I think we've got time for one more question from the back row there it's just a very quick one could you tell us anything about the dynamic of introversion and extraversion yeah that's a great question because we deal with it and in our lives all the time I found oh the one effective way most cultures do you know there's there's a bit of an extrovert bias and some some cultures because there's so much sharing and vulnerability going on in these places that introverts can have a hard time and certain ones and one answer that I've seen that I like too is sort of the cave and Commons model which is you know in a world where we have so many open floor plans we make space for a few caves so when you need to be in a cave you go in the cave and when you need to be in the comments to share and and have feedback and do a ars you go in the comments but to be able to toggle and to give people the freedom to toggle between those two is is a valuable and important tool for any culture okay well sadly I think that's all we've got time for I'm gonna slip in one final question from me yes they've written the talent code and the culture code what is next on the horizon for you it's a big book about my dog quite so many facts in it it's filled with fascinating facts more seriously kind of interesting the power of story I'm interested in the power of story story is the most potent drug I think ever invented and I'd be curious to explore that okay well I can certainly say that the range of stories combined with that evidence that you present in the book are extremely powerful I think this thoughts that you've shared in this session have given me a lot of practical wisdom that I'm going to try and apply in the groups that I'm a part of and I'm sure that you've had the same impacts on earth many others listening today so thank you both to our audience in the room and online as well for such a fantastic conversation and just a reminder as well that Danny will be signing copies of the culture code outside in the foyer after this but before you dash off to do this if you please give one final big hand to our brilliant speaker [Music] you

Channel: RSA

Views: 57,005

Rating: 4.8755555 out of 5

Keywords: daniel coyle, success, successful, why are some people successul?, what are the secrets of success, secrets of success, collaboration, culture, cooperation, business, teamwork, cohesion, rsa, royal society of arts, rsa short, rsa replay, rsa events, event, talk, lecture, debate

Id: 5T9tRvkXtns

Length: 58min 35sec (3515 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 08 2018