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Culture Code

11/4/2018

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In "The Culture Code - The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups" Daniel Coyle quotes a Harvard study of more than 200 companies which measured the impact of a strong culture: net income increase of 756 percent over 11 years.

Coyle says that culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are, it’s something you do. Coyle suggests that what you should do is build safety, share vulnerability, and establish purpose.

Build Safety

Clear signals of "safe connections" generate bonds of belonging or identity.  "We are close, we are safe, we share a future"

Coyle quotes Alex Pentland from the MIT Human Dynamics Lab, “Modern society is an incredibly recent phenomenon. For hundred of thousands of years, we needed ways to develop cohesion because we depended so much on each other.  We used signals long before we used language, and our unconscious brains are incredibly attended to certain types of behaviors. As far as our brain is concerned, if our social system rejects us, we could die”

Pentland’s studies show team performance is driven by five measurable factors:
  • Everyone in the groups talks and listens in roughly equal measure, keeping contribution short.
  • Members maintain high levels of eye contract, and their conversations and gestures are energetic.
  • Members communicate directly with one another, not just the team leader.
  • Members carry on back-channel or side conversations within the team.
  • Membership periodically break, go exploring outside the team, and bring information back to the team.

Other Tips Coyle provides to "Build Safety" include:
  • Over communicate your listening (avoid interruptions)
  • Spotlight your fallibility early on; especially if you are a leader (to create safety). Leaders need to actively invite input
  • Embrace the messenger (of bad news)
  • Preview future connectors 
  • Overdo Thank-Yous (express gratitude)
  • Be painstaking in the hiring process
  • Eliminate bad apples
  • Create safe, collision-rich spaces
  • Make sure everyone has a voice
  • Pick-up trash (shows humility; shows you are serving the group) 
  • Capitalize on threshold moments (that signal we are together now)
  • Avoid giving sandwich feedback (make it two separate processes, people either focus entirely on the positive or on the negative)
  • Embrace fun

Share Vulnerability

Exchanges of vulnerability, which we naturally tend to avoid, are the pathway through which trusting cooperating is built. A series of small, humble exchanges "Anybody haven ideas?" "Tell me what you want", and "I’ll help you" - can unlock a group’s ability to perform.

Braintrust meetings at Pixar and AAR (After Action Review) by Navy Seals can be uncomfortable and candor filled: Where did we fail? What did each of us do and why did we do it?  What will we do differently next time? AARs can be raw, painful, and filled with pulses of emotion and uncertainty

Ideas from IDEO on what questions teams could ask themselves to help improve include:
  • One thing that excited me about this particular opportunity is ….
  • I confess, the one thing I’m not so excited about with this particular opportunity is …
  • On this project, I’d really like to get better at …

Other tips Coyle offers to "Share Vulnerability" include: 
  • Make sure leader is vulnerable first and often. “I screwed up” are the most important words any leader can say. Laszlo Bock, former head of People Analytics at Google, recommends that leaders ask their people three questions:
    • What is one thing that I currently do that you’d like me to continue to do?
    • What is one thing that I don’t currently do frequently enough that you think I should do more often?
    • What can I do to make you more effective?
  • Overcommunicate expectations
  • Deliver the negative stuff in person
  • When forming new groups, focus on two critical moments: the first vulnerability and the first disagreement
  • Listen like a trampoline: not just nodding, but adding insight and creating moments of mutual discovery 
    • Make the other person feel safe and supported
    • Take a helping, cooperative stance
    • Occasionally ask questions that gently and constructively challenge old assumptions 
    • Make occasional suggestion to open up alternative path.
    • In conversation, resistance the temptation to reflexively add value. Don’t immediately say “I have a similar idea” or “this is what worked for me”
  • Use Candor-Generative practices like AARs and BrainTrusts
    • What were out intended results?
    • What were our actual results?
    • What caused our results?
    • What will we do the same the next time?
    • What will we do differently?
  • Aim for candor, avoid brutal honesty: By aiming for candor - feedback that is smaller, more targeted, less personal, less judgmental, and equally impactful - its easier to maintain a sense of safety and belonging to the group
  • Embrace the discomfort (like in AAR) 
  • Align language with action (use the language that is reflective of your culture)
  • Build a wall between performance review and professional development 
  • Use flash mentoring
  • Make the leader occasionally disappear

Establish Purpose

Successful groups use their language and their stories to over communicate why they exist (the difference they make) and how individuals contribute to that difference.

One exercise that uses this principle is mental contrasting; motivation is not a possession but rather the result of a two-part process of channeling your attention.
  • Step 1) Think about a realistic goal that you’d like to achieve.  It could be anything: become skilled at a sport, rededicate yourself to a relationship, lose a few pounds, get a new job.  Spend a few second reflecting on that goal and imagining its come true.  Picture a future where you’ve achieve it.
  • Step 2): Take a few seconds and picture the obstacle between you and that goal as vividly as possible.  Don’t gloss over the negatives, buy try to see them as they truly are.  For example, if you were trying to lose weight, you might picture those moments of weakness when you smell warm cookies, and you decide to eat one (or three)

So aligning motivations can change someone's performance. Similarly replacing one story for another can impact performance.  In one study, when a test randomly identified a child as having "unusual potential for intellectual growth" and those "results" are shared with their teachers; the students test scores and IQ scores increased.

Real-time signals through which team members were connected (or not) with the purposes of the work consists of five basic types:
  • Framing - conceptualize the team mission
  • Roles - why each role was important
  • Rehearsal - teams did elaborate dry runs
  • Explicit encouragement to speak up
  • Active reflection

Other tips Coyle provides to "Establish Purpose" include:
  • Name and rank your priorities
  • Be ten times as clear about your priorities as you think you should be
  • Figure out where your group aims for proficiency and where it aims for creativity
  • Embrace the use of catchphrases:
    • “Create fun and a little weirdness” (Zappos),
    • “Talk less, do more” (IDEO)
    • “Work hard, be nice” (KIPP)
    • “Pound the rock” (San Antonio Spurs)
    • “Leave the jersey in a better place” (New Zealand All-Blacks)
    • “Create raves for guests” (Danny Meyer’s restaurants)
  • Measure what really matters
  • Use artifacts
  • Focus on bar-setting behaviors

Saying from Pixar's Ed Catmull about culture include:
  • Hire people smarter than you
  • Fail early, fail often
  • Listen to everyone’s ideas.
  • Face to everyone’s ideas.
  • Face toward the problems.
  • B-level work is bad for your solution
  • Its more important to invest in good people than in good ideas



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Three Mistakes to Avoid When Networking from the HBR and Two Other Suggestions

8/4/2014

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 Networking? 
          My current favorite blog post on networking (in the Harvard Business Review) says:
                 -Don't misunderstand the peeking order
                 -Don't ask to receive before you give
                 -Don't fail to state your value proposition

     I would add:
      -They have the power, they have the job; what can I give?
          -Provide Information.  You have done some research and you have been talking to people in this field.  Everyone is trying to stay current, but no feels like they are completely up-to-date. (" ... I've been talking to execs in your market..."   "....Recently I read...")
           -Listen to their story.  Everyone has one and most people want to tell it.  Often the best favor you can provide someone is asking a few leading questions and letting them tell their story. ("... Wow, that must have been an interesting few years at ...").


     -Why are they doing this?  (Make it easy for them to help you.)
          People take networking meetings or calls often because they want to feel like they are being a good person and helping others (and so that you can maybe help them later).  So make it easy for them to help you.
          -Ask for their advice. Reiterate it back to them in your thank you note and in the note you send them after you land a new job (in which you thank them again). This reinforces that they were helpful.
          -Ask for a few (just a few) introductions.  Crosscheck your target list with their LinkedIn contacts. (Use this list of company lists to create your target list.)  LinkedIn makes this easy by providing a search box on the top of a person's contact list.  (In that search box just type "Company A OR Company B OR Company C".)
         
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Autonomy, Complexity, and a Connection between Effort and Reward

11/26/2008

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"Three things – autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward – are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.  It is now how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five.  It is whether our work fulfills us."

"Work that fulfills those three criteria is meaningful.  Being a teacher is meaningful. Being a physician is meaningful. So is being an entrepreneur…"

-Malcolm Gladwell “Outliers: The Story of Success”

As mentioned in the New York Times article "It May Be a Good Job, but Is It 'Good Work'?" (11/16/08), the Harvard Psychologist Howard Gardner says:

"There are three questions people can ask about their jobs to evaluate their good-work level: Does it fit your values? Does it evoke excellence; are you highly competent and effective at what you do? Does it bring you that subjective barometer of engagement, joy?"MR. GARDNER’S advice for anyone being forced to find a new job, setting out on a career or hankering for a midcareer change is: “Decide what you really like to do and what you would like to spend your life doing. That’s more important than deciding what particular job to hold, because the employment landscape is changing radically and quickly. Then ask, ‘Where could I carry that out?’ and be very flexible about the milieu and venue — but not about what you get a kick out of and can be good at.“And then, third, if you have any choice over where to work, when you’re considering a job, go there and talk to people. Ask yourself, ‘Is this the kind of place where I can see myself in others?’ You might make five times more money at one place, but does it reflect who you are and who you want to be? Are my colleagues people I’d admire or people I’d prefer to avoid?”

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The First Ninety Days

10/30/2008

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"First Ninety Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels" is written by Michael Watkins. When I think about this book, I always think about "Securing Early Wins".  Other books in this genre include "You're in Charge, Now What?" and "The New Leaders 100-Day Action Plan."  For longer term career planning consider books such as "Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers."

You can tell Watkins wrote the book after designing transition acceleration programs for different companies and working with leaders in transition; it is specific, or as least as specific as these types of books can be. I found his descriptive advice and illustrations helpful and I often refer back and recommend this book.

Watkin's 10 suggested strategies are:

1. PROMOTE YOURSELF. Make a mental break from your old job and establish new patterns and limits with your new boss and subordinates.

2. ACCELERATE YOUR LEARNING. Engage in effective and efficient learning in part by listening to customers, external partners, and new colleagues.

3. MATCH STRATEGY TO SITUATION. Try to diagnose the business situation accurately and clarify its challenges and opportunities.

4. SECURE EARLY WINS. Build your credibility and create momentum with early victories.

5. NEGOTIATE SUCCESS. Figure out how to build a productive working relationship with your new boss.

6. ACHIEVE ALIGNMENT. Play the role of organizational architect, especially the higher you are in an organization.

7. BUILD YOUR TEAM. Evaluate and potentially restructure your team.
      
8. CREATE COALITIONS. Your success will depend on your ability to influence people outside your direct line of control.
              
9. KEEP YOUR BALANCE. The risks of losing perspective, getting isolated, and making bad calls are ever present during transitions.

10. EXPEDITE EVERYONE. Finally, you need to help everyone else.

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Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

10/29/2008

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Recently I read "Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers" by James Citrin and Richard Smith.  They based their book on a survey of 16,000 top executives. Therefore the authors’ points are often more believable since they are backed by statistics (“Extraordinarily successful executives lead careers that fully leverage both their strengths and their passions six times as often as the average employee.”) Their ideas helped me identify a few patterns in my career which have been both helpful and detrimental.   

In general, I am surprised there aren’t more books written on this topic (Amazon suggests “Career Warfare." One of my favorites “First 90 Days” is obviously more focused but a similar theme). The structure of the book might have been improved if they provided more than five principles from which the reader could have selected depending their type of career.  The book does make a basic assumption that the reader is climbing the corporate ladder as opposed to being a small business owner, a teacher, etc. 

While reading the book, I often thought the authors could have spent more time giving examples on how a principle was used by a more typical executive, instead of providing a longer narrative on how a principle was used by a super-successful CEO.  However while reading this book, I mostly thought about how helpful it would have been if I had read it or a book like it earlier in my career; and that I need to make sure I keep this book and these type of ideas close in mind as my career progresses.

They five patterns are
1) Understanding the Value of You  - align your activities with how value is created by the organization.
2) Practice Benevolent Leadership - benevolent leaders don't claw their way to the top but are carried there.
3) Solve the Permission Paradox - gain experience by doing those things that you weren’t explicitly told you could do.
4) Differentiate Using the 20/80 Principle of Performance - meet your objectives and then use remaining resources to generate the most value to your company.
5) Find the Right Fit - strengths, passions, and people.

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Deliberate Practice

10/27/2008

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Geoff Colvin in "Why Talent is Overrated" (Fortune 10/21/08) argues that "deliberate practice" explains achievement and is more important than talent.
Deliberate practice:
     -is designed specifically to improve performance
     -can be repeated frequently
     -allows for feedback
     -is demanding mentally
     -is hard
     -can done before, during, and after the work activity itself.

Colvin writes that the best performers set goals about the process to improve a specific elements of their work. They are able to monitor what is happening and determine how well it is going (metacognition).  Deliberate practice is an investment, the costs come now and the benefits later.

I always thought I was a decent public speaker.  When I took "Communicate to Influence" by Decker Communications (highly recommended) and a coach pointed out some obvious bad habits that I needed to correct. I now realize that I will never become a great public speaker without deliberate practice.

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