The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups
By Danial Coyle
ISBN-13: 9780804176989
Published 2018
Reviewed by Douglas Balzer

As a Pastor and semiotician in a small university town just outside of the Portland metro area, I experience the cross-flow of the currents of culture between the urban and rural. Amid the churning of the currents, I witness the struggle of the local churches as they face the cultural dilemmas they are encountering. As part of my work to assist the local church I pastor and converse with the other pastors within the area, I have found myself absorbing every book I can on culture. I have been reviewing authors such as Edwin Friedman, Patrick Lencioni, Seth Godin, and yes, even Jordon Peterson and more. I have to admit the more world works to denounce people draws my curiosity to read their works and study them to find out for myself what they are saying that is so controversial. I am not a secondhand information person. This brings us to my selection for this review. I have interacted with Danial Coyle’s writings before, and I have found him to have some valuable insights as he brings together research from various researchers in the arena of culture. So, here are some takeaways from his latest book, The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups.

The Culture Code brings some fresh perspective to a topic that’s often overcomplicated: how humans can function in groups. Coyle explains why our most basic psychological needs are all we need to address culture, and he does so with some colorful examples from various walks of life. In The Culture Code, Coyle examines the dynamic forces of groups, large and small, formal and informal, to help us understand how teams work and what we can do to improve our relationships wherever we work cooperatively with others.

What is our take on various talents? Do we think they don’t exist and that everything can be learned? Or believe it’s dualistic, that if you’re not born with it, you can never get it? I think it’s an example to show we judge life in extremes when most often, the truth is somewhere in the middle. The movie The Gambler is an excellent example of this issue of talent. Mark Wahlberg depicts a gambling-addicted English literature professor. One who divides the world into geniuses and idiots, ultimately, he learns we do have a choice more often than we think.

Daniel Coyle, in his previous book, The Talent Code, broke down the question for the real world. Having examined the components of exceptional performance on an individual level, he turns to groups and teams. The Culture Code is an analysis of how humans work together and how they might be keeping others from doing so.

Here are three takeaways from his research concerning the being part of the culture of being part of multiple groups. I hope these are helpful to your progress in dealing with the culture of your groups. Remember, we’re all part of countless groups, so let’s break down The Culture Code and make sure we do our best!

Lesson 1: Form a safe environment, so everyone will let their guard down and cooperate.

Remote work is on the rise. Already half of all Americans do at least part of their work from home. And while that wouldn’t be possible without modern technology, it’s still remarkable how many people jump on the opportunity if it presents itself. According to Coyle, it’s simple: our homes are the safest places we know.

Safety is a critical enabler that allows us to do our best work. For example, keeping our day job can help us practice our creativity freely in a side hustle. Similarly, “a work environment in which you feel safe in acting as you naturally would and speaking your mind is very conducive to group work.” It’s only natural: no one wants to keep looking over your back all the time because if you need to, you can never really focus.

Professor Alex Pentland at MIT’s media lab found that if he observed people’s body language, he could predict the outcomes of negotiations within five minutes of starting a session. That’s because how close we are to our co-workers, whether we mimic their behavior, and look into their eyes, are instant tells of how safe we feel. One right way to make others feel safer is to confirm you understand what they’re telling you by occasionally interjecting affirmations like “uh-huh,” “yes,” “got it,” and so on. Just don’t interrupt them.

Instead, when it’s your turn, share one of your flaws. Allowing your teammate to know you understand our mutual humanity.

Lesson 2: Share your own shortcomings to show people it’s okay to make mistakes.

Researcher Jeff Polzer, who researches organizational behavior at Harvard, found that when we share our own flaws with others, something amazing happens. He calls it a vulnerability loop, in which other people detect when we signal vulnerability, thus signal vulnerability too, and thus both parties become closer and trust each other more. Brené Brown has shown that vulnerability itself is a sign of strength, not weakness. However, because workplaces are usually seen as competitive, especially in the Western world, we think we need to look confident and powerful all the time. It’s often the person who takes the first step in admitting they’re not perfect, who’s perceived as a leader, not the one who berates others for being weak.

Vulnerability not just increases trust, it’s also a way to show acceptance: if you admit no one’s perfect, people will feel okay even after making mistakes, which are inevitable in accomplishing a shared goal.

Lesson 3: Build a sense of purpose through a shared goal and a simple way towards it.

Coyle’s third component ascribed to well-functioning groups is a purpose. Simply, purpose is a set of reasons for doing what you do. In the case of a group, it’s the sum of all beliefs and values among your team, as they relate to achieving your common goal. That goal might be something straightforward, like selling the most phones any company has ever sold, but ideally, it’s about something bigger, like making phone users feel special and that they have good taste. Apple has built its brand on this purpose.
Since the goal is in the future, but your group lives in the now, your purpose should be like a bridge between the two. Therefore, if you can come up with a straightforward narrative as to how your purpose will help you go from today to tomorrow and reach your goal, you’ll be able to activate those around you.

A useful tool to accomplish this is a short, catchy, maybe even cheesy slogan. Think of Nike’s “just do it.” It’s kinda cliché, but it works because it’s easy to remember and easy to repeat until it sinks in. With safety, vulnerability, and purpose all in one place, it’ll be almost impossible to stop you and your team from accomplishing whatever you set out to do!

May you break-down the cultural barriers you face and develop a highly functioning culture.

Surprised by Paradox: The Promise of And in an Either-Or World

By Jen Pollock Michel

Reviewed by Landrum P. Leavell III, Th.D.

          I was first drawn to the title. Len has always been a champion of “both/and” and even pushed it further to “both/and/also.” He’s also said many times that to get comfortable with Christianity, you have to get comfortable with paradox. By now you know that I’m usually in love with the books I review. Messaging with Jen, I told her that she was probably going get sick of herself by the time I get through tweeting through this book. Yeah, I loved this book.

By the author’s admission, this book began in a counselor’s office. Years of lugging the bag of sorrows of a blood relationship had taken its toll. She needed light for groping her way out of this tunnel with two exits—basically suffer or sever. In a “Sweetish” question, the counselor asked, “What if there’s a third way?” Michel needed to find and where she had previously imagined only either and or. When you lean not on your own understanding, you find wisdom in the way of paradox. 

The back cover of the book lays out its direction: “While there are certainties in Christian faith, at the heart of the Christian story is also paradox. Jesus invites us to abandon the polarities of either and or in order to embrace the difficult, wondrous dissonance of and.” The book is laid out in four parts: Incarnation, Kingdom, Grace, and Lament. Taking up the Incarnation, she refers to Jesus as “the great I AND.” “The Incarnation—the paradox of God made human—teaches us to look for God in the and.” (27) She invites readers to imagine the possibilities of and. “One important lesson of paradox is that we are not always confined to choosing between two dreaded alternatives. Faith doesn’t always divide the world into two clean halves of right and wrong. In those places of seeming paralysis… we can surrender our straightjacketed imagination and look for the creativity of the incarnate God—And the love of the great I AND.” (30)

          In case you don’t take my word for it, judge for yourself from some of these outtakes:

          “I began to understand that when I asked for one-word answers from God, when I wanted faith to read like instructions from Ikea, I was likely asking the wrong kinds of questions. It’s the paradox of the incarnation that reminds us God is the author of both and and.”

“God clothed Himself with flesh and wiggles His way into the world through a womb. A new Adam came to set the record straight… The I AM became the I AND, and we have seen His glory. It is a paradox…”

“A hard word can be a means of grace. When we rightly identify a wrong we suffered, when we take up courage to tell the difficult truth, the injuring party is invited to pursue more life-giving ways in the relationship. Hard words seek to heal, not to rend.”

“The gospel, as enfleshed mystery, has strong enough arms to hold slippery things, fitful things. The story of a God itself won’t be buckled down and made to sit still.”

“Grace, as another example of paradox, forces us to confront the perplexing nature of God, that He is bothering severe and loving; the gospel cannot be reduced to saccharine sentiments.”

“A book about paradox is a book about spiritual posture: the posture of kneeling under God’s great big sky and admitting that mystery is inherent to the nature of God. As soon as we think we have God figured out, we will have ceased to worship Him as He is.”

“When a bush is alight and yet alive, that’s the very place for removing our shoes. There’s a whole lot of promise in a little bit of wondering.”

“We’ve come to an unassailable confidence that mystery, by dint of inquiry and scientific effort, can be wrestled and pinned down and made to cry uncle. We are no longer victims of the unknowable… The great modern lie is one of infinite human autonomy and control.”

“The troubles we regularly bring to God might be more closely examined for what they reveal about the things we treasure, the things we most vigilantly protect, the things we cannot lose.”

“Jesus strides by, calling out the good news …the Kingdom of God is at hand. We can’t know everything that means, but by faith, we follow this Jesus, falling in step behind Him. Because the thought of flying right-side up sure sounds good.”

“Another paradox is this, that while grace is the news we most long to hear, it’s one of the hardest things to grasp in life with God.”

“‘Follow the food’ is one way of saying that the incarnation is a kind of hermeneutic of God’s story. It teaches us to embrace the material world rather than despise it. To understand something about God…we need bodies.”

“Pride is a slippery slope—but so is false humility. I can’t imagine it pleases God any more to hang our heads and shuffle through life, mumbling apologies for our gifts and passions and looking at the floor…This is not the great, mysterious and of Christ in you.”

“God’s love is surprisingly indiscriminate, His favor roving and resting upon this who seem least deserving of it. God’s Grace is evidenced in His patient pursuit of the mucking-it-up.”

“It can be the paradox of the impolite plea—this unholy wondering in the midst of suffering—that brings us face-to-face with God.”

“Lament isn’t the road back to normal. It’s the road back to faith.”

I told you. Do yourself a favor. Get it. Devour it. Then let it marinate.

You’re welcome.