Daniel Coyle

Skill 1—Build Safety—explores how signals of connection generate bonds of belonging and identity. Skill 2—Share Vulnerability—explains how habits of mutual risk drive trusting cooperation. Skill 3—Establish Purpose—tells how narratives create shared goals and values.

Daniel Coyle in The Culture Code

The funny thing is, when I visited leaders of successful creative cultures, I didn’t meet many artists. Instead, I met a different type, a type who spoke quietly and tended to spend a lot of time observing, who had an introverted vibe and liked to talk about systems. I started to think of this type of person as a Creative Engineer.

Daniel Coyle in The Culture Code

Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are. It’s something you do.

Daniel Coyle in The Culture Code

“As humans, we are very good at reading cues; we are incredibly attentive to interpersonal phenomena,” says Amy Edmondson, who studies psychological safety at Harvard. “We have a place in our brain that’s always worried about what people think of us, especially higher-ups. As far as our brain is concerned, if our social system rejects us, we could die. Given that our sense of danger is so natural and automatic, organizations have to do some pretty special things to overcome that natural trigger.” The key to creating psychological safety, as Pentland and Edmondson emphasize, is to recognize how deeply obsessed our unconscious brains are with it. A mere hint of belonging is not enough; one or two signals are not enough. We are built to require lots of signaling, over and over. This is why a sense of belonging is easy to destroy and hard to build. The dynamic evokes the words of Texas politician Sam Rayburn: “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.”

Daniel Coyle in The Culture Code

Cohesion happens not when members of a group are smarter but when they are lit up by clear, steady signals of safe connection.

Daniel Coyle in The Culture Code

In the cultures I visited, I didn’t see many feedback sandwiches. Instead, I saw them separate the two into different processes. They handled negatives through dialogue, first by asking if a person wants feedback, then having a learning-focused two-way conversation about the needed growth. They handled positives through ultraclear bursts of recognition and praise. The leaders I spent time with shared a capacity for radiating delight when they spotted behavior worth praising. These moments of warm, authentic happiness functioned as magnetic north, creating clarity, boosting belonging, and orienting future action.

Daniel Coyle in The Culture Code