7 ms·

Creating a Great Team Culture, and Why It Matters

253 points by yarapavan 8y ago

analyst74 8y ago
Initially I thought this is just a fluff piece with some idealistic goals. Turns out it has actual, detailed examples of how a leader can cultivate culture. This is super valuable because a lot times it's not intuitive how a leader's action leads to people behaving certain ways.
- elg0nz 8y ago
  Kate Matsudaira is an amazing tech leader and writer who covers topics from culture and process, to Distributed Systems and Architecture, I cannot recommend her essays enough. Some of my favorite pieces from her: http://katemats.com/distributed-systems-basics-handling-failure-fault-tolerance-and-monitoring/ http://katemats.com/distributed-systems-basics-handling-fail... http://katemats.com/paradox-autonomy-recognition/ http://katemats.com/paradox-autonomy-recognition/ http://katemats.com/lean-software-development-build-v1s-and-v2s/ http://katemats.com/lean-software-development-build-v1s-and-...
- bsder 8y ago
  I'm still waiting for one of these "cultural thought leaders" to put their money on the table and build a group that blows everybody's doors off. I view them like those peddling "investment secrets"--if they were actually that valuable, they sure wouldn't be sharing.
  - krageon 8y ago
    A lot of what they say is really obvious, except if you are an incredibly toxic individual. The core problem with this is not that it won't work IMO, it's that the right people won't internalise the advice. If you were genuinely questioning whether this advice makes a difference, I'm happy for you. You've apparently never had to see the examples of where it is not applied. I can tell you from experience that working in a team with one or more toxic leaders is like dying a slow death every day you come to work.
  - Dowwie 8y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/science/falcon-heavy-launch-spacex.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/science/falcon-heavy-laun... What kind of culture do you think could pull off such a complex, high-stakes mission that lasted not even fifteen minutes? The entire mission was Livestreamed. It was amazing. History was made. The doors were literally blown off. The points that the author made in the article are represented in a body of academic study and were validated at companies such as Google some time ago. These aren't her own novel findings, but she does a good job summarizing into a single article.
krupan 8y ago
Can someone help me understand current use of the word, vulnerable? At least in the context of leadership/self-help writings like this I'm seeing the word used a lot, and it's not being used the way that I would expect. For example, in these writings "be vulnerable" is a suggestion for a way to help yourself, to improve yourself. In my understanding of the word, being vulnerable is never a good thing. It's always been used as a negative thing to avoid. "Your code is vulnerable to buffer overflow attacks unless..." Right? Also, I'm not used to it being used in a general sense like, "be vulnerable," it's usually, "watch out, you are vulnerable to X, Y, or Z." From context I think I'm starting to understand what it means, but it's a struggle for me every time I read this kind of stuff. Is there a better (at least for me?) word I can substitute in my head?
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago
  I'd say "vulnerable" in this context would be admitting personal / professional weaknesses and significant professional mistakes. In a bad corporate culture, being vulnerable in such a way would be used against you by your peers and managers to damage your political standing and to deny you bonuses, promotions, etc. In a more positive culture, that same knowledge would be used by your peers and managers to use their strengths to cover your weaknesses, help you and others learn from your mistakes, and so forth.
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    Exactly. Your vulnerability is an opportunity for your peers and friends to be supportive.
- ch33z3 8y ago
  I may be wrong, please correct me if I am. The way I read it is pretty synonymous to psychological safety. Sometimes speaking up about an idea in a meeting opens yourself up to be contradicted and challenged in ways that may be percieved as uncomfortable. The lack of vulnerability stifles ideation and promotes groupthink because differing opinions and unconventional ideas won't be shared.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
austincheney 8y ago
The article doesn’t mention directness or confrontation. When your people do great things you need to openly celebrate that and advertise it outside the team. When your people do bad things you need to be confrontational, mentor your people with a path to success, and put all that on paper. It is much easier to separate that bad apple when you have paper. The article does mention leading by example, which is important. Taken to another level let it be known that you will never ask your people to do something that you are not willing to do yourself. You cannot lead by example if you don’t set boundaries and goals for the team and heavily enforce such. When everything is nebulous and the standards are not defined your people will do what they can get away with like children running the day care.
KingFelix 8y ago
Just finished trillion dollar coach, great book. Quick read, lots of great topics about team building etc. Great stuff, and great to hear Bill's story. Wild how he was connected and cared for so many influential people, his Co workers etc. If anyone has a personal story I'd love to hear it.

253 points by yarapavan 8y ago

Initially I thought this is just a fluff piece with some idealistic goals. Turns out it has actual, detailed examples of how a leader can cultivate culture. This is super valuable because a lot times it's not intuitive how a leader's action leads to people behaving certain ways.

elg0nz 8y ago
Kate Matsudaira is an amazing tech leader and writer who covers topics from culture and process, to Distributed Systems and Architecture, I cannot recommend her essays enough. Some of my favorite pieces from her: http://katemats.com/distributed-systems-basics-handling-failure-fault-tolerance-and-monitoring/ http://katemats.com/distributed-systems-basics-handling-fail... http://katemats.com/paradox-autonomy-recognition/ http://katemats.com/paradox-autonomy-recognition/ http://katemats.com/lean-software-development-build-v1s-and-v2s/ http://katemats.com/lean-software-development-build-v1s-and-...
bsder 8y ago
I'm still waiting for one of these "cultural thought leaders" to put their money on the table and build a group that blows everybody's doors off. I view them like those peddling "investment secrets"--if they were actually that valuable, they sure wouldn't be sharing.
- krageon 8y ago
  A lot of what they say is really obvious, except if you are an incredibly toxic individual. The core problem with this is not that it won't work IMO, it's that the right people won't internalise the advice. If you were genuinely questioning whether this advice makes a difference, I'm happy for you. You've apparently never had to see the examples of where it is not applied. I can tell you from experience that working in a team with one or more toxic leaders is like dying a slow death every day you come to work.
- Dowwie 8y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/science/falcon-heavy-launch-spacex.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/science/falcon-heavy-laun... What kind of culture do you think could pull off such a complex, high-stakes mission that lasted not even fifteen minutes? The entire mission was Livestreamed. It was amazing. History was made. The doors were literally blown off. The points that the author made in the article are represented in a body of academic study and were validated at companies such as Google some time ago. These aren't her own novel findings, but she does a good job summarizing into a single article.

krupan 8y ago

Can someone help me understand current use of the word, vulnerable? At least in the context of leadership/self-help writings like this I'm seeing the word used a lot, and it's not being used the way that I would expect. For example, in these writings "be vulnerable" is a suggestion for a way to help yourself, to improve yourself. In my understanding of the word, being vulnerable is never a good thing. It's always been used as a negative thing to avoid. "Your code is vulnerable to buffer overflow attacks unless..." Right? Also, I'm not used to it being used in a general sense like, "be vulnerable," it's usually, "watch out, you are vulnerable to X, Y, or Z." From context I think I'm starting to understand what it means, but it's a struggle for me every time I read this kind of stuff. Is there a better (at least for me?) word I can substitute in my head?

ThrowawayR2 8y ago
I'd say "vulnerable" in this context would be admitting personal / professional weaknesses and significant professional mistakes. In a bad corporate culture, being vulnerable in such a way would be used against you by your peers and managers to damage your political standing and to deny you bonuses, promotions, etc. In a more positive culture, that same knowledge would be used by your peers and managers to use their strengths to cover your weaknesses, help you and others learn from your mistakes, and so forth.
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  Exactly. Your vulnerability is an opportunity for your peers and friends to be supportive.
ch33z3 8y ago
I may be wrong, please correct me if I am. The way I read it is pretty synonymous to psychological safety. Sometimes speaking up about an idea in a meeting opens yourself up to be contradicted and challenged in ways that may be percieved as uncomfortable. The lack of vulnerability stifles ideation and promotes groupthink because differing opinions and unconventional ideas won't be shared.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

austincheney 8y ago

The article doesn’t mention directness or confrontation. When your people do great things you need to openly celebrate that and advertise it outside the team. When your people do bad things you need to be confrontational, mentor your people with a path to success, and put all that on paper. It is much easier to separate that bad apple when you have paper. The article does mention leading by example, which is important. Taken to another level let it be known that you will never ask your people to do something that you are not willing to do yourself. You cannot lead by example if you don’t set boundaries and goals for the team and heavily enforce such. When everything is nebulous and the standards are not defined your people will do what they can get away with like children running the day care.

KingFelix 8y ago

Just finished trillion dollar coach, great book. Quick read, lots of great topics about team building etc. Great stuff, and great to hear Bill's story. Wild how he was connected and cared for so many influential people, his Co workers etc. If anyone has a personal story I'd love to hear it.