19 Mental Models of Leadership

The Law of the Lid 

Credit: John Maxwell

  • There is a lid on my organization and on my future and that lid is me.
  • I am the problem with my company and you are the problem with your company
  • Your education, character, capacity, ability, and vision are limiting your team

Your Work as a Leader Should:

Credit: MLK

  1. Have length – something you get better at over a lifetime
  2. Have breadth – it should touch many other people 
  3. Have height – put you in service to some ideal and satisfy the souls yearning for righteousness 

When Leaders Help Institute Change there is…

Credit: Chip and Dan Heath

  1. Clear direction
  2. Ample Motivation
  3. Supportive Environment

Lead with Clarity and Conviction

Find out How

6 Techniques to Speak like a Leader

Credit: Simon Lancaster

  1. Three Breathless Sentences
  • “A world at war, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a generation”
  1. Three Repetitive Sentences
  • I love pasta, I love verona, I love tiramsu 
  1. Three balancing statements
  • Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country
  • If it sounds balanced, it makes it more believable
  • CONTRAST 
  1. Metaphor
  • Use metaphor every 16 words
  • Use to draw people towards things, and to repel them
  • Ex. “the Arab Spring” “The financial storm”
  1. Exaggeration
  • Emotional appeal. “I am going to give you my heart and soul” 
  1. Rhyme
  • People are more likely to believe something if it Rhymes: processing fluency (easier to digest)
  • Learn things from Rhymes as toddlers

6 Gifts Human Gardeners (Leaders) Offer Their People

Credit: Dr. Tim Elmore

They Paint Pictures

Most people think in pictures. Mentors capitalize on our visual minds and paint pictures of the way leadership works by telling stories, using metaphors, or employing images.

The Provide Handles

Every door or drawer has a handle. A handle is something we can grab onto. Good mentors summarize great principles into simple terms that their mentees can get a hold of and understand. They define the principles and give practical ways they can be applied to life.

They Supply Roadmaps

(1) Give us big picture

(2) Show us where we are

(3) Show us roads to take us to our destination

(4) Reveal what roads to avoid

They Furnish Laboratories

A laboratory is simply a safe place in which to experiment and actually practice the principles being learned. 

They Give Roots

Plants can only grow as tall as their root systems grow deep. Roots represent the foundation for solid growth. They provide strength and stability; something to stand on. These roots might take the form of a “moral compass,” enabling a mentee to make wise decisions based on healthy values.

They Offer Wings

Wings enable mentees to think big, to attempt huge goals, to not fear taking risks.

Leadership as a Parent

(1) I do it; you watch

(2) I do it; you help me

(3) You do it; I help you

(4) You do it; I watch

Building Culture as a Leader

credit: Dan Coyle – The Culture Code

  1. Fill the group’s windshield with clear, accessible models of excellence. 
  2. Provide high-repetition, high-feedback training.
  3. Build vivid, memorable rules of thumb (if X, then Y). 
  4. Spotlight and honor the fundamentals of the skill.

Three Questions Leaders Should Ask Their Teams

  1. What is one thing that I currently do that you’d like me to continue to do? 
  2. What is one thing that I don’t currently do frequently enough that you think I should do more often? 
  3. What can I do to make you more effective?

Leaders Build Systems with 3 things

credit: Donella Meadows – Thinking in Systems

  1. Elements 
  2. Interconnections 
  3. Function or an purpose 
  • A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way to achieve something 

The Four Tools of Leadership Discipline

credit: Scott Peck – The Road Less Traveled

  1. Delaying of gratification
  2. Acceptance of responsibility,
  3. Dedication to the truth
  4. Balancing

The Four Disciplines of Execution 

credit: FranklinCovey

1. Focus on the Wildly Important: Focus on the one or two goals that would make all the difference. 

  • Focus your finest effort on the one or two goals that would make all the
    difference, instead of giving mediocre effort to dozens of goals. Leaders must learn how to create energy around the most important projects,
    not just what’s on fire. 

2. Act on the Lead Measures: Lead measures tell you if you’re likely to achieve the goal. 

  • Lead measures tell you if you’re likely to achieve the goal. They can be influenced by the team and are predictive of the outcome. Lag measures tell you if you’ve achieved the goal. 

3. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard: This helps your team know the score at all times. 

  • This helps everyone know the score at all times, so they can tell whether or not they’re winning. 

4. Create a Cadence of Accountability: Meet weekly to report on commitments and review the scoreboard

  • This is where the execution happens. Your team should meet weekly for 20–30
    minutes to report on commitments and review the scoreboard. Disciplines 1, 2, and 3 set up the game, but until you set up Discipline 4, your
    team isn’t in the game.

Tools to Improve Your Leadership

credit: Craig Groeschel

  1. A discipline to start
  2. The courage to stop
  3. A person to empower
  4. A system to create
  5. A relationship to initiate
  6. A risk to take

The Habits of Excellence

Become a lifelong learner

How to Change Your Perspective as a Leader

credit: Mark Batterson

Change of pace + Change of place = Change of perspective

The Laws of Combat Leadership

credit: Jocko Willink

  1. Cover and Move
  2. Keep Things Simple
  3. Prioritize and Execute
  4. Decentralize Command

Leadership Psychology of Growth

  1. Help the person get their story straight (where are you now? Where are you going?)
  2. What is it that you’re afraid of that’s stopping you from moving forward?

The 80% rule of Decision Making

Based on 80% of the information available are you 80% sure this is the right decision? 

Storytelling as a Leader

credit: Donald Miller

  • Stories are the best invention to deliver mental models that drive behavior, how we make meaning of life
  • Simple structure to stories: a character has a problem, then meets a guide who gives them a plan and calls them to action. That action either results in a comedy or tragedy
  1. A character: a person who will take the journey
  2. The Problem: three levels, external, internal, and philosophical
  3. Meets a Guide who Understands their Fear 
  4. And gives them a plan: you used to think this way, I want you think another way
  5. That calls them to action
  6. That results in a comedy 
  7. Or results in a Tragedy

Mastery Starts with YOU

For the Self-Directed Leader

The Rule of Three

  • When telling stories: Find a Beginning, a Middle, and a End
  • In a crisis: Assess, adjust, act
  • Look, listen, speak
  • In conversation: Ask the person to go deeper 3x and you’ll get closer to the truth

Building a System of Belief – Constructing a Culture

  • Why – Purpose – Belief (ethos)
  • What – Pillars – Values (pathos)
  • How – Processes – Systems (logos)

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The Goldfish Principle: How Environment Determines Our Growth

Goldfish are what scientists call “indeterminate growers” which means they have an infinite capacity for physical growth. When properly cared for and placed in the right environment, they have the capacity to continue growing until they die. All goldfish are endowed with this ability but most never approach their full growth capacity.

Ultimately, environmental restrictions prevent these popular household pets from fully maturing. The majority of goldfish are placed in small fish bowls which stunts their growth and prevents maturation. A goldfish’s ability to grow is directly correlated to the type of environment they live in—the larger the fish bowl the larger growth potential. The physical boundaries of the bowl or tank are what directly causes the stunted growth. It is pollution created by these enclosures that cause a goldfish’s environment to become dirty and ultimately detrimental to physical development.

Our potential for human growth works in an analogous fashion. We are endowed with a similar ability to experience continuous growth throughout the majority of our life. Physically, most humans stop growing sometime during their adolescent years (usually between 15-20 years old), but our ability to learn, adapt, and acquire new skills is indefinite.

Just like goldfish, the biggest inhibiting factor in our growth potential, is our environment.

Just as you can limit the growth of a goldfish by placing it in a confined area, polluted environments have the power to restrict our ability to develop into the best version of ourselves. Environmental factors play a significant role in reaching our potential both as leaders, athletes, and people.

The effectiveness of a leader’s team is tied directly to each team members ability to become the best version of themselves. Steady, incremental growth over time builds the foundation for a successful team. The critical job of every leader is to create an environment that encourages, promotes, and prioritizes continuous improvement and growth.

The cocktail of a creating “growth environment” is comprised of three key ingredients: a mindset, a language, and a culture.

The Habits of Excellence

Become a lifelong learner

A Mindset of Growth

The right mindset is critical to creating an environment that encourages growth. Effective leaders understand that the mindset of their team must be laser focused on the right things, the things that promote long-lasting, sustained success. Teams that are able to adopt a learning and growth mindset are able to improve at a high rate. This helps them prioritize the process over the results, which is able to create a environment suitable for growth.

Popular author Carol Dweck had this to say about her research around developing a growth mindset:

“Did I win? Did I lose? Those are the wrong questions. The correct question is: Did I make my best effort?”

Critiquing effort is a prerequisite to developing a growth mindset because it refocuses us on the factors within our control. Focusing on effort, continuous improvement, and learning from our mistakes is critical to developing a growth mindset.

A Language of Growth

The language of continuous improvement is a critical for leaders who want to help their teams reach their full potential. How leaders describe the inevitable ups and downs of the journey determines how their team will respond in times of difficulty. The language of growth consists of framing each success or failure as an opportunity, because the process of working towards excellence remains the top priority.

As one author wrote,

“If we are only interested in results we defeat the purpose. The process is the purpose.”

In sports, speaking a “growth language” requires coaches to focus their communication around the concepts of effort, focus, body-language, teamwork, and preparation. This type of communication sends an important message to the team: that the most critical components of becoming excellent are found in the factors that lay within our control.

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A Culture of Growth

Culture is the summation of the explicit and implicit symbols, signs, and methods that determine how things are done within a team. An organizational culture positively shapes the environment of growth by encouraging the process of continuous improvement. Culture is the critical final component to building a growth environment.

Here is how one author defined culture:

“The other is ethical social environment, or culture, manifested in organizational rituals, myth, symbols, and informal rules of conduct, which creates fertile ground for moral development, and makes it possible to act according to one’s convictions.”

Each team will develop its own unique cultural flavor, but great teams always maintain several cultural constants. A culture of growth will create “fertile ground for moral development.” This comes as a result of leaders who prioritize building character through the process of competition.

Teams that compete to win but neglect to use that competition as a catalyst in their character formation, ultimately miss the point. And finally, a culture of growth will always encourage team members to pursue their convictions with courage. A culture of growth inspires each person on the team to grow into the person they were ultimately created to be.

Reflection

In what ways have you inspired your team to create a growth environment?

Specifically write down how you have implemented a mindset, language, and culture of growth within your team or organization.

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100 Best Quotes on Culture

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  1. The most robust, sustainable cultures are those based on action, not words. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Our work has to represent our passion, our desire to contribute to our culture, especially to the development of others. (Phil Jackson)
  1. So Goes the Culture, So Goes the Company. (Simon Sinek)
  1. I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value. (Louis Gerstner)
  1. Belonging cues are behaviors that create safe connection in groups. They include, among others, proximity, eye contact, energy, mimicry, turn taking, attention, body language, vocal pitch, consistency of emphasis, and whether everyone talks to everyone else in the group. (Dan Coyle)
  1. Integrity, honesty, and decency are long-term cultural investments. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Growing a culture requires a good storyteller. Changing a culture requires a persuasive editor. (Ryan Lilly)
  1. Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions. (Paulo Coelho)
  1. The best organizations have strong cultures and shared values, understand the importance of teamwork, create trust among their members, maintain focus, and, most important, understand the importance of people and relationships to their mission success. (Simon Sinek)

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  1. An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage. (Jack Welch)
  1. Culture is not like a mission statement; you can’t just set it up and have it last forever. There’s a saying in the military that if you see something below standard and do nothing, then you’ve set a new standard. This is also true of culture—if you see something off-culture and ignore it, you’ve created a new culture. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Good culture requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation. (Doris Goodwin)
  1. Intimidation, humiliation, isolation, feeling dumb, feeling useless and rejection are all stresses we try to avoid inside the organization. But the danger inside is controllable and it should be the goal of leadership to set a culture free of danger from each other. And the way to do that is by giving people a sense of belonging. By offering them a strong culture based on a clear set of human values and beliefs. By giving them the power to make decisions. By offering trust and empathy. By creating a Circle of Safety. (Simon Sinek)
  1. A hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms. Lack of candour, if unchecked, ultimately leads to dysfunctional environments. (Ed Catmull)
  1. When I visited the successful cultures, I kept seeing the same expression on the faces of listeners. It looked like this: head tilted slightly forward, eyes unblinking, and eyebrows arched up. Their bodies were still, and they leaned toward the speaker with intent. The only sound they made was a steady stream of affirmations—yes, uh-huh, gotcha—that encouraged the speaker to keep going, to give them more. (Dan Coyle)
  1. Because your culture is how your company makes decisions when you’re not there. It’s the set of assumptions your employees use to resolve the problems they face every day. It’s how they behave when no one is looking. If you don’t methodically set your culture, then two-thirds of it will end up being accidental, and the rest will be a mistake. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. In determining the right people, the good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience. (Jim Collins)
  1. The difference wasn’t in who they were but in the set of small, attentive, consistent links between where they are now and where they are headed. This is the way high-purpose environments work. They are about sending not so much one big signal as a handful of steady, ultra-clear signals that are aligned with a shared goal. They are less about being inspiring than about being consistent. They are found not within big speeches so much as within everyday moments when people can sense the message: This is why we work; this is what we are aiming for. (Dan Coyle)
  1. An organization is a machine consisting of two major parts: culture and people. Each influences the other, because the people who make up an organization determine the kind of culture it has, and the culture of the organization determines the kinds of people who fit in. (Ray Dalio)
  1. Culture clearly has a powerful effect. So how do you shape it, how do you set it deep in people’s minds, and how do you fix it when it goes wrong? (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Team cultures reveal themselves, and most of the time they don’t deviate too far from the national or local ones. (Fergus Connelly)
  1. The real courage is seeing the truth and speaking the truth to each other. People never want to be the person who says, ‘Wait a second, what’s really going on here?’ But inside the squadron, that is the culture, and that’s why we’re successful. (Unknown)
  1. Culture isn’t a magical set of rules that makes everyone behave the way you’d like. It’s a system of behaviors that you hope most people will follow, most of the time. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. The individual becomes the culture and the culture becomes the individual. It becomes hard to deconstruct. (Louisa Thomas)
  1. And sometimes you have to break a core principle of your culture to survive. Culture is crucial, but if the company fails because you insist on cultural purity, you’re doing it wrong. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. A culture and its people are symbiotic—the culture attracts certain kinds of people and the people in turn either reinforce or evolve the culture based on their values and what they’re like. (Ray Dailo)
  1. 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. (Dan Coyle)
  1. Building a great culture means adapting it to circumstances. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Humans succeed because they have the ability to develop advanced cultures. Culture is a collection of habits, practices, beliefs, arguments, and tensions that regulates and guides human life. Culture transmits certain practical solutions to everyday problems—how to avoid poisonous plants, how to form successful family structures. (David Brooks)
  1. Walk the Talk No culture can flourish without the enthusiastic participation of its leader. No matter how well designed, carefully programmed, and insistently enforced your cultural elements are, inconsistent or hypocritical behavior by the person in charge will blow the whole thing up. (Ben Horowitz)

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  1. Successful cultures do this by relentlessly seeking ways to tell and retell their story. To do this, they build what we’ll call high-purpose environments. High-purpose environments are filled with small, vivid signals designed to create a link between the present moment and a future ideal. They provide the two simple locators that every navigation process requires: Here is where we are and Here is where we want to go. (Dan Coyle)
  1. Whether your company is a startup or a hundred years old, designing your culture is always relevant. Cultures, like the organizations that create them, must evolve to meet new challenges. The point is not to be perfect, just better than you were yesterday. While you can draw inspiration from other cultures, don’t try to adapt another organization’s ways. For your culture to be vibrant and sustainable, it must come from the blood, from the soul. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. We live in a culture that celebrates fifteen minutes of fame, but god honors a lifetime of faithfulness. The longer I live, the more I believe in long obedience in the same direction. (Mark Batterson)
  1. Successful cultures are organic and adaptive, they change and flow, yet always just under the surface is a bedrock of values, smoothed by the current above, but unyielding. (James Kerr)
  1. Culture is an omnipresent coach. (Fergus Connolly)
  1. People become the culture they live in and do what they have to do to survive and thrive. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Create Safe, Collision-Rich Spaces: The cultures I visited were uniformly obsessed with design as a lever for cohesion and interaction. (Dan Coyle)
  1. Culture is an abstract set of principles that lives—or dies—by the concrete decisions the people in your organization make.(Uknown)
  1.  If you can surround a person with a new culture, a different web of relationships, then they will absorb new habits of thought and behaviors in ways you will never be able to measure or understand. (David Brooks)
  1. Each virtue was carefully defined and then reinforced through a set of principles, practices, and stories. They all worked together as a system, balancing one another in a way that made it very difficult for any individual virtue to be misunderstood or misused. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. One misconception about highly successful cultures is that they are happy, lighthearted places. This is mostly not the case. They are energized and engaged, but at their core their members are oriented less around achieving happiness than around solving hard problems together. This task involves many moments of high-candor feedback, uncomfortable truth-telling, when they confront the gap between where the group is, and where it ought to be. (Dan Coyle)
  1. Culturally, what you believe means nearly nothing. What you do is who you are. Even the samurai oath is oriented toward action: I will never fall behind others in pursuing the way of the warrior. I will always be ready to serve my lord. I will honor my parents. I will serve compassionately for the benefit of others. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Belonging cues have to do not with character or discipline but with building an environment that answers basic questions: Are we connected? Do we share a future? Are we safe? Let’s take them one by one. (Uknown)
  1. Creating engagement around a clear, simple set of priorities can function as a lighthouse, orienting behavior and providing a path toward a goal. (Dan Coyle)
  1. Cultural design is a way to program the actions of an organization, but, like computer programs, every culture has bugs. (Unknown)
  1. Overdo Thank-Yous: When you enter highly successful cultures, the number of thank-yous you hear seems slightly over the top. (Dan Coyle)
  1. That’s the nature of culture. It’s not a single decision—it’s a code that manifests itself as a vast set of actions taken over time. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. In fact, we are separated from the other animals because we have phenomenal social skills that enable us to teach, learn, sympathize, emote, and build cultures, institutions, and the complex mental scaffolding of civilizations. Who are we? We are like spiritual Grand Central stations. We are junctions where millions of sensations, emotions, and signals interpenetrate every second. We are communications centers, and through some process we are not close to understanding, we have the ability to partially govern this traffic—to shift attention from one thing to another, to choose and commit. We become fully ourselves only through the ever-richening interplay of our networks. We seek, more than anything else, to establish deeper and more complete connections. (David Brooks)
  1. Cultures are shaped more by the invisible than the visible. They are willed. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. People who live in trusting cultures form more community organizations. People in more trusting cultures have wider stock market–participation rates. People in trusting cultures find it easier to organize and operate large corporations. Trust creates wealth. (David Brooks)
  1. A culture is a set of actions. By requiring thoughtful action before every meeting, Amazon moves its culture in the right direction every day. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Pick the virtues that will help your company accomplish its mission. (Unknown)
  1. In order to shift a culture from one stage to the next, you need to find the levers that are appropriate for that particular stage in the group’s development. (Phil Jackson)
  1. Accountability is being held to the standard you have accepted as what you want, individually and collectively. (Jay Bilas)
  1. The most important element of any corporate culture is that people care. They care about the quality of their work, they care about the mission, they care about being good citizens, they care about the company winning. So a gigantic portion of your cultural success will be determined by what gets rewarded at your company. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Some ways of thinking about a virtue’s effectiveness: Is your virtue actionable? According to bushido, a culture is not a set of beliefs, but a set of actions. What actions do your cultural virtues translate to? Can you turn empathy, for instance, into an action? If so, it may work as a virtue. If not, best to design your culture with a different virtue. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Your culture sets your expectation for what is “normal.” (James Clear)
  1. Working in an unhealthy, unbalanced culture is a lot like climbing Mount Everest—we adapt to our surroundings. Even though the conditions are dangerous, climbers know to spend time at base camp to adapt. (Simon Sinek)
  1. Deliver the Negative Stuff in Person: This was an informal rule that I encountered at several cultures. It goes like this: If you have negative news or feedback to give someone—even as small as a rejected item on an expense report—you are obligated to deliver that news face-to-face. (Dan Coyle)
  1. Whether we like to admit it or not, we need each other. That’s where serotonin and oxytocin come in. They are the backbone of the Circle of Safety. There to encourage pro-social behavior, serotonin and oxytocin help us form bonds of trust and friendship so that we will look out for each other. It is because of these two chemicals that we have societies and cultures. (Simon Sinek)
  1. When you trust and believe, you can be challenged and held accountable. Once a coach earns his players’ trust, he can push them to new levels mentally and physically, where less trustworthy coaches might not dare tread. (Jay Bilas)
  1. Bushido looks like a set of principles, but it’s a set of practices. The samurai defined culture as a code of action, a system not of values but of virtues. A value is merely a belief, but a virtue is a belief that you actively pursue or embody.  (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Like any tribe, they have traditions and symbols and language. The culture of a company is like the culture of any tribe. Some have strong cultures and some have weak cultures. We feel like we belong to some more than others, that we more easily “click” with the people in one culture over another. And, like all tribes, some have strong leaders and some have weak leaders. But they all have leaders. (Simon Sinek)
  1. Cultures are emergent systems. (David Brooks)
  1. Culture isn’t a piece of the game, it is the game. (Gerstner)
  1. Culture defines the legacy you and your team leave behind. (Fergus Connolly)
  1. In a weak culture, we veer away from doing “the right thing” in favor of doing “the thing that’s right for me. (Simon Sinek)
  1. If you expect a culture of trust, you have to build and foster a culture of truth. (Jay Bilas)
  1. The samurai called their principles “virtues” rather than “values”; virtues are what you do, while values are merely what you believe. As we’ll see, doing is what matters. (In what follows I will use “virtues” to refer to the ideal, and “values” to refer to what most companies now espouse.) How exactly did the samurai focus their culture on actions? Companies—just like gangs, armies, and nations—are large organizations that rise or fall because of the daily microbehaviors of the human beings that compose them. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. In a culture of strong character, the people inside the company will feel protected by their leaders and feel that their colleagues have their backs. In a culture of weak character, the people will feel that any protection they have comes primarily from their own ability to manage the politics, promote their own successes and watch their own backs. (Simon Sinek)
  1. A great culture produces a united team driven by high character, competitive and talented people working unselfishly to achieve sustainable excellence. (Brooklyn Nets Basketball)
  1. We can say this much with confidence: When change works, it tends to follow a pattern. The people who change have clear direction, ample motivation, and a supportive environment. In other words, when change works, it’s because the Rider, the Elephant, and the Path are all aligned in support of the switch. (Chip Heath)
  1. Leaders create the right environment for the right behaviors to occur. (Owen Eastwood)
  1. Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. (James Clear)
  1. Healthy cultures never happen by accident. They are created. Culture is a combination of what you create and what you allow. If you don’t like what you have, change what you tolerate and what you expect. (Craig Groeschel)
  1. Ethos is the Greek word for character. Descended from the same root as the word ethics, it is used to describe the beliefs, principles, values, codes and culture of an organization. It is the ‘way we do things around here’, the unwritten (and sometimes written) rules, the moral character of a particular group of people. (James Kerr)
  1. Successful groups are attuned to the same truth as the starlings: Purpose isn’t about tapping into some mystical internal drive but rather about creating simple beacons that focus attention and engagement on the shared goal. (Dan Coyle)
  1. Every player on a team is a role player, and every player on a team should strive to excel at what I consider to be the most important role of all: the role of being a great teammate. (Jay Bilas)
  1. When a flower doesn’t grow, you fix the environment for which it grows; not the flower. (Justin Barber)
  1. But they will never forget how it felt to work there, or the kind of people they became as a result. The company’s character and ethos will be the one thing they carry with them. It will be the glue that holds them together when things go wrong. It will be their guide to the tiny, daily decisions they make that add up to a sense of genuine purpose. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Culture comes from the Latin word cultus which means ‘care’. 
  1. Doing tough things needs to be expected, but it also needs to be valued. Acknowledging and celebrating that those around you are doing tough things, and doing them for the good of the team, is important to a culture of winning. (Jay Bilas)
  1. Whether one is baking a cake or examining an institutional mix, the interaction of ingredients is almost always a function of the temperature and pressure of the environment. (Edwin Friedman)

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  1. Capitalize on Threshold Moments: When we enter a new group, our brains decide quickly whether to connect. So successful cultures treat these threshold moments as more important than any other. (Dan Coyle)
  1. A team culture is a living organism. It has to be touched every single day. (Unknown)
  1. Along the way, you will learn how to answer a question fundamental to any organization: who are we? Because who you are is how people talk about you when you’re not around. How do you treat your customers? Are you there for people in a pinch? Can you be trusted?  (Ben Horowitz)
  1. Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are. It’s something you do. (Dan Coyle)
  1. CULTURE COACHES WHEN YOU’RE NOT AROUND. (Fergus Connolly)
  1. Leadership isn’t one person leading a team. It is a group of leaders working together, up and down the chain of command, to lead. (Jocko Willink)
  1. What you know doesn’t mean anything. What do you do consistently? (Tony Robbins)
  1. Every culture has its own history, traditions, languages and symbols. When we identify with a culture, we articulate our belonging to that group and align ourselves with a shared set of values and beliefs. (Simon Sinek)
  1. The three skills of culture building. 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. (Dan Coyle)
  1. Teamwork is the ultimate competitive advantage. (Patrick Lencioni)
  1. High performing teams promote a culture of honesty, authenticity and safe conflict. (Unknown)
  1. As a final word of discouragement: a great culture does not get you a great company. Culture is to a company as nutrition and training are to an aspiring professional athlete. If the athlete is talented enough, he’ll succeed despite relatively poor nutrition and a below-average training regimen. If he lacks talent, perfect nutrition and relentless training will not qualify him for the Olympics. But great nutrition and training make every athlete better. (Ben Horowitz)
  1. So goes the culture, so go the people. (David Brooks)
  1. Culture alone doesn’t win games, but a great one is the foundation for organized talent to express itself. (Fergus Connolly)
  1. When we cooperate or look out for others, serotonin and oxytocin reward us with the feelings of security, fulfillment, belonging, trust and camaraderie. (Simon Sinek)
  1. Culture guides discretionary behavior and it picks up where the employee handbook leaves off. Culture tells us what to do when the boss isn’t in the room, which is of course most of the time. (Frances Frei)
  1. Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed; the culture reflects the realities of people working together every day. (Frances Hesselbein)

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Culture Codes

Culture codes are phrases that serve as reminders about the type of culture you want to build within your team. The best cultures have clear signals about the identity, habits, and direction they want to define their group.

Whatever ‘culture codes’ you choose for your team, make sure they are memorable, clear, and directly related to a principle or truth that you believe in.

Here is a list of some of my favorite culture codes. I’ve also included some visual representations (because a picture can communicate ideas more clearly at times).

LEADERSHIP.
EXCELLENCE.
INTEGRITY.
PERSEVERANCE.
HUMILITY.
MESSAGING.
GROWTH MINDSET.
PERSISTENCE.
PURPOSE.
FAILURE.
DETAILS.
PROGRESS.
RELATIONSHIPS.
DIRECTION.
DISCIPLINE.
MASTERY.
PERSPECTIVE.
IMPROVEMENT.

Simple, isn’t Easy

Driven by Purpose. Committed to Excellence.

Classroom to the court

Get the ships out of the harbor (Learn to Risk)

Experience is not preparation

Desirable difficulties

Culture Wins

Embrace the suck

Speak Truthfully

Learn. Grow. Lead.

Find Out How

Practice Deliberately

Give Thanks Continuously

Get out of your comfort Zone 

Live Intentionally

Coach in Principles, Study in Details

Take the Long View

Progress Over Perfection

Growth is Gradual

All-in

Culture beats everything

Purposeful Practice

First to Fight

12 = 12 (the idea for coaches that each one of your players is uniquely their own person)

Champions do extra

You’re a “insert school’s mascot” 24/7

Win the Day

We don’t recruit drama

The Right Way or the Easy Way?

Tell the truth and live unoffended

AAR (after action review)

Tell the Truth and Live Unoffended

Find the right restrictions

The future belongs to those who show up

Build better bridges

Live Unoffended

Fight for Right

Excellent execution.

Speak up, own it, or get out.

Do Hard Things

Leaders set the tone.

No wasted reps

Information is not transformation

Fly in formation.

Fight for every inch

Pressure is a privilege 

Calm is contagious

Everything is earned.

If you’re not growing anywhere you’re not going anywhere.

Pain is progress

Be great at the things that take no talent.

Do right longer.

When it comes to teamwork 1+1 always = 3

Little things that are big things

Unpack your bags (the idea that you should fully commit and dive in with both feet)

Sweat the small stuff.

Fail forward

Don’t activate your inner-lawyer (don’t be defensive!)

Do YOUR best and leave the rest

NO Fastballs (defensive terminology to not allow the offense to zip the ball around)

Everyday Guys

The details add up!

Train hard. Play easy.

Is that a dream or a goal? Because there’s a difference.

Practice going first.

I don’t make the depth chart, you guys make the depth chart.

I figure out the ways people can tell me no, then I take that off the table.

Excellence is the small things done well consistently over time.

Difference between a response and a reaction

“Make then feel you!”

“Force them to play left-handed”

“Movement is medicine”

I don’t play my 5 best, I play my best 5.

Get your best 5 competitors on the floor

Compete every day

Grow or Get better

Give everyday

Habits are the Backbone of Excellence

Everyone is a Role Player

Having FUN is doing hard things well

Compassionately Ruthless (i.e. a coaching philosophy)

Make it Better

Investment Wins Championships

Focus Determines Feelings

Own it.

View Affects Vision

The Monotony of Excellence

Safe or Strong?

High Standards and Deep Care (i.e. a coaching philosophy)

Transformation comes from Testing

Habits are the Battleground of Character

The Culture Codes – The ones I personally use the most

  1. Culture and Toughness Win
  2. Excellent Execution
  3. Purposeful Practice
  4. Excellence is Boring
  5. Live Unoffended
  6. Team Beats Talent
  7. Growth is Gradual
  8. Fly in Formation 
  9. Everything is Earned
  10. Find the Right Restrictions
  11. Walk with a Limp
  12. Practice Deliberately
  13. Grow Perpetually
  14. Tell the Truth
  15. Live Unoffended
  16. Fight for Right
  17. Sweat the Small Stuff
  18. Fail Forward
  19. Live with Intention
  20. Compete, Compete, Compete!
  21. Do Hard Things
  22. Own It
  23. Simple isn’t Easy

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Building Purposeful Culture

Why should you strive to build a purposeful culture?

Purpose is the reason why you do what you do, the thing that only you were created to do.

Culture is the alignment of your purpose, values, beliefs, and behaviors. It is the seamless integration between the WHY, WHAT, and HOW you do what you do.

Don’t pursue passion, become passionate about pursuing purpose.

Looking towards your purpose is not about self-discovery, but self-sacrifice. Think about purpose as a mirror, not a flashlight. When we think about purpose as a mirror we tend to focus on ourselves. What is MY purpose? What makes my life fulfilling? What am I meant to do? These questions are not wrong, but they undermine the true character of what purpose is about.

You will always find your purpose just on the other side of “what’s in it for me?” Purpose is about self-sacrifice more than self-discovery. A better question is to ask “who am I here to serve?” rather than “what I am here to do”.

Purpose is the path to meaning because meaning is found in becoming a means to an end for someone else. Just as a flashlight illuminates the room, following your purpose helps light the way for others to become everything they were created to be. Purpose has a price. The price is found in counting the cost of becoming the means to an end for someone else. The measure of a life is counted in the amount of it that is given away. The cost of giving away your time, talent, and treasure is the price of living a purposeful life. In the end, there is no more valuable way to construct your life than setting it up to be given away.


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