Healthy Culture Wins

How do you build a healthy working culture that profoundly improves your profits, your business value and growth?

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Build a connected team and secure the future of your business

Make time to build the social capital of your team for business success

Your business wins when your team are more connected and trust each other

How to build the social capital within your business and grow your profits and value

What happens when you take the time to ensure your team has a greater sense of togetherness?

Your profits improve when you invest in your team relationships

Invest in the future of your business by investing in your team

How do you build social capital and trust in your business?

Because your team matter to you, make time to build a healthy working culture in your business

Invest in your team by building the connectedness of your people

Create a healthy working culture in your business by building social capital and trust throughout your team

What happens when your team is emotionally engaged in the work that they do?

Stop thinking that skill, intelligence and knowledge will make your business a success

The experience of your team will not matter if you do not build trust in your team

What happens when you don’t make time to build the trust and engagement of your team?

Don’t risk the future of your business by not building a healthy working culture

Should your team be more engaged in the work they do?

Skill and knowledge are not enough for your business to survive and thrive…

Because your team is skillful and knowledgeable your business should succeed – yes?

Build the social capital and trust of your team with the help of some spaghetti and a marshmallow…

How to connect your team with the help of a marshmallow

What happens to the engagement of your team when you set them the ‘marshmallow challenge’?

Learn from Peter Skillman’s marshmallow experiment, the importance of team connectedness and trust

Stop thinking that you cannot build great social capital in your team

Why are junior school children more connected and trusting than your team?

The working culture of your business is all about the quality and quantity of the little moments

Should you be focusing on the little things when it comes to building a healthy working culture in your business?

What happens to the working culture in your business when you focus on the little things

Use the science to discover how to build a healthy working culture in your business

How can Sandy Pentland’s science help you focus on building a healthy working culture in your business?

Take the time to understand the importance of Sandy Pentland when it comes to the working culture of your business

Why belonging cues and safety are fundamental to the culture of your business?

Time to take belonging cues and safety seriously when it comes to the culture of your business

When your team feels safe you are on the way to creating the right culture in your business

What happens to the future of your business when your team feels safe?

What happens to the future of your business when your team feels like they belong?

Belonging cues and a sense of safety help you build a healthy working culture in your business

Time to focus on the working culture in your business

Build a better business by building a healthy working culture

Improve the social interactions of your team and you improve the future of your business

Stop thinking all of your team are committed to the work they do in your business

Build a healthy working culture for your business by getting clear on your sense of purpose

Lead a purpose, culture driven business…

LinkedIn Updates

1. In your business, the mortar that holds your business together is social capital – your team’s sense of connectedness – which builds trust among your team members, your clients and all your business stakeholders. Click here to discover that when you invest in the connectedness of your team you invest in the future of your business.

2. The foundation of your business is your people, click here to learn the importance to their future and the future of your business of investing in a healthy workplace culture.

3. Building strong social capital, trust and a healthy working culture is vital in the ever-changing, demanding world in which your business exists. Click here to discover the importance of making these 3 things a priority when it comes to the future of your business.

4. When you take the time to create an environment of high trust and social capital, you will build a robust, resilient and productive working culture. Click here to learn what these 2 things mean and why getting them right will give you a massive business boost.

5. You might think you have an intelligent, knowledgeable, skillful and talented team, but this is not enough when it comes to building the relationships, social capital and trust within your team, click here to discover how to do something about this.

6. When you build trust within your team, you build the engagement of your team. When you build the engagement of your team, you build a healthy working culture. Click here to discover the importance of engagement and trust when it comes to the happiness of your team and therefore the future of your business.

7. When you look around your team, from person to person, you’ll no doubt see a mix of intelligent, skilled and experienced people. But do they get along, do they trust each other, are they connected? Click here to discover how spaghetti, tape, string and a marshmallow can help you build greater connectedness in your team.

8. You might think that a team full of skilled and intelligent people would be trusting and well connected, but the science behind a successful working culture suggests this is not always the case. Click here to discover why a simple 18 minutes can help build social capital in your team.

9. Building a healthy working culture in your business, is about the little moments of interaction in your team. Click here to discover how Sandy Pentland and an MIT research team brought some science to the importance of social capital when building a successful business.

10. The working culture of your business will improve when you focus on the little things, click here to discover that this culture can be created when you focus on the quality and quantity of your team’s daily interactions.

11. How safe does your team feel? The safer your team feels, the happier they will be in the work they do, this will in turn make them feel more committed and engaged in your business. Click here to discover what ‘belonging cues’ are and how to use them to instill a feeling of safety within your team.

12. Safety is linked to the motivation and enthusiasm of your team. Do you think your team feels safe working in your business? Belonging cues can help build a sense of safety within your team. Click here to discover what belonging cues are and the 13 actions author Daniel Coyle suggests tap into these belonging cues to build a sense of safety in your business.

13. When you have a healthy working culture, your team feels that your business is a great place to work. They are engaged and enthusiastic, and they have joy and pride in the work they do and in the team with which they work. Click here to discover a set of specific skills that you can learn and practice to make this happen.

14. A healthy, high-performing work culture means that your team and your business succeed. Daniel Coyle believes that strong cultures are created by you as a business leader employing a set of specific skills, all of which can be learned and practised. Click here to learn more.

Facebook Posts

2. The foundation of your business is your people, click here to learn the importance to their future and the future of your business of investing in a healthy workplace culture.

4. When you take the time to create an environment of high trust and social capital, you will build a robust, resilient and productive working culture. Click here to learn what these 2 things mean and why getting them right will give you a massive business boost.

Blog Posts

Blog 1 - Should you be building a more connected team to secure the future of your business?

Your team is like the mortar with which your business is built. If the mortar is strong, then so is your business. If the mortar is loose and weak, then guess what? … your business will crumble.

In your business, your mortar is social capital – your team’s sense of connectedness – which builds trust among your team members, your clients and all your business stakeholders.

When you invest in the connectedness and social capital of your team, you are securing the future profits and growth of your business.

For many business leaders, investment in their team is rarely at the top of the list of ‘things to do’.

It’s hard to make the time for building a productive work culture when you are busy running your business, especially with all the financial and economic challenges which you face and which make constant demands on your time.

But the foundation of your business is your people, and they deserve your time and attention.

Click here to discover how to take responsibility for creating a healthy working culture in your business.

Blog 2 - Build social capital and trust within your team and build the future of your business

The future of your business relies heavily on the commitment and dedication of your team. If they are unhappy in their work, if they lack connection, engagement and trust in their relationships with each other and in the work that they do, your business will underperform.

Building strong social capital, trust and a healthy working culture is vital in the ever-changing, demanding world in which your business exists.

When you take the time to create an environment of high trust and social capital, you will build a robust, resilient and productive working culture.

But what do these 2 things – social capital and trust – really mean, and how does getting them right positively affect your business?

Social capital concerns the relationships formed within your team. A happy, more connected team will be happier in their work, which is often of a higher standard as a result.

Trust is not only about your team trusting you, but also relates to trusting each and every other member of the team, increasing their engagement and commitment to getting a job done and doing it well.

This is crucial to the future of your business when research suggests that the odds are stacked against you.

2022 research from the Gallup World Poll shows that 62% of workers globally are emotionally detached from their work, and 18% are downright miserable.

The same research study shows that in the best-run businesses, 73% of employees are emotionally engaged and thriving at work – more than 3 times the global average of 20%.

High-trust environments, as you would expect, produce happy, emotionally engaged and committed teams…

Click here to discover how to build social capital and trust within your business and increase the commitment and engagement of your team.

Blog 3 - Are skill and experience enough to build a successful business?

You might think you have a highly intelligent, skilful, knowledgeable and experienced team and that this is all you need for your business to be a success.

But if this team is disconnected, lacks mutual trust and is disengaged with the work they are doing, then your business will not flourish; in fact, the opposite will occur.

It is even scarier when you consider a Gallup poll showing that 18% of workers globally are downright miserable.

Margaret Heffernan, entrepreneur, CEO, writer and keynote speaker, believes that the most successful businesses operate in a high-trust environment. This high level of trust, or what she calls a ‘just culture’, generates profound improvements in results.

As she asks in her brilliant book Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes:

In any company, you can have a brilliant bunch of individuals – but what prompts them to share ideas and concerns, contribute to one another’s thinking, and warn the group early about potential risks? Why do certain teams add up to be greater than the sum of their parts, while other teams add up to be less?

Understanding and acting on the answer to this question will help you build a strong, healthy working culture. This type of culture is crucial if your business is going to survive and thrive in the uncertain and economically challenging world in which we live.

When you build trust within your team, you build the engagement of your team.

When you build the engagement of your team, you build a healthy working culture.

Click here to discover that skill, knowledge and experience are not enough to ensure your business survives and thrives – build trust and you build a future.

Blog 4 - How can spaghetti and a marshmallow help you build a healthy working culture in your business?

When you have a look around your team, from person to person, you’ll no doubt see a mix of intelligent, skilled and experienced people…

…but is this enough to ensure your team and your business succeed?

If your team members are not connected to or don’t trust one another and if they are not engaged in the work that they do together, then the tangible skills and knowledge they have will not be enough.

You might have observed in other businesses that their teams have the same level of qualifications and skills as yours, but they seem to work much better together, becoming almost greater than the sum of their parts.

This is down to the healthy working culture of those businesses and an environment of strong social capital and trust.

So, where to start? How do you assess the connectedness and value of your team and how can it be demonstrated?

The following experiment, conducted over 500 times by Peter Skillman in several countries, demonstrates the value of connectedness and trust.

First, he chose a number of 4-person teams made up of, for example, lawyers, CEOs and other university graduates, along with a team of junior school children.

The task was to build the tallest possible structure using:

20 pieces of raw spaghetti
1m of tape
1m of string
1 marshmallow

The marshmallow must be at the top of the structure. Each team has 18 minutes.

In this experiment, Skillman found that the junior school children won consistently, with average structure heights of the teams as follows:

Junior school children – 66cm
CEOs – 55cm
Lawyers – 38cm
Graduates – 25cm

You might think that people with the right experience, skill and intelligence would be great at this exercise, but the science behind a successful working culture suggests it’s more important to build social capital and stronger relationships through regular human interaction and connection.

Why were the schoolchildren so good? Because their nature is to work together with trust and connectedness.

The other teams were less connected, less trusting and more personality-driven, therefore less effective.

How do you think your team would do in this experiment?

Click here to discover how to start building greater connectedness in your team and develop deep relationships and strong trust… all with the help of a bit of spaghetti.

Blog 5 - Build a healthy working culture in your business by focusing on the little things…

If asked, how would you describe the working culture in your business and the connectedness of your team?

This is a challenging question as it can be difficult to evaluate and measure culture… or is it?

Sandy Pentland and an MIT research team bring science to the prediction of a successful working culture, science that backs up the findings of the marshmallow challenge (read how to get your team to complete this challenge in the Business Breakthrough report).

Sandy and his team use a personal portable technology (a sociometer) to track personal interactions five times per second, including:

body language
who you talk to
where you talk to them
when you talk to them

And like Skillman, Pentland discovered that a healthy team culture is all about the little things.

The culture of your team and, consequently, the success of your business are built on the moment-by-moment accumulation of small, everyday thoughts, habits, behaviours and actions.

Culture is about the quality and quantity of these moments when you and your team are speaking, listening, seeing, arguing, debating and thinking.

As a business leader, when you take responsibility for these moments by allowing and encouraging them to happen, you are building connections within your team, promoting strong relationships and trust.

In the words of Sandy Pentland:

With remarkable consistency, the data confirmed that communication indeed plays a critical role in building successful teams. In fact, we found patterns of communication to be the most important predictor of a team’s success. Not only that, but they are as significant as all the other factors – individual intelligence, personality, skill and the substance of discussions – combined.

Click here to discover how to build a team that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Blog 6 - Should safety matter when it comes to building a healthy working culture in your business?

If you asked your team how safe they feel when it comes to working in your business, what do you think they would say?

It might sound like a strange question to ask, especially if you have never discussed their sense of safety before.

But safety is linked to the motivation and enthusiasm of your team. In fact, the Mercer/Sirota research into enthusiastic teams shows that safety is a key element of ‘fairness’, without which you will be unable to build an enthusiastic, engaged and motivated team culture.

Daniel Coyle, author of The Culture Code
– The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, spent 4 years visiting and researching 8 successful teams from the fields of sport, business, education, entertainment, the military and more.

He believes that safety is the foundation on which strong culture is built.

But where does it come from and how do you go about building it? Daniel believes it is down to ‘belonging cues’ and that using belonging cues in your business results in a deep, subconscious sense that ‘you are safe here’.

So what are belonging cues? Daniel Coyle defines these in his book:

Belonging cues are behaviours 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. Like any language, belonging cues can’t be reduced to an isolated moment but rather consist of a steady pulse of interactions within a social relationship.

Belonging cues possess three basic qualities:

Energy: investing in the exchange that is occurring
Individualisation: treating the person as unique and valued
Future orientation: signalling that the relationship will continue

Daniel Coyle suggests 13 actions that tap into these belonging cues to build a sense of safety in your business. The big 4 are detailed in the Business Breakthrough report, but all 13 can be found in the supporting tools and resources.

Click here to discover the importance of belonging cues, the verbal and physical cues that can enable you as a leader to bring your team together, build their sense of safety and create a healthy working culture in your business.

Blog 7 - Should you be better a building a healthy working culture in your business?

When asked to explain the culture of your business, you probably describe your team and their individual skills, knowledge and intelligence.

But this is not enough…

A connected team, with strong trusting relationships and regular social interaction, generates a performance far beyond the sum of individual capabilities.

This is not just great for your business but for the team as well.

When you have a healthy working culture, your team feel that your business is a great place to work. They are engaged and enthusiastic, and they have joy and pride in the work they do and in the team with which they work. A healthy, high-performing work culture means that your team and your business succeed.

How do you make this happen? Daniel Coyle believes that strong cultures are created by you as a business leader employing a set of specific skills, all of which can be learned and practised:

Skill 1 – Take responsibility for the small moments that generate the working culture of your business – as the leader, you influence and create the quantity and quality of the moments of interaction and connectedness between everyone in your business.

Skill 2 – Build safety – safety is the foundation of a healthy working culture. Use belonging cues, including eye contact, body language and vocal pitch, to foster a strong sense of safety within your team.

Skill 3 – Share vulnerability – your vulnerability is a major source of trust amongst your team. Use questions to show you’re open to criticism, suggestions and improvements. You can read the great stories from Disney Pixar and the US Navy SEALs to learn the importance of vulnerability in building a healthy culture in your business.

Skill 4 – Connect with purpose – work on building and establishing a deep sense of purpose in what your business does and build an emotional connection that brings meaning to your team’s future.

Are you ready to commit to building a healthy working culture, where regular team interaction creates moments to build trust and relationships, resulting in a team that feels safe and is happier, and that is enthusiastic and committed to the work they do in your business?

Click here to discover more about what Daniel Coyle has to say about building a healthy working culture in your business and the practical steps you can take to make this happen.

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