1: Gramercy Tavern. New York City.
The lunch crowd has lined up on the sidewalk, waiting to get in.
“Whitney Macdonald was minutes away from a moment she had long anticipated,” Daniel Coyle writes in his book The Culture Code.
“It would be first-ever shift as a front waiter. and she was excited and a bit nervous.”
Gramercy Tavern is a legendary New York restaurant “whose staff ranks as the culinary world’s version of a SEAL team,” Daniel notes.
Whitney had trained for six months for this day. She had been diligent and conscientious in learning every detail of the job. Starting as a back server, she had taken copious notes. She sat in on lineup meetings and shadowed shift after shift.
Just before the door opens, assistant general manager Scott Reinhardt approaches Whitney. He looks at her with a bright, penetrating gaze.
“The one thing we know about today is that it’s not going to go perfectly,” he tells her. “I mean, it could, but odds are really, really, really high that it won’t.”
A look of surprise shows on Whitney’s face. It sounded like her boss was telling her she was about to screw up.
“So here’s how we’ll know if you had a good day,” Scott says. “If you ask for help ten times, then we’ll know it was good. If you try to do it all alone…”
His voice trails off, but his message is clear—disaster.
2: What’s going on here?
Scott’s words to Whitney create “psychological safety,” a term first coined by psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1950s and more recently popularized by Harvard’s Amy Edmondson.
“To create safety, leaders need to actively invite input,” Amy says. “It’s really hard for people to raise their hand and say, ‘I have something to say.’ And it’s equally hard for people not to answer a genuine questions from a leader who asks for their opinions of their help.’ “
Like the Navy SEALS and Pixar, Scott creates a vulnerability loop so his team members can provide candid feedback and discuss errors and what went wrong.
“On the face of it,” Daniel writes, “these awkward moments don’t make sense. These groups seem to intentionally create awkward, painful interactions that look like the opposite of smooth cooperation.
“The fascinating thing is, however, these awkward, painful interactions generate the highly cohesive, trusting behavior necessary for smooth cooperation.”
3: What can we as leaders do to create psychological safety?
Tactic one: Spotlight our Fallibility Early On—especially If we are a leader.
“In any interaction, we have a natural tendency to try to hide our weaknesses and appear competent,” Daniel observes.
If our goal is to create psychological safety, this is the opposite of what we should do.
“Instead, we should open up, show we make mistakes, and invite input with simple phrases like ‘This is just my two cents.’ ‘Of course, I could be wrong here.” ‘What am I missing?’ ‘What do you think?’ “
Daniel points to R. C. Buford, the San Antonio Spurs general manager, as an example of this idea in action.
R.C. “is one of the most successful executives in the history of sports,” he notes. “But if you watch him operate, you might mistake him for an assistant. He’s a quiet, affable hound-dog Kansan who asks questions, listens keenly, and radiates humility.”
“I’m absolutely terrified of the future,” R.C. told Daniel, sharing the upcoming retirements of several superstar players.
“He could have talked about the organization’s vaunted player selection and development systems, or the progress of the young players, or the smart trades they’d made, or the power of the culture they’d built,” Daniel writes.
“But he didn’t do that—he said he was terrified.
“This kind of signal is not just an admission of weakness; it’s also an intiviation to create a deeper connection, because it sparks a response in the listener: How can I help?”
Tactic two: Capitalize on Threshold Moments
“When we enter a new group, our brains decide quickly whether to connect,” Daniel writes. “So successful cultures treat these threshold moments as more important than any other.”
For example, new hires at Pixar, whether directors or baristas in the company café, gather in a theater where screenings are held.
They “sit in the fifth row—because that’s where the directors sit,” Daniel writes.
Then, they are told: “Whatever you were before, you are a filmmaker now. We need you to help us make our films better.”
“It’s incredibly powerful,” said Mike Sundy, a data management professional. You feel changed.”
Similarly, everyone hired by Oklahoma City Thunder, a successful NBA team, is brought on their first day of work to the Oklahoma City National Memorial, which honors the victims of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
They walk around the reflecting pool. They see the sculpture of 168 chairs, one for each victim.
“The general manager, Sam Presti, often leads the tour,” Daniel writes. “He doesn’t say much; he simply lets them walk around and feel the solemnity of the place.
“Then, toward the end, he reminds players to look into the stands during games and to remember that many of those people were personally affected by this tragedy.
“It’s a small moment,” Daniel reflects. But “it sends a powerful belonging cue at the precise moment when people are ripest to receive it.”
Tactic three: Avoid Giving Sandwich Feedback
Many leaders give feedback using the traditional sandwich method: We “talk about a positive, then address an area that needs improvement, then finish with a positive,” Daniel writes.
“This makes sense in theory,” he notes, “but in practice it often leads to confusion, as people tend to focus either entirely on the positive or entirely on the negative.”
Leaders in places with great cultures, like Gramercy Tavern, the Navy SEALS, and Pixar, take a different approach.
Daniel writes: “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.”
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: How might I become an agent for creating psychological safety at my workplace and in my family?
Action: Do it.
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