Not all the ideals that companies often commit to are equally useful. Some are too vague, others are too disconnected from people’s daily lives, and others are simply too different from the reality of how people currently behave to take hold. This observation led me to wonder if there are some essential values—values that absolutely must be in place if you’re going to build a high-performance organization.
I believe there are.
Just as you can’t have life without water, and you can’t have water without the atomic elements of hydrogen and oxygen, I believe there are a few atomic values that are foundational to achieving the consistently high levels of productivity and positivity that underpin high performance. Here they are:
Intellectual humility
Intellectual humility is the deep conviction that neither you nor anyone else has, or can have, a monopoly on the truth. No one can ever be 100% right because no single person can see the complete picture. No matter how confident you are in your perspective, you remain humble enough to recognize that you might be partly wrong or be missing a piece of the puzzle. This doesn’t mean you don’t form strong views or advocate passionately for them. It means you articulate your views as hypotheses, invite others to test or challenge them, and remain open to hearing disconfirming evidence. This approach is best summarized by the phrase “strong opinions, loosely held.”
Empathy
At one level, empathy is a practical skill that can easily be learned—in fact, the quality of listening embedded in many of these rituals is the very embodiment of empathy. But ultimately, empathy stems from a deeper belief: that the emotional experiences of other people matter—and that these experiences aren’t necessarily going to line up with your expectations or what you experience in the same situation. Empathy is a key atom in any high-trust relationship, and as we’ve seen, these relationships are key to the success of your organization.
Psychological safety
Psychological safety has become a bit of a buzzword: People agree that it’s important without being entirely clear on what it is or how to create it. But if people don’t feel comfortable challenging others’ views, giving feedback, or just being themselves, then it’s going to be tough to generate the quality of both the “it” and “us” conversations you’re going to need.
Courage
Courage is the flip side of psychological safety: it’s about frank, direct, bold, and sincere communication. It doesn’t mean everyone has to say everything on their mind, but it’s a necessary ingredient in the “us” conversations that enable us to diagnose and fix frictions. If you have the courage to raise difficult topics and make them discussable, you’ll quickly rewire your organization’s beliefs about which topics are discussable and which aren’t. You might initially be scared to raise them yourself, but don’t forget that you’re not sharing anything people don’t already know.
Companies naturally adopt a wide variety of values, and these don’t necessarily have to include the atomic four explicitly—though I’d suggest they do. These atomic values are the building blocks of a high-performance culture; and when they’re weak, some of the most common values that companies commit to also tend to be weak. That’s because the “molecular level” values they’re hoping to create depend on these atomic values. If one essential atom is weak or missing, the chemistry just doesn’t work.
For example, teamwork requires a combination of empathy and intellectual humility. Empathy enables people to connect with and relate to each other, and intellectual humility allows them to listen deeply and build on each other’s ideas. Innovation absolutely requires courage and psychological safety. Without these, no one will share the radical or “stupid” ideas you need to create your future.
Now we can see why so many companies struggle to live up to their values—they’re missing some essential atoms.
I’ve worked with software companies populated by large numbers of highly technical people who were often quite introverted. Intellectual humility was common in these companies, but empathy was in short supply. The result was that only close coworkers tended to form high-trust relationships. So, as they scaled beyond a few small teams, a fair amount of friction crept into their organizations.
I’ve also seen companies with comforting cultures (high on positivity, low on productivity). The root cause? Lack of courage.
So, ask yourself this: Which of the atomic values is weak in your company? Don’t expect to be able to truly live your values if these nonnegotiable values are weak. Instead, acknowledge the weak spots and bring them into focus. By adopting the right rituals, you can strengthen these, and you’ll soon see your other values start to come to life, too.
Excerpted and adapted with permission from Smooth Scaling: 20 Rituals to Build a Friction-Free Organization by Rob Bier