ReThinking: The keys to a flourishing community with Dan Coyle

Summary

WORKLIFE with Adam Grant
Episode: ReThinking – The Keys to a Flourishing Community with Dan Coyle
Date: January 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Adam Grant sits down with journalist and bestselling author Dan Coyle (author of The Culture Code and Flourish) to explore what makes communities truly flourish, both at work and beyond. Drawing on stories from Alaska, a Parisian neighborhood, Olympian hotspots, businesses like Zingerman’s, and more, they untangle the elements behind building (or awakening) vibrant, resilient communities—highlighting vulnerability, shared experience, norms of giving, and the courage to let go of control.

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Key Themes & Insights

1. Flourishing Isn’t About Resources—It’s About Connection

• People often assume thriving communities require ample resources, but Coyle’s experiences show that warmth, cooperation, and “connective energy” are built through meaningful bonds, often forged under challenging circumstances.
• [01:31] Dan Coyle: "When we talk about flourishing, we tend to think, oh, I need a lot of resources. ... But in fact, what you find is that there are these communities of meaningful connection, and that meaningful connection is this form of connective energy that you can channel into doing things together."

2. The Role of Adversity and Shared Suffering

• Harsh environments like Alaska force people to depend on each other, turning necessity into the mother of collaboration and community spirit.
• [03:12] Dan Coyle: “…because of the environment, because of the cold, because of the challenges, you end up cooperating a lot ... It was just this complete… let's build a healthcare system, let's build a pipeline, let's do stuff.”

3. Disaster, Messiness, and “Animation” over Automation

• Coyle references Rebecca Solnit’s work (Paradise in Hell), noting that disaster often elicits people’s greatest sense of meaning and belonging.
• Rather than focusing on efficient systems (“automation”), thriving groups cultivate “animation” – a sense of aliveness and spontaneous, purpose-driven interplay.
• [05:13] Dan Coyle: “They're not about automation, they're about animation. They're about finding these moments of collective meaning…”

4. From Treasure Hunting to Treasure Creation

• A pivotal insight: life isn’t about finding meaning already out there, but about creating meaning together with others.
• [06:36] Dan Coyle (quoting Barry Schwartz): “People mistakenly think life is a treasure hunt. And it's not a treasure hunt, it's treasure creation.”

5. Examples of Flourishing Communities

a. Zingerman’s Deli (Ann Arbor, MI)

• Onboarding centers around personal storytelling and shared intentions rather than rules or formal precepts.
• [08:50] Dan Coyle: “Ari gets up there and he just says, tell me your stories. ... And by the end of it, one woman was actually in tears...”

b. Paris’s “Super Neighbors”

• A retiring journalist starts a communal meal (longest-table dinner) leading to vibrant subgroups and deep care among previously withdrawn neighbors.
• [16:14] Dan Coyle: “He rented 80 tables...said we’re going to have a dinner. ... and there was this incredible celebration in the street... They call themselves the super neighbors hypervoison.”
• [17:08] Dan Coyle: “…what they're doing is awakening community. It was there all along, waiting for someone to create group flow, waiting for someone to design a message.”

c. Norwich, Vermont – The Olympic “Daisy Chain”

• Norms of “helping other children as if they were your own” catalyze Olympian output despite a lack of resources. A negative parental example set boundaries for what NOT to do.
• [19:00] Dan Coyle: “…what they have is this thing called the Norwich Daisy Chain, which is an informal norm of helping other children as if they were your own.”
• [21:23] Adam Grant: “I mean, you're describing a culture of giving, not taking. That's it in essence.”

d. Norwegian Alpine Team

• Even in competitive, individual sports, athletes freely share course tips, prioritizing group over individual gold.

6. Complexity, Mess, and Letting Go of Control

• Grant and Coyle distinguish between “complicated” and “complex” problems; communities are complex, demanding experimentation, flexibility, and patience.
• Letting go of control (vs. overplanning or overmanaging) creates space for true ownership and energy.
• [24:23] Dan Coyle: “…to have the level of patience to tolerate the mess. ... if people were really going to self-organize around this, we have to tolerate the mess.”
• [27:51] Dan Coyle: “That's a lesson over and over... those four words you said, 'it's up to you.' ... You’re actually unlocking them because you’re creating conditions for group flow.”

7. Leadership as Storytelling and Question-Asking

• Great leaders focus on facilitating conversations, asking better questions, and drawing out the gifts of others, rather than rigidly directing.
• [30:04] Dan Coyle: “…leaders should constantly be kind of working down that cascade, if they want to have quality relationships, they’ve got to have better conversations, ... ask better questions. And those questions of what gift could you bring to this? ... are just really, really powerful questions.”

8. Courage, Curiosity & the Power of “Activity” over Words

• Action, shared activity, and silence (vs. endless talking or planning) build bonds more reliably.
• [34:52] Dan Coyle: “I think words are… sus. ... stop using so many words people. Like, go do stuff with each other.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Action-oriented communities:

  • “All of Alaska is a little bit like that, where it's like, let's build a healthcare system, let's build a pipeline, let's do stuff.”
    — Dan Coyle [03:47]

• On the meaning in disaster:

  • “…some of them almost guiltily say, that was the most alive and the most community I've felt ever. ... The meaning was really clear… we had to self organize, we had to figure things out ourselves.”
    — Dan Coyle [05:13]

• Animation vs. automation:

  • “They're not about automation, they're about animation.”
    — Dan Coyle [05:25]

• On treasure creation:

  • "Life is not a treasure hunt, it's treasure creation."
    — Dan Coyle [06:36, quoting Barry Schwartz]

• Awakening vs. building community:

  • "We always use the phrase building community, but actually what they're doing is awakening community. It was there all along..."
    — Dan Coyle [17:08]

• Distinction between complicated and complex:

  • “Complicated things are linked up the same every time... Complex things are really different. Every time you engage with it, the system changes… is this more like building a Ferrari or raising a teen?"
    — Dan Coyle [22:24]

• Letting go as a leader/teacher:

  • “I wasn't just there to impart knowledge. I was there to build a community. And in a community, people have shared ownership…”
    — Adam Grant [26:44]

• Shared ownership unlocks energy:

  • “You're unlocking them because you're creating conditions for group flow. ... That's why sports, I think, in some ways, captures the beauty of that flow.”
    — Dan Coyle [28:22]

• Role of questions:

  • “If they want to have quality relationships, they've got to have better conversations, which means they have to ask better questions.”
    — Dan Coyle [30:04]

• Curiosity and courage:

  • “…over and over in these flourishing communities, I kept seeing those values of curiosity and courage next to each other.”
    — Dan Coyle [30:56]

• Lightning Round Wisdom:

  • “Don't think through that community action. Don't overthink it. Experiment into the space.”
    — Dan Coyle [34:46]

  • "Language is often our friend... but language is not our friend in a lot of these situations... stop using so many words people. Like, go do stuff with each other."
    — Dan Coyle [34:52]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:31] Dan describes true flourishing in communities
• [03:12] Alaska childhood: why harsh environments build community
• [05:13] Community & meaning in disaster; Rebecca Solnit reference
• [06:36] Barry Schwartz’s “treasure creation” insight
• [08:50] Zingerman’s Deli onboarding and attentional architecture
• [14:43] Observing European approaches to community
• [16:14] Paris “Super Neighbors” story
• [19:00] Norwich, Vermont – Daisy chain & lessons from Olympic culture
• [22:24] Complicated vs. complex systems
• [24:23] The importance and challenge of tolerating “the mess”
• [26:44] Teaching & leading by giving up control—Adam’s reflection
• [27:51] Empowering others: “It’s up to you.”
• [30:04] Conversations, questions, curiosity & courage
• [34:17] Lightning round
• [38:21] The art of storytelling—finding and crafting meaningful stories
• [40:13] Reawakening community in Alaska: long table, action, tradition

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Overall Takeaways

• Community is Awakened, Not Installed: Look for dormant connection, don’t just try to construct it.
• Let Go to Flourish: Leaders enable group flow by surrendering some control and tolerating uncertainty.
• Courage and Curiosity Fuel Growth: The same qualities that drive ecosystems help people connect more deeply.
• Action Over Words: Authentic community is built by doing together, not merely talking or planning.

This episode offers a practical, nuanced roadmap to building—and more importantly, awakening—flourishing communities wherever we are.

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To connect with Adam Grant, follow him on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Produced by TED in partnership with Transmitter Media. For more, visit AdamGrant.net.

Transcript

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[Dan Coyle]

[e-mail] when we talk about flourishing, we tend to think, oh, I need a lot of resources. Oh, I'll flourish once I have all the pieces in place. But in fact, what you find is that there are these communities of meaningful connection, and that meaningful connection is this form of connective energy that you can channel into doing things together.

[Adam Grant]

Hey everyone, it's Adam Graham.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Welcome back to Rethinking My Podcast with Ted on the Science of what Makes Us Tick. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. Dan Coyle is a journalist and best selling author whose work explores how individuals and groups thrive. His previous book, the Culture Code, was named the Best Business Book of the year by multiple outlets and he's advised organizations like the Navy SEALs, Microsoft, and the Cleveland Guardians. Dan's new book, Flourish, is about how to build community in groups, teams and workplaces.

[Dan Coyle]

For a visual, you almost think about a group of starlings moving through the sky together, moving through a forest. They're solving problems in real time. They're each having a certain role as they make the turn toward home. But each one also is connected to.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

The larger group, something Dan first experienced.

[Adam Grant]

In the community where he grew up. So I thought it would be fun to start this conversation in Alaska. Yeah, I want to hear about your childhood and the sense of community you had there and why in the world that existed in one of the coldest places in America.

[Dan Coyle]

Exactly. Well, it exists because it's one of the coldest places in America. Everybody who gets to Alaska is either running from something or running to something. We moved when I was three years old. I'm not sure which my parents were doing, but I grew up there. And you quickly realize you have to make your own family. You have Christmas and Thanksgiving with your friends because no one has extended family there. And then because of the environment, because of the cold, because of the challenges, you end up cooperating a lot, like figuring things out, creating meaningful connection, creating strange things. Like, I remember as a kid going to this crazy play. This guy put on a play outdoors in Kodiak Island. It was called the Cry of the Wild Ram. And he made the play, he wrote it, he produced it, he did everything. It was just this complete. I don't know, what are the old movies, Andy Rooney movies, where they said, let's put on a play. All of Alaska is a little bit like that, where it's like, let's build a healthcare system, let's build a pipeline, let's do stuff. And so I always grew up with that kind of action oriented community that had to lean on each other to get anything done.

[Adam Grant]

So interesting. So is this a case then, that shared suffering is key to community?

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, I think it is. I think it is because it creates vulnerability and that creates. You need to reach out, you know, you can't do it alone. There's nobody walking around in a suit of armor saying, I've got it all figured out, I'm the smartest one. Like, wait a minute, we've got to go get a spare tire from our neighbor to make our truck run.

[Adam Grant]

I read a paper years ago looking at when sort of communal and cooperative values emerge in cultures and when people take a more selfish kind of every person for themselves mentality. And extreme weather plus scarce resources was a recipe for the selfish kind of I've got to be a taker because there's not enough to go around value system. And it sounds like you think if resources aren't too scarce, you can get the opposite from an extreme environment.

[Dan Coyle]

I think that's true. And if you look at some of the other work, some of the more fascinating work around, this is like paradise in Hell, I think, is the book that Rebecca Solnit wrote about it. This idea that when there is a disaster and you talk to people afterwards, some of them almost guiltily say, that was the most alive and the most community I've felt ever. They secretly say, I loved it. Because with no power, with. With no resources, we had to self organize, we had to figure things out ourselves. The meaning was really clear where we were going. We had to feed everyone, we had to get something done. And we typically think of ourselves and all the sort of modern ways we think about ourselves as machines. We think of our, our own lives almost as we use habits and things like that to automate things. And what we found in flourishing communities and flourishing places is they're not about automation, they're about animation. They're about finding these moments of collective meaning. And maybe it's through a disaster. Maybe it's because you're growing up in Alaska, or maybe it's because you're trying to make your little business work, whatever that might be. But those moments of receptive stillness in which you get meaning. Meaning not as information, but as connective energy that you can channel into doing things together.

[Adam Grant]

So I'm not alone in wanting to know how we can have more of those moments. No one wants to have to manufacture a disaster.

[Dan Coyle]

That's right.

[Adam Grant]

Most of us don't want to have to pick up and move to Alaska. Sorry, Alaska.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, exactly. How do we get more of them? That was the question that drew me to this. I mean, this book exists because I got kind of. I bumped into a quote, or maybe I should say a quote bumped into me. I was kind of at a. At a time in my life where I was really feeling the speed and emptiness of the world. You know, those moments where you're sort of reckoning with what's it all about, what am I doing here? For me, that came after my parents passed away. And around that time I found this quote by the psychologist Barry Schwartz. And the quote was this. People mistakenly think life is a treasure hunt. And it's not a treasure hunt, it's treasure creation. And that kind of knocked me down. I'd spent my career, like a lot of people, working hard, focused on family, sort of climbing the career mountain. And I'd actually written books about a lot of people who were at high performance, kind of climbing the career Mountain. And that quote, treasure creation. Treasure creation, not treasure hunting, really got me thinking, like, we know what's up on the mountaintop. We know enough of those stories. We know what happens when you climb and get to be successful. The question is really, what's going on in the valleys? Like what is happening down there? These places of growth and connection and ecosystems of meaning. And it got me interested in visiting these places. And so that's what I did. I spent those years, five years visiting places, businesses, nonprofits, communities, places that created treasure.

[Adam Grant]

Well, the irony of this is you had to go on a treasure hunt to find the people who are making the treasure. So one of the things I've always admired about your work is you have a nose for what is the most interesting place to observe the dynamic that for most people is out of reach. And I think, you know, I see you consistently going to sports teams and to military units. And originally I think you did that because you wanted to understand how to unlock talent in the talent code. And then you did it because you wanted to look at great group cultures in the culture code. And now in Flourish, you find extraordinary community in some of those same places. I'd love to hear about some of the most remarkable communities that you visited and what you learned from studying them.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, well, they kind of get inside you. And it happened to me at Zingerman's. I think you might have been there in your Michigan days. Zingerman's is a many times deli in Ann Arbor. Started in one room, it ended up, it's grown into a $90 million community of businesses in this just marvelous, organic way, operating at extremely high level, kind of a magical place. And I started spending a little bit of time there. And Ari Weinsweig, who was the CEO, the way that he built that place, it's kind of like a great example of attentional architecture. You know, when they train people at Zingerman's, they have these things called recipes where you're supposed to say, here's the recipe for customer service. Well, those recipes are really interesting because they don't actually have any information in them. Like the recipe for customer service is this. Find out what the customer wants, get it for them, and then go the extra mile. Like, it's literally no information in there. But what it does is it helps guide the person to say, here's what's important right now. Find out what the person wants, be present to that, then be present to get it to them, and then be present to going the extra mile. When I went to an orientation there one time. And it was so funny because it was actually the opposite of every orientation I've ever been to. I think there were 11 people in the room. They're all ready to, like, be oriented. Like, tell me what to do, Tell me what to do. And Ari gets up there and he just says, tell me your stories. How did you get here? How did life get you here? And then he shared his story of how life got him there. And then he had them get in small groups and talk about what they wanted to create together. And by the end of it, one woman was actually in tears. She had to leave the room to compose herself because she said, this is just so different than every way I've been treated before.

[Adam Grant]

You know, this reminds me of some research that my colleague Dan Cable led. They're doing an experiment with new hires in a multinational company. I mean, the gist of the experiment is you think the best way to onboard somebody, to make them feel like they're part of a community at a. At a new organization is to kind of tell them about the culture and help them soak it up so they can fit in. But that is not the most effective approach. What works better is giving them a chance to stand out where at that new hire orientation. And instead of just learning about the company and they get to come up with a personal highlight reel and say, here is me at my best. And six months later they're performing better and they're about half as likely to quit. And it sounds like that's what Ari was doing at the Zingerman orientation is he's asking, what is your story? As opposed to saying, here's who we are.

[Dan Coyle]

Exactly right. Exactly right. And then knitting that all into a larger story of telling the story of. Here's how Zingerman started. The Underground railroad was in Ann Arbor and the first Catholic mass was celebrated across the street. And he sees his job primarily as a storyteller. And I think that a lot of leaders could kind of look at their jobs through those lenses too.

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[Adam Grant]

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[Podcast Host / Announcer]

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[Adam Grant]

You know, as I was reading Flourish, I was struck by the fact that you seem to have landed somewhere that I also stumbled, which is every time I come back from Europe and it doesn't seem to matter that much which country it is in Europe. I come back with a sense that Europeans understand how to build community in ways that Americans are struggling with. Yeah, and you also, you ended up in, I would say, a large number of European communities. When you were researching the book, was this intentional? Was it accidental? I'd love to hear some of the things you learned and kind of why, why you were drawn so much to Europe.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, it didn't end up being kind of accidental. But the place that characterized it most for me was a place that started out most like America. It was a little neighborhood called Petit Mont Rouge in Paris. Kind of snobbish, middle class, upper middle class. And there was a journalist there named Patrick Bernard who, he was always kind of a shy, introverted guy. When people would come to borrow sugar, he would sometimes tell his wife that he wasn't home just to. Just to avoid the interaction. He was a newspaper man. And when he retired, he started to get a little lonely. And so he started to do this social experiment. And the experiment had two parts. The first part was he rented 80 tables, 88 foot tables and put them down the middle of the street with 700 chairs and put out a little message on the community board saying we're going to have a dinner. All of us come for the longest, the longest meal in Paris. And people did. And there was this incredible celebration in the street.

[Adam Grant]

And then, wait, are we talking longest in terms of table or time?

[Dan Coyle]

Longest in terms of table. Longest table. Longest table in Paris.

[Adam Grant]

I'm picturing this 19 hour dinner thinking get me out of here.

[Dan Coyle]

No, very, it's great celebration. And so these groups started to form. Like one group was a group to talk about books. Another group was a book to talk about pets. Another was a bike repair group. Another group was a memories group where their older people talk about their younger lives. Another group was about the museum. And these groups each self organized and started gathering. And over the course of that, those months and now years that this has been going on, they call themselves the super neighbors hypervoison. And over the course of that, it has turned this sort of snobbish neighborhood into something much more like a village to hear their voices about. Oh, an older woman saying I broke my WRIST and about 20 people came to see if they could help me. And I'm never lacking for someone to hang out with. And you know, community is a word we use a lot. And that Word actually means shared gifts. Shared gifts. It's not something that you sort of passively receive. It's something that you participate in. We always use the phrase building community, but actually what they're doing is awakening community. It was there all along, waiting for someone to create group flow, waiting for someone to design a message. That's the thing that happens actually in these places, like this neighborhood in Paris, where it's. Nobody's really in charge. It's pretty messy. But they're self organizing toward a horizon. And that messiness is the aliveness, that messiness is the vitality. It's vulnerable. And that mess isn't actually a problem. The messiness is kind of the doorway. It's a new system being created. You cannot create a new way of being together without a great amount of disorder.

[Adam Grant]

So interesting. First of all, I love the image of community as shared gifts. And I also find your description of awakening community as opposed to building it so compelling, because you're right, it was the motivation and the skills were just dormant, waiting to be activated.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, we have this natural love of deep connection. We have the ability, the capacity. What we're lacking is the conditions to do it. What we're lacking is the person to say, here's the table. Here's the invitation. Come on Tuesday at noon. What we're lacking is the person to say, here's the constraints for the small groups. You must gather around a joy device. Those are extraordinary leadership actions because they're unlocking this sense of togetherness and meaningful exploration that we're all like, really, really craving.

[Adam Grant]

Okay, that makes me think we need to talk about Norwich.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, what a, what a place, right? When you start looking around for athletes and Olympians, there's a lot of places that produce Olympians. Right. And a lot of them are names. You know, it's like, oh, a lot of winter Olympians are from Vail or Aspen. And it turns out that a lot of them are also from Norwich, Vermont. And they produced, I think, 11 Olympians. Now I think it's one in every 322 citizens is an Olympian. And when you, when you normally look to try to explain that, normally you think, well, they must have great resources. Well, turns out they really don't have many great resources. They're not home to a great training center. They don't have a ton of super qualified coaches. But what they have is this thing called the Norwich Daisy Chain, which is an informal norm of helping other children as if they were your own. As if they were your own. And that Sort of evolved. Norwich had a great gift happened to it in the 1960s, which is they got a perfect case study on how not to raise an athlete. There was a man named Al Snite who raised both of his daughters, Betsy and Sonny, to be skiers. He was an imperious taskmaster. He had them do morning runs with leg weights. He handled all their ski tuning. He was the nightmare of a tiger athlete parent, an absolute nightmare. Both of them were successful skiers. Both of them fell out of the sport immediately afterwards. No one mistook their story for a happy story. In Norwich, they saw vividly what, what I think St. Augustine called the via negativa. The way not to go. The way not to go. Very powerful to know that, right? That's your boundary, that's your constraint. And as a result, when kids started training for the Olympics in Norwich, they started treating each other differently. They started combining efforts. They'd show up at meets and they'd have bus fulls of people, their friends coming along to watch them, and they'd see athletes from other places and the athletes would look at him funny like, why are all your friends here? And they realized, oh, these other athletes are just with their coaches, like that's all who they go with. So it has evolved into this extraordinarily kind of nursery, an ecosystem really, where people can help each other train and help each other get better and self organized toward a horizon.

[Adam Grant]

I mean, that sounds like just the very foundation of community is the norms are communal.

[Dan Coyle]

That's right.

[Adam Grant]

Right. We, we help other people who are part of that community with no strings attached. Yeah, I mean, you're describing a culture of giving, not taking. That's it in essence. Actually, it reminds me a lot of what I saw in the Norwegian alpine team, you know, storied Olympic skiers. It's, you know, convenient to be from Norway if you want to be an Olympic skier. But one of the things that's really striking to people is now they've started to ascend in the Summer Olympics too, where they don't have the advantages that they do in winter. And I think one of their secret sauces is they, they train their athletes from very young to support each other even in what seems like an individual sport. So, you know, you have Olympic medalists who will finish their race when the stakes are high and then radio up with notes about the course to their teammates.

[Dan Coyle]

Oh my God.

[Adam Grant]

Even though it might cost you a gold to give, you know, to give that little bit of extra help to your teammate, it's a Gold for Norway. And ultimately I think they all get better because of that support. Why is that so rare?

[Dan Coyle]

It's really rooted in, I think, the two words that we get wrong all the time. Complicated and complex. We use the words interchangeably, but in fact they're really, really different. Complicated things are linked up the same every time. I can write on a sheet of paper how to build a Ferrari. And if you have all the right tools and ingredients, if you follow that instruction on the paper, you'll get a Ferrari every time. You won't get a platypus, you'll get a Ferrari. Complex things are really different. Every time you engage with it, the system changes. It senses you and responds to you. And the best way to kind of understand the distinction is to say, is this problem more like building a Ferrari or is it more like raising a teen? Raising a teen is complex. Everything you do, there's no list of instructions I can give you. So the best way to raise a teen is to try things, see what happens and then respond. And you're on this much curvier route, but you're always sort of self organizing and navigating it. And I think the Norwegian team is an example of realizing. And Norwich and these other places, they're realizing the titanic complexity of what they're engaged in. And they realize one person can't do it alone. We have to be a group brain here. We have to combine our efforts to see if we can be better together. And that's a pattern I see in a lot of successful organizations.

[Adam Grant]

I really like that distinction. It's extremely helpful. I think it also dispels a myth that's too easy to subscribe to. When you talk about community, which is you hear about a place like Norwich or about your childhood in Alaska and you think, well, I just need to find one of those and then pick up and move there and I'll have what I'm looking for. And I think what you're unlocking is a bunch of ways that we can actually try to unearth or awaken community wherever we are. I'm just thinking about your via Negativa comment and I'm wondering what else do people do that undermines community? What did you see that backfired or that people expected to work but didn't?

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, a sense of control. I mean, I can speak to that personally, where it's like, I want my family to flourish, but man, when we are doing Thanksgiving dinner, I kind of have my agenda. Right. It's really hard to, to have the level of patience to tolerate the mess. The mess. Like if people were really going to self organize around this, we have to tolerate the mess. One of the leaders I saw who was really good at it was Ed Catmull at Pixar. He would be so patient with his team. He would give them problems and they'd struggle with it for a long time and he'd be waiting, waiting, waiting for them to show some level of animation, some level of energy, and he would. There was one time where there was a team working on, I forget which movie it was. Maybe Brave, but the team ended up pitching a tent together. You know, Pixar loves to kind of bring things to life and they ended up pitching a tent and like camping out somewhere on the campus. And when he saw that, he said, okay, it finally happened. Like they finally came together in some way. And the patience it takes for him to kind of let that unfold at its own pace, I think gets in the way a lot. And I think we're just trained to be impatient, trained to control. And I think we valorize and idealize automation as opposed to animation.

[Adam Grant]

Okay, so two things here. The first one is I think you're on track to set a record for the most past rethinking guests referenced in one rethinking conversation. By my count, you've name checked three in the past 30 minutes. Well done.

[Dan Coyle]

Thank you.

[Adam Grant]

Secondly, I think what you're describing, the willingness to let go of control is one of the most pivotal transformations in my teaching career where I used to think my job was to impart knowledge and that led me to overprepare and overstructure class. And I would see hands go up and I would try to give the kind of rapid fire expert answer and then move on. And a few years in, I think I gained the confidence that if I let the class take over a little bit, I could still guide, I could guide the discussion in a useful direction. So I think I got more comfortable as a choreographer and a conductor. But I also, I also realized that my role was kind of misdefined, that I wasn't just there to impart knowledge. I was there to build a community. And in a community, people have shared ownership over the dialogue, over the activity, over the pursuit of whatever their goals are. And it just opened up a whole new world of teaching where all of a sudden I was able to say to students, you know what? It's up to you to design a class session. I'm going to leave one open. You're in charge, make your pitches it has to have pedagogical value. So I'm going to rule out anything that just sounds fun, but we're not going to learn anything.

[Dan Coyle]

Thea negatigo.

[Adam Grant]

Exactly. But lo and behold, they end up coming up with ideas that I never would have considered. And many of those have become staples.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Of my class now.

[Adam Grant]

And I guess looking back, it never would have occurred to me that to grow as a teacher, giving up control was the answer, because I thought that master choreography was the job. And I think that this is the problem that a lot of leaders run into. And I didn't have a language for it until you started talking. And it hit me. Oh, these leaders that you see screw up community, they're making the same mistake that I made as a teacher, which is they're unwilling to let go of the reins because they're afraid that they might have a runaway horse.

[Dan Coyle]

That's exactly right. That's exactly. That's a lesson over and over and over. And those four words you said, it's up to you. I think those are probably the most most quoted words or used words in any good community. Right. It's up to you. And this goes back to the complexity conversation, like, why. Why is the natural world so powerful? It's because it's a complex system, and when you put constraints on it, like it has to have pedagogical value and set them loose, you are not just giving instructions or providing directions. You're actually unlocking. You're unlocking them because you're creating conditions for group flow. You're giving them what it needs, which is autonomy, ownership, and belonging in a horizon. When you have those things, you get energy. It's like a pickup basketball game. There's the basket. This is what we're going. You can carry the ball wherever you want. I don't care. Just it's the ball. You go wherever you want, cooperate however you want. That's why sports, I think, in some ways, captures the beauty of that flow. And that's when we are at our best at an organization or a classroom. It's that feeling of unlocking. And then you get this wonderful surprise that's the signature of flourishing. I think, especially with community, is you didn't know it was going to happen. You couldn't have planned it. And so letting go of that as a leader. Here's the other little secret of this. It's nicer because it lets you be lazy. You know, it lets you actually pay attention to things that you might want to pay attention to instead of over Preparing and subscribing to the myth that you can somehow control everything that unfolds in your space, but actually laying back and letting other people do it is better for you, and it's way better for them.

[Adam Grant]

Well, sometimes there's a fine line between empowering and laissez faire leadership. But I think this actually goes back to your point about shared gifts, because when you give up a little bit of control, you basically let people bring what they have to contribute to the potluck. And people feel valued when they can add value that way.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. And if we go back to what is the quality of life about? Well, it's about the quality of our relationships. Well, what's the quality of our relationships? That's really the quality of our conversations.

[Adam Grant]

Right?

[Dan Coyle]

And then what's the quality of our conversations? That's the quality of our questions. So this idea that leaders should constantly be kind of working down that cascade, if they want to have quality relationships, they've got to have better conversations, which means they have to ask better questions. And those questions of what gift could you bring to this? Or what if we tried this? Or what if you took charge of that? Are just really, really powerful questions. And then the other value that pops up all the time is courage. The courage it takes for both them to kind of take that role and for you to let them have that role. And so, over and over in these flourishing communities, I kept seeing those values of curiosity and courage next to each other. Curiosity and courage. And in a way, it kind of reflects the same qualities of any healthy ecosystem, any healthy ecosystem that's gonna grow and be interdependent and connect. And, you know, that's what nature does. Nature is really curious, and nature is really courageous. And so being able to kind of almost mimic those values is what helps drive flourishing.

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[Podcast Host / Announcer]

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[Adam Grant]

You, not against your budget. Okay, let us go to a lightning round where I'm going to try to ask some good questions. What is the worst advice you think people give about building community?

[Dan Coyle]

Think it through. I think thinking about these things and over planning them, I think they can easily get over planned. There's a bias for action in a lot of these communities where you know Patrick Bernard who did the Long Table in Paris, he didn't overthink it. He tried It. He tried it. The learning by doing is very, very high. Cause we're terrible at predicting the future. So don't think through that community action. Don't overthink it. Experiment into the space.

[Adam Grant]

Okay, what is a hot take that you are eager to defend?

[Dan Coyle]

I think words are. What would the kids say? Sus. I'm sort of. I find myself in all of this study of flourishing. It's like, language is often our friend. Language is often our friend, especially when it's used as a bridge. But language is not our friend in a lot of these situations, especially when we're looking at screens and typing to each other. I'm reminded of Aronson's work of silently staring into somebody else's eyes is the best way to build a relationship. And we live in this word happy culture, this category, happy culture. And so my unpopular take, I think, is stop using so many words people. Like, go do stuff with each other. And don't worry about the language and don't worry about describing it in detail. Just do things together.

[Adam Grant]

Well, I love the way that you're updating your point that relationships are about conversations, because I think you just said relationships, even more so are about activities.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah, I think they are.

[Adam Grant]

I also have to note that you're basically raining on my word parade here, Dan. Like, words are my life.

[Dan Coyle]

Well, it's not the words. It's the receptive stillness that your words create. Right. People are out there listening, and they're like, oh, wait a minute, what was that? And I think that's where the value is. Right?

[Adam Grant]

Oh, that's interesting. Okay. I could get behind that.

[Dan Coyle]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Shorter podcasts.

[Dan Coyle]

Yes, that's right.

[Adam Grant]

Except for this, but longer form books. Okay. If you're designing your dream dinner party, who are you putting at the table for maximum community building?

[Dan Coyle]

George Saunders and Abe Lincoln. And they're going to sit next to each other, I think, because George wrote a great book about Abe Lincoln.

[Adam Grant]

Lincoln and the Bardo.

[Dan Coyle]

That'll be tension. There'll be a little tension there, I think. You got it.

[Adam Grant]

Yeah. To four rethinking guests. Now, Now.

[Dan Coyle]

Oh, no.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Is that right?

[Dan Coyle]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Grant]

We had Abe Lincoln a few weeks ago.

[Dan Coyle]

Oh, that's wonderful. I think I'd have to have some music there. Right? I think I'd have to have Bruce Springsteen. And I think I'd maybe have to. If my daughters are also there. We'd have to bring in Taylor Swift.

[Adam Grant]

All right, what's the question you have for me?

[Dan Coyle]

When in your life did you flourish the most? Did you feel connected to a vibrant community and feel most alive.

[Adam Grant]

I think for me, it's less when than with whom. I feel it a ton on family vacations. That's a big one. And I think that one of the things that's great about a family vacation is you have the shared purpose, but you also are letting go of control and trying to decide as a group, what do we want to do now? Where do we want to go? Mm, I love that. And I think those are sources of some of my favorite memories, I think. I don't know. First semester of college for me was a really strong one. I felt this tremendous sense of freedom, starting over in a new place, halfway across the country with completely new people. And I think the sense of possibility was what really stood out, that it was almost like I could become anyone and I could discover anything that I wanted to learn. And I felt like I woke up every morning with something to look forward to.

[Dan Coyle]

That's wonderful.

[Adam Grant]

So one thing we haven't talked about yet, leaving the lightning round behind, is one of the things I love about your work, Dan, is what a great storyteller you are. And I know you spent a lot of time studying and thinking about that craft. Can you talk to me a little bit about the art of storytelling and how you decide something is worth writing about, but then also the crafting and shaping of it?

[Dan Coyle]

Right. Let's say the finding thing. There is really a trust your instincts. When you start tuning into the moments where you can't stop thinking about something, or you keep imagining yourself in a certain place to be tuned into. When your body lights up, when it reads a story, or when you hear a snatch of something or you hear a certain sentence, it's almost like a musical thing. I think we respond to the energy of those stories, and tuning into your own response is the best way to find them. Because I think sometimes there's a lot of little ones that just float past. Right. They are everywhere. There are good stories everywhere. When it comes to the crafting it, I used to think it was all about me as the smart storyteller. Like, I'm going to be the wordsmith, and I'm going to craft some real pretty language. And I've gradually realized that that is just horribly wrong. And when people try to do that, we don't like it as listeners. But what really works is, I think, something that I'm going to name check George Saunders again. I think this deep connection to the struggles of other people. If you can write about something in ways that activates someone's awareness of. Oh, I've dealt with that, too. I know what it's like to have an aging parent. I know what it's like to feel like life is empty. I know what it's like, those little moments of connection where you're not exalting the story up on high, you're actually doing the opposite. You're really bringing it down to the same grounded level, and you're trying to make that guitar string and the other person vibrate a little bit. That's what you sort of are thinking about.

[Adam Grant]

That is such a compelling metaphor. I love the idea of making the guitar strings vibrate.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Yes.

[Adam Grant]

More of that, please. All right, Dan, so I want to bring us full circle here. You go back to Alaska every summer.

[Dan Coyle]

Yep.

[Adam Grant]

How do you awaken community there?

[Dan Coyle]

Well, the first step is to spend 15 years living there full time, and you raise your kid with other people, and when we have four daughters and when you raise people in a small town in Alaska, basically, you're all sharing clothing. There's bags of clothing that get dropped off as kids get older. And so our kids have got other kids names stitched into the back of all their clothes. So that's a good metaphor for being kind of embedded in this place. And the way we do it is we basically have a kind of a long table on the fourth of July. We roast a pig. We invite everybody we know, and people come and play music and sing songs. There's an egg toss. There is some kayak races. Sometimes there's some other games that get played. Every year that's been going on for. I think this is the 50th year that we've had this cabin. So that event, like, I think there's a. We're kind of embodying this bias for action and this idea of just. Just start something and see what happens and good things happen.

[Adam Grant]

Well, I look forward to experiencing it one day. Have not. I think I've. I think I've been to 40 states, and Alaska is on the list of the ones I haven't visited yet.

[Dan Coyle]

So come for the fourth. Adam, we'd love to have you.

[Adam Grant]

I'm accidentally inviting myself here, but.

[Dan Coyle]

You'Re heartily invited.

[Adam Grant]

Thank you. No, it would be a lot of fun to do. And in the meantime, appreciate you helping us rethink how to build a flourishing community.

[Dan Coyle]

Thanks, Adam. It's been so fun talking with you.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by Ted with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glaser. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar, our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson, our technical director is Jacob Winick, and our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne hi Lash Ban Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sanghmaneva and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hans Dale sue and Alison Layton Brown.

[Adam Grant]

Well, I aspire to flourish, so I'm all in on that.

[Dan Coyle]

Well, see, we have to do it mutually, as you know. So all flourishing is mutual.

[Adam Grant]

Damn it.

[Dan Coyle]

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