 Rocky Mountain Ruby group of people. This is very exciting for me. This is the first time I've been to Boulder and Denver. It's a great town, a great set of towns. It's super cool. So I'm super happy to be here. My name is Adam Cuppey. I'm from Zeal. You can check us out online, codingzeal.com. On the interwebs, you can find me in a few different places. You can find me on GitHub. And also you can find me on Twitter. The difference is I spell my name out one, not the other. It's the thing you do. And then, of course, when all of this is said and done, I'm gonna make sure that all of the slides are included online at SpeakerDeck. So by all means, take a look. I just wanna be really upfront about this, is the topic that we're gonna be talking about today, it's likely to have a lot of feedback. And that's great. And I totally welcome it. In fact, I really encourage it. So if there's anything that you have to say, especially following this, by all means, please let me know. Unfortunately, because we had to kind of truncate all of the times of the speaking, I'm not gonna be able to refer to actually what all the references are. But if you're interested in what they are, because a lot of this, well, all of this is backed up by some actual research. So if you're interested in where it came from, the reports that have been done and so forth, by all means, let me know. I'd be more than happy to share with you. I think that would be really great. Okay, so I know you already asked this, but welcome to the action round. So here's what I'm gonna ask you to do. You're not gonna need your laptops. So unless you absolutely needed this moment, I want you to close it. The next thing I want you to do is I want you to fill in as far forward as you can. It might be uncomfortable for you, but I want you to do it. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. Get up, out of your seat, move, come on. Scoot in, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. Come on, put it away, let's do this, come on. You're here for a conference, people, let's do this. Come on, come on. Scoot in, let's do this. You got this, you and me. We're gonna be like this. Like Starsky and Hutch. Like peas in a pod. So come on down, come on down. It's only 20 minutes of your life. You'll be able to take a break. Those emails can wait, I promise you. That last commit you need to get out the door before somebody yells at you. They won't notice in 20 minutes, okay? Trust me on this one. All right, so the thing is that what we're talking about ultimately, like the intent of all of this stuff really matters, right? And so I really wanna make sure that you take the opportunity. Like I, okay, my background is in theater. That's where I came from. I discovered that people don't make a lot of money doing that, and software was a great alternative, right? So ultimately I found that my love for not only art and technology could emerge, right? And they could come together. And so with that being said, like my goal here is that you leave a feeling of being entertained to a certain extent, okay? So that's the idea. So feel free, like involve yourself. Like have a good time. It's actually shown that if you do, like if you actually emit words, sounds from your mouth and physicality from your body, that it actually engages another part of your brain that can't just happen by just sitting and being stagnant. So again, I hope you have a really good time one way or another. So here's what we're talking about today. Culture. And I have a feeling this bottom line at the bottom there was the thing that got a few people interested. And it's only three letters away from cold. And this was an interesting idea when, you know, kind of visiting everything that had to do with what culture meant. So Coding Zeal is a consultancy. I'm one of its founders. And when we formed the company, this was a topic that we had to approach pretty much right away, right? Like the thought of what does it mean to be a part of a culture was a really big deal. And being young at this in business specifically, like the thought of this and the implications of it really meant a lot. So over time, we've made a few discoveries. A lot of them were wrong, a few assumptions and hypotheses that were invalidated as false. So this is really a little self-autobiographical, right? And at the same time is there's a lot of learnings that we have made and I wanna share those with you. Starting off with the story, when I was a kid, there was something, and this may resonate for you too, there was just limitless possibility. I mean, I could be anything if I wanted to be. I could be the president. I could be a space ranger if I wanted to. I mean, I could be a wolf. Like anything I wanted to be was up to me, right? My options were limitless and my constraints were limited, right? I mean, I didn't even know what a constraint was. I could do anything. Now the thing is, is that when I became an adult, as I grew up, there was a couple of like, realizations that became ingrained in me. And the first was this, that my potential is limited by my perceived constraints. This was first and foremost. That all that potential, I mean, I couldn't be a space ranger because, well, you know, when I was 14, I had my left lung removed. I only have one right lung. You know, nobody's gonna send you into space with one lung. I mean, most people ask you, how do you survive? And I look at them and go, well, right? I'm standing here today. But the reality is that this is real, right? Is that my potential is limited by my perception of what my constraints happen to be. And this was the other. I can be bought. Most people are like, no, you can't. I can't be bought. Nobody buys me. Yeah, they can. And here's why. Now this is sourced from Tony Robbins. There's been references to this many times before. But these are what he refers to as the six human needs. Everything that we do in our life, this is the theory, ultimately boils down to pursuing the fulfillment of these six needs. Walking through them briefly. So certainty is the idea that there is a degree of predictability in my life. That the things that are will remain to be as long as I like them to be. So as an example, many people within their jobs, they, that what keeps them there is a sense of the need for certainty. I want to be here because of this reason. Now, uncertainty is the antithesis of that. Variety, passion, excitement. Anybody to skydive here or anything like that? Jump off a cliff, totally. Stuff like that. I mean, eat food that went past the expiration date. Rebels, total rebels. Right, so that's uncertainty, passion, excitement, variety, right? The third is significance. This is the feeling of being important to someone or something else, right? That I have relevance and meaning at some level in my life. The fourth is love and connection. I love you guys, all of you. I feel we're connected. Need fulfilled. Check, Mark. So love and connection is essentially that, right? Is the feeling that I'm a part, not only a part of something, but somebody cares about me and that I feel connected to the things in the community around me. Now I'm gonna stop there for just a moment and explain what the top four represent and these are very egocentric things. These are things that are from your perception about you. They're based to fulfill and the actions that fulfill it are things that are egocentric in nature, right? Now, when a study, the following the study down this path, what had been done was the question was, if you had to pick two that you pursue a majority of your time, if you got really honest with yourself, not the things you wish you pursued, but the things you do pursue, most people if they had to pick two are certainty and significance. Those are the two that they follow and follow to fulfill the most, right? Now the bottom two here are really interesting, growth. The idea that I'm growing, like that I'm evolving as a person and as an individual and contribution is that I'm giving back. Now, if the top four are egocentric, the bottom two are ethocentric, right? But again, this idea is that there is a loop that happens here and that is this, that if I'm fulfilling the bottom two, the bottom four will also be fulfilled. But unfortunately, the bottom two are risky. That's the problem. But these are the six human needs. Now, there's this quote that I thought was really fascinating and that is a lonely individual soon loses any sense of purpose, any notion of meaning, any feeling of belonging in such a state, a cult is a cure to that. Now, let's think about that for a moment, right? What a cult ultimately represents if we look through history, what a cult is, is by and large they follow some sort of religious sect but setting that aside, religion aside entirely, the attributes of what it is are very clearly driven towards fulfilling that list of human needs. Now, going back to that list very briefly, I want to explain one more thing and that's this, that if any one thing fulfills a combination of four or more, it becomes an addiction, right? So think about it, think about the addictions that exist, alcohol, smoking, groups, whatever it happens to be, and you'll find consistently that that thing will fulfill at least four, the certainty I can smoke it, right? The significance that comes with it socially, so on and so forth. And here's what I discovered, that although I'm inspired by pleasure, right? I want great things ultimately, I'm driven by fear, that's real. Now, this is just something that is very true and very unfortunate ultimately in my life and I think this is shared by a lot of people. And to explain what the difference between these two is this, that inspired by pleasure could be that I'm inspired by the idea that I'm self-worth, that I have self-worth, that I am something of value. But unfortunately, when I'm driven by pain, that fear, right? When I'm driven by that, ultimately I can fall down this rabbit hole making decisions that may not be in my best interest. So what I did is I went to Google, I was like, okay, well let's talk about cults for a minute, I mean I have it in the subheading of the thing, let's find out what it's all about, you know what I'm saying? And I was like, okay, so, here are the seven easy steps to start a cult. Number one is, you create your own reality. Number two, set the leaders up as the only link to paradise. Number three is make increasing demands. Number four is keep turning out stories of greatness about the leadership. Number five is use your converts to bring in more converts. Number six is keep everybody busy and number seven is keep your flock fixated on the carrot. That's it, there's the seven. Who wants to create a cult? Anyone with me? So when we talk about culture, ultimately when we look at this idea that culture is this multitude of individuals that are all combined towards a common goal, we all start out with the right intentions. I think every organization does. I think rarely, I think it's far more rare that there's this sense of like divisive evilness that sits underneath it. I think more often than not, we have the right intentions. But again, if we go, you know, I mean, and we think about this like, you know, that we've heard the phrase of like, we want you for you, like we want your individuality. And I think that's true. I think that is very real. But when we go back to the human needs, we gotta remember one fundamental and very important thing is that we all need these things, right? So when you look at the leaders of an organization, what can happen is that although they may be inspired by pleasure and pain, they are still driven by pain, right? And so if you flip this a little bit and look at it like this, that I could be inspired by success, but I'm driven by fear, this reality puts it in this reciprocating loop, right? This recursive loop, excuse me, that causes this downward spiral, right? And the net effect of that downward spiral is that fear will drive our decisions. And the only way to control that is to control the mechanisms and the people around it. So what happens is that we end up in this situation where we go from this and soon it evolves to this. We don't even mean it to. I've met with a lot of different like leaders of, not just tech companies, but other companies, this was kind of like something else that I do. And this is the realization of like, nobody wants to admit this is being true, but this unfortunately is what happens. We inadvertently create this notion of being cult-like because we have to control the people in the way they do what they do because we're so afraid of failing at succeeding. And ultimately what happens is compliance becomes our most prized possession, right? This is the danger, compliance, or sorry, loyalty, right? So if we go back to our list again, when we look at what the seven easy steps to start a cult are, and all we do is that kind of sounds the same, kind of works, doesn't it? Well, you just create your own reality, right? Set up the leaders, make increasing demands, keep turning out stories of greatness. I mean, it's like, well, yeah, that's exactly what happens. That's, it's so unfortunate, but it's totally true. I didn't mean it to, it just does, right? So ultimately we get to this reality, which is our success is limited by our perceived fears, but how do we get around that? Like what do we do? Like, I mean, great, thanks, yeah, totally, gotcha. But what about it? Like what do I do? Well, so you have to start by asking yourself, what is the quality that differentiates that of a culture against that of what we might consider a cult? Something that follows very dogmatic principles at some level. And well, a company culture is an evolutionary process. It's the same foundational elements as it was in the beginning, but as it evolves and grows, it never loses its sense of focus and its sense of alignment, okay? Think about it as the root of cultivate and what that means. You start with seeds, you start with some sort of base, that base grows and builds, it evolves into something great and now we have a cultured something, a cultured experiment of some kind. I've always thought about this that, you know, software is not really like building a house. It's like conducting a science experiment. You have the same principles, but it's the combinations of those things that create something beautiful. And you can combine a whole bunch of different things and a whole different bunch of combinations to get somewhere, right? But it's the cultivation that really is what software represents. And I think ultimately this is what it is. Culture is like a box of colored pencils, right? Each color is unique in and of itself, but they share a common purpose or function, right? They're all meant to do the same thing, but they're totally individualized. And here's the beautiful thing is with each new color that's added to the box, with every new one, the diversity of options grows exponentially, but they always share the same common goal. They have the same function. I think this is really important about when you're cultivating a culture. Now if you extend the metaphor a little farther, if you use up any one of these colors at any point in time, you have burnout, right? You run out. And this is very true as well. So if you think about it well, okay, if we control this base, right? And we truncate it down to as much as we can and we get down to that point, right? Then we get to the situation where we can no longer, we can no longer have those multiple options and as a result of that we burn out, right? We lose our ability to continue to make this incredible beauty and diversity. I loved this. This is the difference, right? As a culture, it's just common values shared amongst people individually overlapping in certain areas. These subcultures emerge. You can see it all throughout history in so many different ways. And as a cult, you run into this situation where conformity and dogmatism drive the difference and drive that and conformity is rewarded, loyalty, right? That you're not allowed to question why that's not acceptable because if you do, then you're bridging outside of our very constrained intertwined circles, right? Your company culture is like your company's operating system. Really, right? It's the root of it all. At the root of a Mac computer or an Apple computer, you have Unix, most Linux is the same deal, right? But the root of it is what really matters. So if that be true, right? Then what it means is that your team is the software which makes the company memorable, good or bad, right? But it's the cultivation of that that really matters. That's the thing that has value. And a culture is any organization, of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior that its leaders are willing to tolerate. Which means this, that the leaders, that the leaders are the organization's test suite. That's really what they are. They're not meant to find the answer. They're meant to assert whether or not we've had the answer, found the answer. So with that being said, ultimately leadership can come from anywhere and everyone, even if they don't mean it to, right? I mean, how many times in your groups, in your teams, have you like that person just like totally stepped up? They're just kind of like leading the charge. And you ask him and you're like, wow, you're really kind of good at this, like totally like inspired by like, oh no, no, no, that's not me, that's not me. Right? Because leadership can come from anywhere. Ultimately what happens, what defines great leadership is those that are willing to ask that hard question and assert whether or not what has been done so far is fulfilling the core values and objectives. Right? That's really what it is. So Sandy Metz, I, again, kind of like tying this to this analogy of Sandy Metz where you're talking about sending a message, right? I'm sending a message, right? Is this doing what it should do? And I don't necessarily care entirely what the result is coming back. I just know that it's matchy. I don't care how it's done. I just want to make sure that it is done and that it matches my expectation. So, like I mentioned, this is a little self-reflective, right? It's mildly autobiographical. And so I kind of want to just walk through the process that we went through and the discoveries that we made. And ultimately, our convening question at this time is how can I bring the most value to myself, my team, my community, and my company? That ultimately becomes our convening question as an organization because it fulfills all of those things. And if at some point we can ask ourselves, well, is this thing we do, whether it be pair programming or it's working remotely or growing the team or even sending holiday gifts to our clients or whatever it happens to be or things like making a four-day work week instead of a five or whatever it happens to be, those are answers to these very fundamental questions of like, how can we bring the most value to ourselves, our team, our community, and our company? So a few distinct traits that we found and this is the thing I'd encourage every team to do is determine what your traits, your core values ultimately are and ours ultimately boil down to empathy as one. It's very easy to grow and contribute when you're empathizing, our artisanship because we want to produce something that feels good, right? And then the last, of course, is enthusiasm. Like we want to love what we do. Like we want to have a good time and enjoy everything about doing it. So that's always the goal. So the thing is this, that your core values ultimately become things that are relatively abstract and high level and that's okay because in staying abstract and high level, it leaves the individuals of the team to interpret them differently. And as a result of that, they can think differently about those things, how best to fulfill it. That's an incredibly valuable proposition as an organization. So again, it's left to the team to define it and that's the goal, leadership should not be doing that, leadership should be asking that question. So we get down to this, which is so now what? Like, okay, so cool. Well, ultimately what I'm hearing is that a cult and a culture by definition is slightly different but I don't totally know what makes it different and whether or not like we're in something that's good or bad. So I synthesized it down to these current, currently these five questions and the first is this. Are both the leaders and the members empowered to change? Are they empowered to change at some level that has relevance and importance? This is incredibly important. Common through all cults across the board is they remove that empowerment. They don't have the decision-making authority, right? Oftentimes the leadership is put in a position where they have to control it through things that are outside of everyone's control and that's a negative side, right? Now here's an important thing is in a democracy as an organization, it's imperative that you have openness, right? Openness is really critical but that openness only needs to be sufficient, right? So as an example, financially speaking, like I think it's as a owner of a company, I think it's really important that the team understand our financial standing, like they get where we're at, right? But what may not be necessary is things like salary information. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't and that's okay. So the level of openness should just be sufficient to that ideal. The next is are the leaders and members held accountable equally? This is incredibly important. Now they may not be accountable to one another but it's in the best case scenario they are, right? Just like any code, you need to be able to refactor if it's not meeting the need, right? Or the value proposition. So again, that's the idea. You wanna make sure that there's levels of accountability. And the third is this. Are members punished for asking why? This is incredibly important as well and this is something that stands out for almost all colts, is that you're not allowed to ask why. You just dogmatically follow a process. Now, here's something that's very important is that just because you don't like the answer why, doesn't mean you're being punished, okay? So it's just important that you have that opportunity to ask that very fundamental question. We wanna be pragmatic about what we do. And number four is are you fulfilling your own needs? And this was a big realization that we made about our own organization is it is not in the best interest of the organization to fulfill, to work to fulfill all the needs of its people. That because again, if you go back to that list, if you inadvertently, which I think is common, fulfill four or more, you've created an addiction and you've created that binding that leaves people in the sense of pure dedication and you lose themselves. You lose that sense of individuality and that's no good anymore. So you need to let people be given the opportunity to fulfill their own needs. And as a team, don't try and fulfill all of them. Pick a few that do matter, come to terms with that and leave it at that. It's the best thing you can do. And the last is, and this is just kind of simple and obvious, but do your core values. Use a person aligned with that of the organization. And if they do, great, that's awesome. And if they don't, ask why. If you don't like the answer, there's the law of two feet and that's okay, right? But as long as the organization is dedicated to making sure that it's not creating an addiction, right? That interdependency, then hopefully the goal is, is that you as an individual are never in a position where you don't feel like you can leave, right? Where you feel like you're empowered to be able to affect change in your life and this is important. Ernie Miller gave a fantastic talk this last year called Humane Development that was all about the way to think about people, not as resources, but as people. And I think this is the crux of that, is that our core values must align, individuality must align, like this must be embraced. I am me and I come with myself cost and benefit, right? And let's hope that my benefit outweighs my cost, right? So I hope you enjoyed it. Again, my name's Adam Cuppey and if you have any questions whatsoever or you'd like any more references or whatever, I'd love to share those with you and your feedback, totally. Any experiences from other organizations or groups, I would love to hear it. So thank you very much. Questions? Not, yes.