Re:Thinking with Adam GrantHow to create a flourishing community with Dan Coyle | ReThinking
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
35 min read · 6,721 words- 0:00 – 0:28
From mountaintop success to “treasure creation” in the valleys
- DCDan Coyle
I spent five years visiting places, businesses, nonprofits, communities, places that created treasure. 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. [upbeat music]
- 0:28 – 1:49
Growing up in Alaska: harsh conditions that force cooperation
- AGAdam Grant
So I, I thought it'd be fun to start this conversation in Alaska.
- DCDan Coyle
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
I wanna 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.
- DCDan 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, um, I grew up there, and you quickly realize you have to make your own family. You, you have Christmas and Thanksgiving with your friends 'cause 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 in 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, um, complete, I don't know, what are the old movies, Andy Rooney movies where they said, "Well, ooh, 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.
- 1:49 – 4:13
Shared suffering, vulnerability, and the surprising upside of disaster
- AGAdam Grant
So interesting. So is this, is this a case then that shared suffering is key to community?
- DCDan Coyle
Yeah, I think it is. I think it is 'cause 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." It's like, wait a minute, we've gotta go get a spare tire from our neighbor to make our truck run.
- AGAdam Grant
I read a paper years ago, uh, looking at, at when sort of communal and cooperative values emerge in cultures and when people take a more selfish kinda every person for themselves mentality.
- DCDan Coyle
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
And extreme weather plus scarce resources-
- DCDan Coyle
Mm-hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... was a recipe for the selfish kind of, I've gotta be a taker because there's not enough to go around, uh, value system. And it sounds like you think if resources aren't too scarce, you can get the opposite from an extreme environment.
- DCDan 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 and 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. I l-" They, 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 in all the sort of modern ways we think about ourselves as machines. You know, we think about ourselves as a great business is a great machine, right? We think of, um, uh, 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 'cause you're growing up in Alaska, or maybe it's 'cause 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.
- AGAdam 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.
- DCDan Coyle
That's right.
- AGAdam Grant
Most of us don't wanna have to pick up and move to Alaska.
- DCDan Coyle
That's right.
- AGAdam Grant
Sorry, Alaska.
- 4:13 – 6:28
A personal turning point: grief, emptiness, and Barry Schwartz’s quote
- DCDan Coyle
Yeah. [laughs] 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, 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, um, where I was really feeling the speed and emptiness of the world. You know, those moments where you're sort of reckoning with what, what's it all about? What am I doing here? Um, for me, that came after my parents passed away. And around that time, I, I, 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, like, kinda knocked me down. You know, I'd, I'd spent my years, my, my career, like a lot of people, you know, working hard, focused on family, um, sorta climbing the career mountain, and I'd actually written books about a lot of people who were in high performance kind of climbing the career mountain. And that quote, treasure creation. Treasure creation, not treasure hunting, um, 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.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, the irony of this is you had to go on a treasure hunt [laughs] to, to find-
- DCDan Coyle
That's right
- AGAdam Grant
... the people who are-
- DCDan Coyle
That's right. That's right
- AGAdam Grant
... who are making the treasure. So one, one of the things I've always admired about your work is you, you have a nose for what is the most interesting place to observe the dynamic that for most people is out of reach.
- DCDan Coyle
Mm.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I think, you know, I see you consistently going to sports teams and to military units.
- DCDan Coyle
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
Uh, 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.
- DCDan Coyle
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
And now in Flourish, you find extraordinary community in some of those same places. I, I'd love, I'd love to hear about some of the most remarkable communities that you visited and what you learned from studying them.
- 6:28 – 8:10
Zingerman’s as “attentional architecture”: training presence, not scripts
- DCDan Coyle
Well, they kind of get inside you, and it, it happened to me at Zingerman's. Um, I think you might have been there in your Michigan days.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] Many times.
- DCDan Coyle
Zingerman's is a little deli- little deli in Ann Arbor. Started in one room. It, uh, ended up, it's grown into a $90 million community of businesses in this just marvelous organic way, operating at an extremely high level. Kind of a magical place. And, and, uh, going... I, I started spending a little bit of time there. Ari Weinzweig, 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, it's kind of funny. 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're not, 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-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- DCDan Coyle
... 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, it was so funny 'cause 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, [laughs] 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."
- 8:10 – 9:53
Onboarding for belonging: stand out first, then knit into the story
- AGAdam Grant
You know, this, this reminds me of some research that my colleague Dan Cable led in an experiment with new hires in a multinational company.
- DCDan Coyle
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
I mean, the, 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 kinda 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, in- instead of just learning about the company, they get to come up with a personal highlight reel-
- DCDan Coyle
Mm
- AGAdam Grant
... 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."
- DCDan Coyle
Exactly right. Exactly right. And then knitting that all into a larger story of telling the story of, "Here's how Zingerman's 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, could kind of look at their jobs through those lenses, too.
- AGAdam Grant
You know, as I was reading Flourish, I was struck by the fact that [laughs] you, you seem to have landed somewhere that I also stumbled, which is every time I come back from Europe, and it, it doesn't seem to matter that much which country it is in Europe, uh, I come back with a sense that Europeans understand how to build community in ways that Americans are struggling with.
- DCDan Coyle
Yeah. Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
And you, you also, you ended up in a, I would say a large number of European communities-
- DCDan Coyle
Yep
- AGAdam Grant
... when you were researching the book. Was this intentional? Was it accidental? I'd, I'd love to hear some of the things you learned and kind of why, why you were drawn so much to Europe.
- 9:53 – 11:30
Paris’s “Longest Table”: awakening dormant community through simple invitations
- DCDan Coyle
Yeah, it did end up, end up being kind of accidental, but the place that, uh, it characterized it most for me was a place that started out most like America. It was a little neighborhood called Petit Montrouge in Paris. Upper class, kind of snobbish. Um, middle class, rather. Upper middle class. Um, and there was a, 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 newspaperman, and when he retired, he started to get a little lonely, and so he started to do this social experiment, and the experiment was, had two parts. The first part was he rented, uh, 80 tables, 80 eight-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 gonna have a, 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. And then-
- AGAdam Grant
Wait, are we talking longest in terms of table or time?
- DCDan Coyle
Longest in terms of table. Longest table.
- AGAdam Grant
Okay.
- DCDan Coyle
Longest table in Paris.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I'm picturing this 19-hour dinner-
- DCDan Coyle
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... thinking, "Get me out of here."
- DCDan Coyle
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 book was a, a group, a bike repair group. Another group was a memories group where they would talk about their, older people talk about their, 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, Hyper Voisins. And over the course of that, it has turned this
- 11:30 – 13:34
Community as “shared gifts” and the power of designed mess
- DCDan Coyle
sort of snobbish neighborhood into something much more like a village. To hear their voices about, "Oh, I'm..." An older woman saying, "I broke my wrist and I, uh, about 20 people came to see if they could help me, and I'm, I'm never lacking for someone to hang out with." You know, community is a word we use a lot, and, 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 mess. That's the thing that happens actually in these places. It's 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, um, it's messy and, and that mess isn't, isn't actually a, a problem. Mess- 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.
- AGAdam Grant
So interesting. I love, uh, first of all, I love the image of community as shared gifts. And I, I also find your description of awakening community as opposed to building it so compelling. 'Cause you're right, it was, the, the motivation and the skills were just dormant waiting to be activated.
- DCDan Coyle
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. Uh, no negativity. 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.
- 13:34 – 16:16
Norwich, Vermont’s “Daisy Chain”: norms of helping produce Olympians
- AGAdam Grant
Okay, that makes me think we need to talk about Norwich.
- DCDan Coyle
Hmm. Yeah. What a place, right? When you start looking around for, uh, uh, athletes and, and Olympians, um, 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, uh, a lot of them are also from Norwich, Vermont, and they produced I think 11 Olympians now. Um, I think it's one in every 322 citizens is, is an Olympian. Um, and when you, when you normally look to try to ex- 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 don't, they're not home to a great training center. Um, they don't have a ton of super qualified coaches. But what they have is, 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 happen 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 Sunny, 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, 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 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 would, they'd show up at meets and they'd have bus fulls of people, their friends, to coming along to watch them. And they'd see athletes from other places, and they would, the athletes would look at them 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, it has evolved into, has evolved into this extraordinarily kind of nursery for, uh, an ecosystem really, where people can help each other train and help each other get better and self-organize toward a horizon.
- AGAdam Grant
I mean, that, [laughs] that sounds like just the very foundation of community is the norms are communal.
- DCDan Coyle
That's right.
- AGAdam Grant
Right? We, we help other people who are part of that community with no strings attached. Uh, yeah, I mean, you're, you're describing a culture of giving, not taking-
- DCDan Coyle
That's it
- 16:16 – 18:53
Why elite teams share: complex systems need a “group brain”
- AGAdam Grant
... in, in essence. You know, it re- it reminds me a little bit of... Actually, it reminds me a lot of what I saw in the Norwegian Alpine team. Uh, you know, obviously storied Olympic skiers. Uh, it's, you know, convenient to be from Norway if you want [laughs] to be an Olympic skier. But, uh, one of the, 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, um, even in what seems like an individual sport. So, you know, you, 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.
- DCDan Coyle
Oh my God.
- AGAdam 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, you know, ultimately, I think they all get better because of that support. Why is that so rare?
- DCDan Coyle
It, it, it's really rooted in, I think, the two words there's, there's, that we get, we get wrong all the time, complicated and complex. See, there's, they're, 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. The best way to understand the distinction is to say, "Is this problem more like building a Ferrari or is it more like raising a team?"
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- DCDan Coyle
Raising a teen is complex. Everything you do... There's no list of instructions I can give you. But what, 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.
- AGAdam Grant
I really like that distinction. It's, it's extremely helpful. You know, I think it also dispels a, 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-
- DCDan Coyle
Right
- 18:53 – 20:47
What undermines community: overcontrol, impatience, and fear of disorder
- AGAdam Grant
... and I'll have what I'm looking for." And I think what, what you're unlocking is, you know, a bunch of ways that we can actually try to unearth or awaken community wherever we are. I'm, I'm just thinking about your, 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?
- DCDan Coyle
Yeah. A, a s- 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 kinda have my agenda, right? I kinda... I, it's really hard to have the level of patience to tolerate the mess. Like, if it, people, we're really gonna 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, of, of energy, and he would... There was one time where there was a team working on, I forget which movie it was, maybe Brave. Um, but the team ended up pitching a tent together. You know, Pixar loves to kinda bring things to life, and they ended up pitching a tent and go 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, I think we're just trained to be impatient, trained to control, and I think we valorize and idealize automation as opposed to animation.
- AGAdam 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.
- DCDan Coyle
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
By my count, you've name-checked three in the past 30 minutes. Well done.
- DCDan Coyle
Thank you.
- 20:47 – 26:19
Empowerment with constraints: “It’s up to you” and designing for group flow
- AGAdam 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, uh, 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, [laughs] I could guide the discussion in a useful direction. So I, I think I got more comfortable as a choreographer and as a, a conductor, not just a choreographer. But I also, I also realized that my role was kinda 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 that, that just, it, 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 gonna leave one open. You're in charge. Uh, make your pitches. It has to have pedagogical value, so [laughs] I'm gonna rule out anything that, you know-
- DCDan Coyle
Yep
- AGAdam Grant
... just sounds fun, but we're not gonna learn anything."
- DCDan Coyle
Via negativa.
- AGAdam Grant
Exactly. Um, but lo and behold, they end up coming up with ideas that I never would've considered, uh, and, you know, many of those have become staples of my class now. Um, and I, I, I, you know, I, I guess looking back, it never would've occurred to me that to grow as a teacher, giving up control was the answer because I, I thought that master choreography was the job, and I think that this is the problem that a lot of leaders run into, and it's... I didn't, I didn't have a language for it until you started talking and, and it hit me. Oh, these leaders are making... The, the 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.
- DCDan 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." Ed Catmull uses those words all the time. "Now it's up to you." And this goes back to the complexity conversation. Like, why, um, w- 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, um, and set them loose, you are not just giving instructions or providing directions. You're actually unlocking. You're unlocking them 'cause you're creating conditions for group flow. You're giving them what it needs, which is autonomy, ownership, and belonging, and 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 y- y- it, it's the ball. You go wherever you want, cooperate however you want. That's why, that's why sports, I think in some ways, captures the beauty of that flow, and that's when w- when we are at our best in an organization or a classroom. It's, it's that feeling of unlocking, and then you get this wonderful surprise That's the, that's the signature of flourishing, I think, especially with community, is you didn't know it was gonna 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, it's nicer because it lets you be lazy. You know? It lets you actually pay attention to things that you might wanna pay attention to instead of overpreparing and f- 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.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, sometimes there's a fine line between empowering and laissez-faire leadership.
- DCDan Coyle
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
But, uh, I think, you know, this, 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.
- DCDan Coyle
Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. And, you know, if we go back to d- you know, what, 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, right? Like, that's the quality of our relationships. And then what's the quality of our conversation? That's the quality of our questions. So this, this idea that leaders should constantly be kind of working down that cascade, if they wanna have quality relationships, they've gotta 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, in these, 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, courageous. And so, um, being able to kind of almost mimic those values, uh, uh, is what helps drive flourishing.
- 26:19 – 30:30
Lightning round: don’t overthink community, do more together, talk less
- AGAdam Grant
Love it. Okay, let us go to a lightning round, where I'm gonna try to ask some good questions. Dan, what is the worst advice you think people give about building community?
- DCDan Coyle
Think it through. I, I think thinking about these things and p- overplanning them, I think they can easily get overplanned. There's, 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, don't think through that community action. Don't overthink it. Um, experiment into the space.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm. Okay. What is a hot take that you're eager to defend?
- DCDan Coyle
I think words are... [sighs] What would the kids say? Sus? I'm sort of-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- DCDan Coyle
I, I find myself in all of this study of flourishing, it's like language is, 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. Um, I'm reminded of Aronson's work of, you know, 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 that stop using so many words, people. Like, go do stuff with each other. Um, and don't worry about the language, and don't worry about, um, describing it in detail. Just do things together.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, you're, uh, I lo- I love the way that you're updating your point that relationships are about conversations, 'cause I think you just said relationships even more so are about activities.
- DCDan Coyle
Yeah. I think they are.
- AGAdam Grant
I also have to note that you're basically raining on my word parade here, Dan.
- DCDan Coyle
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
Like, word- words are my life.
- DCDan Coyle
Well, it's not the words, it's the receptive stillness that your words create, right?
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- DCDan Coyle
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?
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, that's interesting. Okay, I could get behind that.
- DCDan Coyle
Yeah. There we go.
- AGAdam Grant
Shorter podcasts.
- DCDan Coyle
Yes, that's right. Except for this.
- AGAdam Grant
But longer form books.
- DCDan Coyle
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. Um, okay, so if you're designing your dream dinner party, uh, who are you putting at the table for maximum community building?
- DCDan Coyle
George Saunders and, and Abe Lincoln, and they're gonna sit next to each other, I think, 'cause George wrote a great book about Abe Lincoln.
- AGAdam Grant
Lincoln in the Bardo.
- DCDan Coyle
That'll be tension. There'll be a little tension there. That would be good. You gotta-
- AGAdam Grant
You're up to four ReThinking guests now.
- DCDan Coyle
Oh, no. [laughs] Is that right? Oh.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah, we had Abe Lincoln a few weeks ago.
- DCDan Coyle
[laughs] Oh, that's wonderful. Um, I, I think I'd, I think I'd have to have, um... Oh, gosh. I'd have to have some, some music there, right? I think I'd have to have Bruce, uh, Bruce Springsteen, and I think I'd maybe have to, if, if my daughters are also there, we'd have to bring in Taylor Swift.
- AGAdam Grant
All right. What's a question you have for me?
- DCDan Coyle
When in your life did you flourish the most? Did you feel connected to a vibrant community and, uh, feel most alive?
- 30:30 – 34:34
Storytelling craft and returning to Alaska: long tables, rituals, and tradition
- AGAdam Grant
So w- 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, uh, is what a great storyteller you are. And I know you've spent a lot of time studying and thinking about that craft.
- DCDan Coyle
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
Can you just, can you just talk to me a little bit about the art of storytelling and, you know, how you decide something is worth writing about, but then also the crafting and shaping of it?
- DCDan Coyle
Right. Well, I'd say the finding thing, there is really a, a, 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, when it, when you, or when you hear a s- 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. 'Cause I think sometimes there's a lot of little ones that just float past, right? They're, they are everywhere. There are good stories everywhere. When it comes to the, the crafting it, I used to think it was all about me as the smart to- storyteller. Like, "I'm gonna be the wordsmith, and I'm gonna 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. Um, but what really works is I think something that, you know, if I'm gonna name-check George Saunders again, I think this, this deep kind of, 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, 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, you're, you're sort of trying to make that guitar string in the other person vibrate a little bit. That, that's what you sort of are thinking about.
- AGAdam Grant
That is such a compelling metaphor. I love the idea of making the guitar strings vibrate. Yes. More. More of that.
- DCDan Coyle
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
Please. All right, Dan, so I wanna bring us full circle here. You go back to Alaska every summer?
- DCDan Coyle
Yep.
- AGAdam Grant
How do you awaken community there?
- DCDan Coyle
Well, uh, 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, you've ... Basically you, 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 you're ki- That, that's a good metaphor for being kind of embedded in, in this place. Um, and the way we do it is, uh, we basically have a, a, a kind of a long table, where on the Fourth of July we roast a pig. Uh, we invite everybody we know, and people come and, and play music and, uh, sing songs and do all these, uh, there's an egg toss. There is, uh, 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.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, I look forward to experiencing it one day. Uh, 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, so.
- DCDan Coyle
Come for the Fourth, Adam. We'd love to have you.
- AGAdam Grant
I'm, I'm accidentally inviting myself here, but.
- DCDan Coyle
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- DCDan Coyle
You're heartily invited.
- AGAdam Grant
Uh, thank you. No, would, would be a lot of fun to do. And in the meantime, appreciate you helping us rethink how to build a flourishing community.
- DCDan Coyle
Thanks, Adam. It's been so fun talking with you. [upbeat music]
Episode duration: 34:43
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Transcript of episode XZSJberalV8
