Our 15 Best Books to Improve Corporate Culture

1. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

by Daniel Coyle

Where does excellent culture originate? How do you develop and sustain it in your group, or strengthen a broken culture?

Daniel Coyle's The Culture Code takes readers inside some of the world's most successful companies, including the United States Navy's SEAL Team Six, IDEO, and the San Antonio Spurs, to discover what makes them tick. He demystifies the culture-building process by identifying three important talents that foster cohesiveness and collaboration, as well as explaining how heterogeneous groups learn to work as one mind. Coyle outlines precise tactics that activate learning, ignite cooperation, establish trust, and promote positive change, using examples ranging from Internet retailer Zappos to the comedy ensemble Upright Citizens Brigade to a daring band of jewel thieves. Coyle unearths useful failure stories that demonstrate what not to do, troubleshoots common mistakes, and offers suggestions on how to transform a poisonous culture. The Culture Code provides a blueprint for building an atmosphere where creativity thrives, issues are addressed, and expectations are surpassed by combining cutting-edge science, on-the-ground insights from world-class leaders, and practical suggestions for action.

Culture is not something you are—it’s something you do. The Culture Code gives you control over your life. This book may teach you the concepts of cultural chemistry that change people into teams that can do remarkable things together, regardless of the size of your group or your aim.

2. No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention

by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer

Netflix creator Reed Hastings discusses for the first time the unconventional culture that has made the company one of the world's most inventive, imaginative, and successful.

There has never been a corporation like Netflix before. It has sparked a revolution in the entertainment industry, producing billions of dollars in annual income while captivating the imaginations of hundreds of millions of people in over 190 countries. But, in order to reach these lofty heights, Netflix, which began in 1998 as an online DVD rental business, has had to reinvent itself several times. This kind of unparalleled flexibility would not have been conceivable without the counterintuitive and radical management concepts set by cofounder Reed Hastings from the start. Hastings challenged convention by rejecting conventional thinking and instead building a culture based on freedom and responsibility, allowing Netflix to adapt and innovate as the demands of its members and the world have simultaneously altered.

Hastings established new norms by valuing people over processes, promoting innovation over efficiency, and providing staff with context rather than restrictions. There are no vacation or expenditure regulations at Netflix. At Netflix, acceptable performance earns a large severance package, whereas hard work is unimportant. At Netflix, you don't strive to satisfy your employer; instead, you provide honest feedback. Employees at Netflix do not require clearance, and the firm pays market rates. The ramifications of Hastings and his team's unconventional beliefs were unknown and untested when they were initially created. However, in a very short amount of time, their approaches resulted in unprecedented speed and boldness, and Netflix swiftly became one of the world's most beloved companies.

For the first time, Hastings and Erin Meyer, bestselling author of The Culture Map and one of the world's most famous business thinkers, delve deeply into the contentious ideas at the heart of the Netflix mentality, producing results that are the envy of the business world. No Rules Rules is the fascinating and untold account of the philosophy behind one of the world's most innovative, imaginative, and successful companies, based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Netflix employees from around the world and never-before-told stories of trial and error from Hastings' own career.

3. The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business

by Patrick Lencioni

There is a competitive edge out there, maybe the most powerful. Is it a better strategy? More rapid innovation? Employees who are smarter? No, New York Times best-selling author Patrick Lencioni contends that the fundamental distinction between successful and average businesses is less about what they know and how smart they are and more about how healthy they are. In this book, Lencioni combines his considerable knowledge and many of the topics developed in his past best-selling books to present a first: an unified and complete analysis of the distinct benefit that organizational health gives.

Simply described, a healthy organization is one that is entire, consistent, and complete, with unified management, operations, and culture. Healthy companies outperform their competitors, are devoid of politics and confusion, and offer an atmosphere in which top performers want to stay. Lencioni's first nonfiction book offers executives a ground-breaking, approachable paradigm for attaining organizational health, packed with tales, ideas, and anecdotes from his consulting work with some of the country's most influential firms. It is no longer sufficient to develop a competitive edge only on intellect in this age of information ubiquity and nanosecond change. The Advantage establishes a framework for conducting business in a new way—one that optimizes human potential and integrates the company behind a shared set of values.

4. Organizational Culture and Leadership

by Edgar H. Schein with Peter Schein

Organizational Culture and Leadership is the go-to book for managers and students who want to learn more about the interplay of organizational culture dynamics and leadership. Author Edgar Schein is known as the "Father of Organizational Culture" for his knowledge and research in the topic; in this book, he examines and demonstrates the abstract notion of culture via case studies, demonstrating its usefulness in the management of organizational transformation. This new fifth edition demonstrates how culture has become a popular concept, resulting in a wide range of research and implementation by various organizations. It also expands the focus on the role of national cultures in influencing culture dynamics, as well as some practical concepts for dealing with international differences.

As cultural challenges differ at each stage, special attention is placed on how the function of leadership changes with the age of the company, from inception through mid-life to old age. A fundamental topic of leader behavior is how culture change is managed at each level and in different types of companies.

This seminal work is regarded as the definitive resource in the discipline. This fifth edition, based on extensive research, provides 25% new and revised content to present the most important new concepts and views alongside the core cultural model that has served to define the discipline.

Investigate assumptions and typologies to determine organizational culture.

• Learn how leadership originates, flourishes, or dies culturally.

• Manage cultural change in an effective and suitable manner.

• Recognize the role of the leader in managing diverse groups.

The renewed interest in organizational culture has sparked a boom in study, and new findings are being published on a regular basis. Outdated techniques are being replaced with more effective ways, and the ensuing shift has an impact on companies all around the world. Organizational Culture and Leadership is a must-have resource for researchers, consultants, and executives looking to enhance their organizations in the face of today's commercial realities.

5. Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t

by Simon Sinek

Imagine waking up motivated to go to work, feeling trusted and respected throughout the day, and returning home feeling fulfilled. This is not a fanciful or romanticized notion. Today, outstanding leaders build settings in which people organically collaborate to do extraordinary things in many successful firms.

Simon Sinek discovered that certain teams trust each other so much that they would practically lay their lives on the line for each other when working with businesses all over the world. Other teams, regardless of incentives, are condemned to infighting, disintegration, and failure. Why?

During a chat with a Marine Corps general, the solution became evident. "Officers are the last to eat," he explained. Sinek observed as the most junior Marines ate first, followed by the most senior Marines at the end of the line. What is symbolic in the mess hall is deadly serious on the battlefield: great leaders sacrifice their own comfort – even their own safety – for the sake of those under their command.

Cynicism, paranoia, and self-interest drive far too many workplaces. The greatest ones, however, encourage trust and collaboration because their leaders create what Sinek refers to as a "Circle of Safety," which isolates the team's security from the problems outside.

Sinek's views are illustrated with compelling actual examples ranging from the military to major business, from government to investment banking.

6. Winning Behavior: What the Smartest, Most Successful Companies Do Differently

by Terry R. Bacon and David G. Pugh

Businesses must continuously discover fresh methods to surpass competition in an age where even the finest goods are rapidly replicated. Successful businesses distinguish themselves not just via great goods, but also by how they interact with their consumers at every touchpoint: service, product development, marketing, branding, bids and proposals, presentations, negotiations, and more.

Winning Behavior demonstrates how top organizations utilize behavioral differentiation to surpass expectations and outperform competitors as the "last frontier" in competitive strategy. Case studies and examples from organizations such as GE, Volvo, EMC, Ritz-Carlton, Wal-Mart, and Harley-Davidson are included, as well as interviews with executives such as George Zimmer (Men's Wearhouse), Colleen Barrett (Southwest Airlines), and Gerry Roche (Heidrick & Struggles).

Product quality and competitive price are essential in today's ultracompetitive business world. Winning Behavior explains the techniques that the best firms use – and that every business can apply – to stay at the top of their field.

7. Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live

by Laszlo Bock

"We devote more time to work than to everything else in our lives. It is not acceptable that the workplace environment is so demotivating and demeaning." Laszlo Bock, former head of People Operations at the firm that changed the way the world interacts with knowledge, agrees.

This realization is at the center of Work Rules!, a fascinating and unexpectedly funny credo that provides lessons such as:

• Remove managers' authority over employees.

• Learn from your best and worst workers.

• Hire only smarter individuals than you, no matter how long it takes to locate them.

• Pay inequitably (it's more equitable!)

• Don't believe your instincts: Make use of data to forecast and change the future.

• Be open and transparent by default, and embrace comments.

• If you're satisfied with the amount of autonomy you've granted your staff, you haven't gone far enough.

Work Rules! also provides teaching examples from a variety of industries—including lauded companies that happen to be hideous places to work and little-known companies that achieve spectacular results by valuing and listening to their employees—drawing on the latest research in behavioral economics and a profound understanding of human psychology. Bock takes us inside one of history's most explosively successful businesses to reveal why Google is consistently ranked as one of the best places to work in the world, distilling 15 years of intensive worker R&D into principles that are simple to implement, whether you're a team of one or a team of thousands.

Work Rules! explains how to achieve a balance between creativity and organization, resulting in success that can be measured in terms of both quality of life and market share. Read it to develop a better organization from inside rather than from without; read it to rediscover your passion for your work.

8. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

by Tony Hsieh

Tony Hsieh, the globally regarded CEO of Zappos, the online shoe shop, discusses in this, his first audiobook, how he built a unique culture and devotion to service that tries to enhance the lives of workers, customers, vendors, and supporters. Hsieh presents tangible solutions for businesses to attain unparalleled success by using anecdotes and tales from his own life experiences as well as those of other firms. Even more, he demonstrates how enjoyment and record outcomes go hand in hand.

In a passage when he explains his effort to understand the science of happiness, he begins with the "Why." Then he goes over the 10 Zappos "Core Values," such as "Deliver WOW through Service," "Create Fun and A Little Weirdness," and "Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit," and discusses how you and your coworkers may develop your own.

Hsieh then goes into depth on several of the unusual methods at Zappos that have led to its current success, such as their philosophy of directing marketing dollars to the customer experience, enabling repeat customers and word-of-mouth to be their primary form of marketing. He also discusses why business culture is Zappos' top concern, and his view that if you get the culture right, everything else - amazing customer service, long-term branding - will take care of itself.

Finally, Delivering Happiness outlines how Zappos workers use the Core Values outside of work to improve their lives and make a difference in their communities and the globe.

9. Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

by Patty McCord

Patty McCord believes that most businesses do it wrong when it comes to hiring, motivating, and building outstanding teams. McCord helped build Netflix's distinct and high-performing culture while serving as chief talent officer. She recounts what she discovered there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley in her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility.

McCord argues for workplace radical honesty, saying good-by to people who don't match the company's developing requirements, and encouraging employees with tough work rather than promises, incentives, and bonus programs. McCord contends that traditional corporate HR practices such as yearly performance evaluations, retention strategies, employee empowerment, and engagement programs are typically a massive waste of time and resources. Her tried-and-true counsel, delivered with humour and irreverence, shows readers a new way to foster a culture of high performance and profitability.

Powerful will alter your perspective on work and how a firm should be conducted.

10. Culture by Design: How to Build a High-Performing Culture, Even in the New Remote Work Environment

by David J. Friedman

No one aspect, not sales, marketing, finance, strategy, or operations, has a greater impact on an organization's ultimate success than its culture. Yet, defining culture and, more crucially, knowing what to do about it has always been difficult. David Friedman sliced through the veil in the game-changing first edition of Culture by Design, providing a simple, clear, and practical road map that hundreds of businesses have since followed to develop high-performing cultures. In this revised edition, you'll discover how to modify the tactics he initially taught to suit the particular demands of today's remote work environment.

11. The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace

by Ron Friedman

A riveting and startling tour into the science of workplace greatness for fans of Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Pink, and Freakonomics. Why do successful businesses encourage failure? What can casinos teach us about how to create a pleasant workplace? How can you create an office environment that encourages both attention to detail and creativity? The Best Place to Work, written by award-winning psychologist Ron Friedman, Ph.D., delves into the newest research in the domains of motivation, creativity, behavioral economics, neurology, and management to uncover what truly makes us successful at work. Friedman demonstrates leaders at all levels how to apply scientifically proven approaches to encourage sharper thinking, more innovation, and stronger performance by combining captivating tales with cutting-edge research. Among the many surprise findings, Friedman describes how learning to think like a hostage negotiator may help you defuse a workplace conflict, why keeping a fish bowl at your desk can improve your thinking, and how scheduling strategic diversions can help you make better decisions.

Along the way, the audiobook introduces the scientist who invented the cubicle, the president who prosecuted the world's most dangerous criminal, and the youngster who single-handedly reinvented professional tennis - compelling anecdotes that give surprising insights into attaining workplace greatness. The Best Place to Work, brimming with counterintuitive insights and concrete ideas, gives employees and executives alike game-changing guidance for working smarter and transforming any business - regardless of size, budget, or goals - into an outstanding workplace.

12. Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them

by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini

We need resilient and daring companies in a world of unremitting change and enormous challenges.

Unfortunately, most companies are sluggish and hesitant due to bureaucracy. Top-down power structures and rule-choked management systems are a liability in an age of turmoil. They suffocate innovation and originality. We deserve better as leaders, employees, investors, and citizens. We require companies that are as daring, entrepreneurial, and agile as change itself. As a result, this book.

Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini present a passionate, data-driven case for eliminating bureaucracy and replacing it with something better in Humanocracy. Humanocracy, based on more than a decade of study and packed with practical examples, lays out a precise plan for establishing organizations that are as creative and clever as the people who work in them.

Important building blocks include:

• Motivating colleagues to take on the job of breaking down bureaucracy

• Models: Using the experience of organizations that have successfully challenged the bureaucratic status quo.

• Mindsets: Breaking free from the industrial-age mentality that stifles development

• Mobilization entails forming a pro-change alliance in order to subvert outdated management systems and practices.

• Migration: Instilling humanocratic concepts like as ownership, markets, meritocracy, community, openness, experimentation, and contradiction in the DNA of your firm.

If you've finally had your fill of bureaucratic nonsense...

If you want to establish a company that can outrun change...

If you're devoted to providing every team member with the opportunity to learn, grow, and contribute... then this book is for you.

Whatever your function or title, Humanocracy will show you how to start an unstoppable movement that will equip and empower everyone in your company to be and accomplish their best. The ultimate prize: a future-ready organization that is also human-friendly.

13. The Culture Book: When Culture Clicks (How to Build Incredible Culture from 32 Companies Who Have Done It)

by Weeva and Culturati, Patty McCord, et al

Discover how 32 organizations, including Netflix and Southwest Airlines, have used culture to gain a significant competitive edge. Create a culture that attracts and maintains the appropriate people while also producing excellent financial returns.

A company's operating system is its culture. It's how people interact with one another while you're not looking, and it may be the difference between a firm that develops and thrives and one that sputters to a halt. For the last five years, book co-author Culturati has hosted annual culture-building conferences, compiling the greatest ideas on how to establish healthy, resilient, and dynamic workplaces. Co-author Weeva works with firms such as LendingTree and Zappos to produce beautiful corporate culture publications.

We discuss the following topics in The Culture Book:

• Who is responsible for business culture? Is it the CEO, the C-suite, everyone, or no one?

• Is culture primarily concerned with ideals, conduct, or something else?

• Is there a ROI for culture, or is it simply squishy?

• Can you imitate culture? Is it possible to replicate yours?

• How do you distinguish between what your culture IS and what you believe it is or what you wish it was?

• You'll be taught by 32 experts, including Patty McCord, former Netflix Chief People Officer and author of Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility.

• Kim Malone Scott, former Google and Apple executive and author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller Radical Candor

• Accenture's head of diversity and inclusion, Tamara Fields

• Lanham Napier, former CEO of RackSpace and current co-founder of venture capital firm BuildGroup

• Ginger Hardage, former SVP of Southwest Airlines, leader of their Culture and Communications Group, and currently the creator of the consultancy Unstoppable Cultures, and Mark McClain, CEO of SailPoint

• Plus a lot more!

14. What you do is who you are

by Ben Horowitz

Ben Horowitz has long been interested by history, particularly how individuals behave in unexpected ways. Although the period and circumstances in which they were reared frequently mold them, a few leaders have managed to shape their era. In What You Can Is Who You Are, he addresses a critical topic for any organization: how do you develop and preserve the culture you desire?

Culture, according to Horowitz, is how a corporation makes decisions. It is the collection of assumptions that employees use to solve everyday problems, such as whether they should stay at the Red Roof Inn or the Four Seasons. Should we spend five minutes or thirty hours debating the color of this product? Culture will be an accident or a mistake if it is not deliberate.

The book What You Do Is Who You Are explains how to make your culture intentional by highlighting four examples of leadership and culture-building: Toussaint Louverture of Haiti, who led the only successful slave revolt; the Samurai, who ruled Japan for seven hundred years and influenced modern Japanese culture; Genghis Khan, who established the largest empire in history; and Shaka Senghor, a murderer who oversaw the most dangerous prison gang in the yard and ultimately transformed the culture.

Horowitz connects these examples of leadership to modern case studies, such as how Louverture's cultural techniques were used (or should have been used) by Reed Hastings at Netflix, Travis Kalanick at Uber, and Hillary Clinton, and how Genghis Khan's vision of cultural inclusiveness has parallels in the work of Don Thompson, the first African-American CEO of McDonalds, and Maggie Wilderotter, the CEO who led Frontier Communications. Horowitz then provides advice on how each organization may understand its own strategy and create a successful culture.

What You Do Is Who You Are is a cultural journey from ancient to present times. Along the process, it addresses a key issue for any organization: who are we? When we're not around, how do others talk about us? How do we treat our clients? Are we available to help those in need? Can we be relied on?

The ideals you post on the wall do not define who you are. It's not what you say in the corporate meeting. It's not your marketing strategy. It isn't even what you think. What you do defines who you are. This book seeks to assist you in becoming the type of leader you want to be—and others want to follow.

15. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

by Patrick Lencioni

Kathryn Petersen, DecisionTech's new CEO, had more than a few times when she wondered if she should have accepted the position after spending her first two weeks studying the company's challenges. But Kathryn knew there was a little possibility she would have declined. After all, retirement had left her restless, and nothing piqued her interest like a new task. What she couldn't have realized when she accepted the position was how dysfunctional her team was, and how team members would confront her in ways no one had ever challenged her before.

For the last two decades, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team has captivated audiences with a page-turning, realistic story that follows Kathryn Petersen, CEO of DecisionTech, as she encounters the ultimate leadership crisis. She must bring together a team that is so disorganized that it threatens to wreck the entire corporation.

This authoritative source on teamwork by Patrick Lencioni is equal parts leadership parable and business manual, revealing the five behavioral patterns at the heart of why even the finest teams struggle. He provides a strong model and step-by-step instructions for overcoming such dysfunctions and getting everyone rowing in the same direction.

The teachings in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team are more applicable today than ever before. This special anniversary edition honors one of the best-selling business books of all time with a new introduction by the author reflecting on the book's impact and teachings.

That's a wrap!