Corporate culture is critical to any organizational change effort. This book offers a proven model for identifying and leveraging the essential elements of any culture.
 

In a world that changes at a dizzying pace, what can leaders do to build flexible and adaptive workplaces that inspire people to achieve extraordinary results? According to the authors, the answer lies in recognizing and aligning the elusive forces—or the “puzzling” pieces—that shape an organization’s culture.
 
With a combined seventy-five years’ worth of research, teaching, and consulting experience, Mario Moussa, Derek Newberry, and Greg Urban bring a wealth of knowledge to creating nimble organizations. Globally recognized business anthropologists and management experts, they explain how to access the full power of your culture by harnessing the Four Forces that drive it:
 
Vision: Embrace a common purpose that illuminates shared aspirations and plans. 
Interest: Foster a deep commitment to authentic relationships and your organization’s future.
Habit: Establish routines and rituals that reinforce “the way we do things around here.”
Innovation: Promote the constant tinkering that produces surprising new solutions to old problems.
 
Filled with case studies, personal anecdotes, and solid, practical advice, this book includes a four-part Evaluator to help you build resilient organizations and teams. The Culture Puzzle offers the definitive playbook for thriving amid constant transformation.
 
 

Corporate culture is critical to any organizational change effort, yet in a recent survey less than a third of executives said they understand theirs. This book offers a proven model for identifying and leveraging the essential elements of any culture.

If you're going to make any significant change in an organization, you have to recon the organizational culture. Because as Peter Drucker famously said, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." But there can be a big difference between the official culture as described in the company handbook and how work really gets done. So how can leaders know what their actual corporate culture is?

This book, written by a unique team of two culture-change experts and a business anthropologist, is about solving this "culture puzzle." The authors explain the psychological processes that make it hard for leaders to see problems in the existing culture and offer what they call the 3G framework for understanding their actual culture: how people really get along, get ahead, and get results. They also provide detailed tactical advice on creating new cultures that meet these needs in a different way. This book helps puzzled leaders harness the power of the 3Gs to align culture with strategy.

“Anthropologists specialize in culture, but for too long their expertise has been largely out of reach for leaders and managers. Not anymore. This is a stimulating, sensible guide to understanding—and improving—the values and norms of your workplace.”
—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of THINK AGAIN and host of the TED podcast WorkLife

“A must-read for leaders who want to understand how their organization actually works—and why. The Culture Puzzle explains, in an upbeat, entertaining way, why an organization chart can never capture the organic nature of the teams that are so important to us and how we can leverage the life inside them.”
—General Stanley McChrystal, founder and CEO, McChrystal Group

“One of the least appreciated but most valued facets of organizational life is the collective mindset that we share and nurture in the workplace. We inherit a culture when we arrive, and we all become responsible for renewing it once there. The Culture Puzzle provides a compelling road map for doing so.”
—Michael Useem, Professor of Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Leadership Moment and The Edge
 
“This is an admirably clear, engaging, and well-written book that shows why no business leader, or would-be leader, can afford to ignore the slippery issue of ‘culture’—or what is sitting below your nose. It takes the reader on a lively journey from ancient Egypt to modern companies such as Warby Parker and shows, in a practical way, how to read your own institutional culture—for good and bad—and make it work more effectively.” 
—Gillian Tett, Chair of the Editorial Board, Financial Times, and author of The Silo Effect

“JetBlue has been successful largely because of its solution to the culture puzzle. To help your organization discover its own answer, follow the advice provided in this immensely practical and wonderfully engaging book.”
—Mike Barger, founding member of JetBlue Airways and Assistant Clinical Professor of Business Administration, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
  
“To thrive in a time of social, environmental, and market upheaval, we need great culture builders—people who inspire others to live the company’s values, not just talk about them. Through riveting storytelling and insight into human motivation, this book will help you to build a culture that will support people—and your business—to soar to new heights.”
—Annie McKee, bestselling coauthor of Primal Leadership and author of How to Be Happy at Work

“A thorough, highly engaging, and superbly written exploration of organizational culture.”—Kirkus Reviews