Culture is a powerful force that can be sensed within successful businesses, championship teams, and thriving families. It's not just a group trait, but rather a set of living relationships working towards a shared goal. It's not something you are, but something you do. Culture is created by a specific set of skills that tap into the power of our social brains to create interactions that can lead a group of ordinary people to create a performance far beyond the sum of their parts.

A strong culture can increase net income by 765 percent over ten years, according to a Harvard study of more than two hundred companies. However, the inner workings of culture often remain mysterious. We all want strong culture in our organizations, communities, and families. We all know that it works, but we often don't know quite how it works.

Culture is not a possession determined by fate. Some groups have the gift of strong culture; others don’t. But successful cultures are created by a specific set of skills. These skills form the structure of a successful team. They include building safety, sharing vulnerability, and establishing purpose.

Building safety explores how signals of connection generate bonds of belonging and identity. Sharing vulnerability explains how habits of mutual risk drive trusting cooperation. Establishing purpose tells how narratives create shared goals and values. These three skills work together, creating a strong, self-reinforcing system that has been the invisible key to some of the most successful groups in history.