Masuda influenced the workers to act, even as the ground shook beneath their feet. Through his calmness, openness, and willingness to admit his own fallibility as a leader, Masuda created the conditions for the team to make sense of their surroundings, overcome fear, and solve problems on the fly. Although their physical safety was in constant danger, they felt psychologically safe, and this allowed them to come together, try things, fail, and regroup. In the many moments of fear for their lives over the course of those days, interpersonal fear within the group was nearly nil. Masuda's words and actions set the tone and reassured workers that they could – and must – save the plant.

We see similar patterns on all eight of the questions—we see, in other words, that when we zero in on the critical aspects of our experience at work, they vary more team-to-team than they do company-to-company. Any ideas—like the idea of culture—that rest on the assumption that our experience of a company is uniform, no matter where we sit, don’t hold up. Any ideas—again, like the idea of culture—that rest on the assumption that our experience will vary company to company are incomplete, because our experience will vary more within a company than between companies.

Emotional intelligence programs explained a lot and did very little. People did not practice the core underlying competencies they needed to learn in order to actually shift emotional intelligence — such as focusing one’s attention, exploring how individuals construct reality, and actively practicing selflessness and compassion. All these things are fundamental parts of mindfulness practice, but they were not included in emotional intelligence training at that time. Thus, without the component of practice, the revolution proved to be a failure.

Why it works at IDEO — and what allows the company to churn out excellence at a regular clip — are what Schein calls the "shared basic assumptions" that drive all of these seemingly odd choices. If you want to change culture, then you have to start there, by influencing the thought patterns that drive your employees to act.

Why it works at IDEO — and what allows the company to churn out excellence at a regular clip — are what Schein calls the "shared basic assumptions" that drive all of these seemingly odd choices. If you want to change culture, then you have to start there, by influencing the thought patterns that drive your employees to act.