## Session VIII: Team health, culture, and sustainability

> [“Culture is whatever you tolerate twice.”](https://open-and-async.com/q/tolerate-twice/)

### Discuss

- What have we tolerated twice that’s now just “how things are” here? Is it what we’d choose on purpose?
- Whose work went unnoticed here recently? What might that quietly cost us later — and whose job is it to notice?
- Where has a disagreement here festered instead of getting resolved? What were the early signs — and did we move it to a real conversation in time?

### Split the room

**For managers:** What’s one unwritten rule new hires here absorb by osmosis? What would it take to write it down so onboarding doesn’t depend on luck?

**For individual contributors:** Your growth won’t manage itself. When did you last run a “career retro” or document a win? What would you put in one this week?

### Debate

“Fun and culture stuff is nice, but it’s not the real work.” Argue it. Then argue the book’s line: fun is infrastructure, and social capital is conflict insurance.

### Try it

Each person names one teammate whose recent work made their own job easier — and tells them, specifically, somewhere the whole group can see it.

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From the [*Open & Async* book club guide](https://open-and-async.com/book-club-guide/#culture).