The basics of how they accomplished this was:
- The obvious- no personal / destructive attacks or insults, no cussing, no comments on any person's abilities.
- Having your code picked apart is a badge of honor, and you were expected / required to do the same to the most senior of your teammates when they submit code.
- Collective ownership- it's never "your" code, it's the team's code.
- Constant acknowledgement that our system is hard and complex, and it is really important that it works as expected / promised.
That last part was an ingredient I never found anywhere else. The opposite seems to be more common- every other team I've worked on tended to underestimate or even trivialize the difficulty and complexity of the systems they work on. By acknowledging that this work is hard for everyone involved, and that despite this, it must be well-done and function properly, the code review and the ensuing discussions became a very welcome and encouraged part of this process. It also helped defeat newcomers' imposter syndrome because this mentality was effective at making everyone feel like they had an important role to play, and that even the most senior folks often felt like a noob when they screwed up.