Hardwired Humans. Andrew O'Keeffe
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in the organisation. The trap to avoid is where the boss drives compliance by being dismissive of contrary views. The more sensitive the boss is to disagreement, the more people wisely avoid debate. As a consequence, the boss creates distance between themselves and their followers and denies themselves useful information.
underuse of power by the boss can drive confusion, ill-discipline and dis-harmony, where people are uncertain of the expectations and standards of the group. In this case, someone else will likely emerge as the actual leader in the boss’s place.
The leader’s goal is to use just the right amount of power for their level—not too much and not too little. Following the lead from Lubutu, a good dose of friendliness is a useful leadership strategy. If the leader is unfriendly then, being human, team members will respond by keeping out of harm’s way. It only takes one event of intimidation for people to keep their distance. A reassuring sign that people perceive their leader as friendly is whether they express disagreement when they hold a view different to their leader. They can only afford to do so if they hold no fear of retribution.
Implication 4. Allocation of resources
One of the ways leaders get to exercise power is in the allocation of resources. Leaders should be comfortable in doing so and in using this power thoughtfully. Resources have value if the item is valued by the receiver and the giver.
In the wild, chimps hunt meat. But they seem to hunt for social rather than nutritional reasons. For Dr Goodall’s Gombe chimps the most common prey is a red colobus monkey. For the energy expended for the meagre 1 kg of meat on a baby monkey, chimps would be better off foraging for nuts and fruit if the purpose was nutritional. But chimps appear to hunt for social reasons. A hunting party is most successful when there are between four and ten gang members. When a kill is made the prey is appropriated by the alpha male. The prey becomes a resource. At Gombe the alpha male shares the meat in a deliberate, consistent way—he gives a greater share to his allies and he ignores his rivals.
In organisational life there are a range of ‘resources’ that the boss gets to allocate. Just to name the most common: grades, promotions, appraisal ratings, salary reviews, bonuses, sales quotas and territories, projects, budgets, office space and development opportunities. use them well.
Implication 5. Three warnings by the silverback
A silverback gorilla provides a model in socially constructive discipline and maintaining acceptable standards of behaviour. A leader on one of our programs at Melbourne Zoo asked the keeper, ‘What does Rigo do if one of his group is misbehaving?’
The keeper, Damian Lewis, nodded knowingly. He tells how Rigo, the silverback, has a three-step warning process! His first step, the bottom of the disciplinary stage and the lightest touch, is just his mere presence. Damian described how two female gorillas were bickering, and Rigo strutted past them as though he just wanted his presence noted. That is usually enough to stop the offending behaviour. If that doesn’t work, his next warning is verbal—he coughs at the offending individual(s). That’s often as far as he needs to go in signalling his displeasure. The point of the escalating warnings is that the ultimate discipline, a physical reprimand such as a slap or a hit, is rarely required. However, if the short sharp cough doesn’t work, then the next step, just short of the ultimate leadership discipline, is a charging display. One hundred and sixty-five kilograms (363 lbs) of charging silverback generally works. But if not, on those rare occasions when steps one to three don’t work, Rigo will use his ultimate disciplinary act and hit the offender.
Maybe there is a natural pattern for social animals where ‘anti-social’ behaviour is corrected in an orderly fashion and ultimate acts (physical for gorillas and termination of employment for us in organisational life) is reserved for rare occasions when verbal and written warnings don’t do the trick. One can imagine the chaos, though, if Rigo either doesn’t use his position to stay on top of group standards or if he is too quick to race to the ultimate discipline act and misses out on the first few steps.
Implication 6. Social standing
After the wellbeing of our immediate family the second most important motivation for humans is our standing in our social group. The team leader has significant impact on the regard in which their people are held in the eyes of others, both within the team and in the wider organisation. It’s little wonder that 80% of people who resign from organisations do so because of an unsatisfactory relationship with their immediate manager.
To deliver on this key motivation a leader needs to provide their people with opportunities to grow and impress, to protect and enhance the reputations of individuals on the team and to acknowledge their achievements so confidence is enhanced.
Implication 7. Regular review meetings
The single most important technique that I recommend to leaders is to hold regular individual reviews with their people. This means scheduling an hour’s review no less frequently than once every two weeks with each of their direct reports. A meeting lasting less than one hour is unlikely to cover the subjects that should be covered. In Instinct 7 on Empathy we cover this topic in more detail and include a possible agenda for the reviews.
Implication 8. Making sense of the matrix
Anyone who has managed within a matrix will know its complexity. In case you are not familiar with matrix reporting (and you’re fortunate if you don’t operate within this structure) it means that a person reports to two bosses, where one boss is the business unit or functional boss and the other boss is perhaps the location manager. The business unit boss is often based at a different location to his or her direct reports. The structure expects us to be part of two teams and to attend to the requirements of both bosses.
This dual reporting is unnatural for humans, as it would be for chimps. Our natural pattern, being an animal where a pecking order is natural, is that we screen for a single line of reporting based on power. A key issue with matrix reporting is that it denies reality (we will discuss the instinct of confidence before realism in Instinct 8). Expecting people to report to two bosses is unrealistic. The real line of power is the boss who has the control of resources (budgets and headcount) and the primary financial reporting responsibility. People work this out incredibly quickly.
The person primarily frustrated in the matrix is the less powerful boss, for example the location boss. This person is trying to fulfill their responsibilities as the location executive, but they have little or no formal power to cause others to respect their power and to abide by the normal reporting protocols. The location manager might even have trouble insisting that people attend location meetings.
Given that you are probably not the designer of the organisation, an implication for a leader working in a matrix is to be aware of your natural tendency to focus on only one line of reporting (the boss who has the control of resources) so that you deliver in a leadership sense what your organisation needs of you right now. In this situation you need to be a balanced member of two teams.
Implication 9. Managing up and down
In my book, The Boss, one of the characters makes the observation that managers tend to be good at either managing up or managing down, but rarely both. Staff members are quick to spot if their boss prioritises managing up.
A leader good at managing up will tend to:
focus most on the needs of their superiors
spend a disproportionate amount of time grooming their boss and other people higher in the hierarchy
probably sit close to their boss’s office even if that means being further away from their people
demand outputs from their people with insufficient resources
be prepared to compromise the team’s interests to protect their own
avoid challenging the system.
These behaviours erode the loyalty of their people. But it does mean that the leader is probably well connected with people in power, which will be of some benefit to the team (and may well enhance the leader’s chances of progressing in the hierarchy).
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