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Something to Think About
Humans: The Helpful Species
By Linda Rising
risingl@acm.org
www.lindarising.org
There are so many startling lessons from
the recent and on-going invasions by hurricanes in the U.S.
The horrifying stories of people who lost everything are
shadowed with moving reports of people who helped others,
often when the helper was at risk of losing his or her own
life or safety. It’s interesting to learn that animals
demonstrate this behavior, too. That is, animals and people
both help other members of the community even when there is
no obvious benefit. Since working on the patterns for
introducing new ideas in my latest book Fearless Change,
my co-author, Mary Lynn Manns and I have been researching
the origins of influence strategies and how we arrived where
we are today with respect to making decisions.
At first, it seems that helping behaviors fly in
the face of what we learned in Econ 101. I remember being told that
we are "profit maximizers," that is, we follow the "what’s in it for
me" maxim. Now a new flavor of economics is developing to address
the helping phenomenon—it’s called behavioral economics. It’s based
on the survival patterns that have evolved with us. Many of these
patterns have their foundation in strategies based on cooperation.
The evolutionary biologists among us would say
that there is a genetic advantage in these behaviors. If you help
members of your family or tribe, then they are more likely to
survive. This increases the chances that your familial traits will
continue for another generation. But what about those situations
where the helper is not closely related to the recipient?
Psychologist Robert L. Trivers has proposed a
theory of reciprocal altruism, which states that helping another
pays off downstream when the recipient returns the favor. This has
been called "tit for tat" and suggests some kind of mental
bookkeeping—that we keep track of who helped us in the past.
Chimpanzees in the wild hunt in small groups. Observational studies
note that one member of the hunting party usually captures the prey,
tears it apart, and shares it. But only those who actually
participated in the hunt receive food; even the highest-ranking male
is excluded (although he may whine about it).
Chimpanzees in captivity when given food in an
experiment, also share selectively. The animals who are given a
treat by experimenters are soon surrounded by others who hold out
their paws, palm upward, as human beggars do. Neglected individuals
may complain, but aggressive attacks are rare. When they do happen,
the chimpanzee with the food pelts the aggressors with a stick or
yells at them until they leave. Regardless of rank within the
community, possession is the law.
In a series of observations of grooming incidents
that are followed by giving food, the "beggars" who had groomed
possessors of food were more likely to receive a share, regardless
of rank or connection between the individuals. This suggests that
chimpanzees, like humans, show special treatment for those who have
been nice in earlier encounters. The system seems to operate
differently for those who are close. A similar "buddy" system can be
seen in humans, where we reward tit for tat only with those who are
not our friends or family. It could be added that keeping score in
close relationships is a sign of lack of trust.
In a recent study at Emory University, brain
scans have revealed a biological basis for altruistic behavior, with
several regions of the brain being activated when players of a game
decide to trust each other and cooperate. The game is called
Prisoner’s Dilemma. Suppose that you and a fellow conspirator,
Albert, are picked up by the police and interrogated in separate
cells without a chance to communicate with each other. For the
purpose of this game, it makes no difference whether you or Albert
actually committed the crime. You are both told the same thing:
If you both confess, you will both get
four years in prison.
If neither confesses, the police will
still be able to pin part of the crime on each of you, and
you'll both get two years.
If one of you confesses but the other
doesn't, the confessor will make a deal with the police and
will go free while the other goes to jail for five years.
At first glance the correct strategy appears
obvious. No matter what Albert does, you'll be better off
confessing. Unfortunately, Albert realizes this as well, so you both
end up getting four years. If you had both refused to confess, you
would both be better off. If you play repeatedly, the goal is to
figure out Albert's strategy and use it to minimize your total jail
time. Albert will be doing the same. Remember, the object of the
game is not to take advantage of Albert. The object
is to minimize your jail time. This game can also be played by
rewarding players with money or tokens or points.
In two separate experiments, researchers scanned
the brains of subjects while they played Prisoner’s Dilemma. Mutual
cooperation was the most common outcome in games played in both
experiments, even though a player was maximally rewarded for
defecting when the other player cooperated. During the mutually
cooperative social interactions, activation was noted in those areas
of the brain that are linked to reward processing.
The study shows that social cooperation is
intrinsically rewarding to the brain, even in the face of pressures
to the contrary. It suggests that the altruistic drive to cooperate
is biologically embedded—either genetically programmed or acquired
through socialization during childhood and adolescence.
Here’s an interesting story about Bill Ernstrom,
the CEO of Voyant Technologies.
Ernstrom faced a disconnect in his
company: His top engineers weren't listening to his product
managers—and vice versa. The company would head down a path,
get the engineers excited, they would produce code, and then
discover that they could only sell about 10 units.
Ernstrom, an engineer himself, isn't the
first high-level exec to watch revenue disappear as a result
of the gap between computer geeks and their colleagues on
the business side. It happens time and again: In the early
phases of projects, when it's crucial to get the technology
right, engineers are in the driver’s seat. What they
produce, however, is often elegant technology that has no
market, is too complicated, or doesn't match customers'
expectations.
Ernstrom tried several approaches to get
his engineers and product managers to collaborate—everything
from recruiting more business people to restructuring
compensation. He finally created a new position, chief
product officer, and recruited John Guillaume, who had a
solid background in telecom. He could throw technical terms
around with the best of engineers and still make sense to
the less tech-savvy product managers.
Guillaume's first move was to raise the
profile of the product managers by involving them in visible
tasks, such as writing product definitions and presenting
market research. Then Guillaume requested that two of
Voyant's top engineers, Warren Baxley and Randy Schultz,
lead the product group. Guillaume realized that the star
engineers would give instant credibility to the product
teams and get the two sides working together in earnest.
After a bit of coaxing, Baxley and Schultz accepted the
challenge.
As part of the reorganization, the Voyant
executive team reconfigured seating arrangements – breaking
up clumps of engineers and lumping them together with their
product managers and with Baxley and Schultz.
Any of these changes might have
accomplished nothing, but together they've gone a long way
toward closing the divide. Drop in on a product meeting
today and you might have a hard time figuring out who the
geeks are. A lead engineer says that he wants the product
manager's feedback on an important decision. Meanwhile, the
engineers sound like market research pros: Who's our
customer base? Are we targeting people like that? We don't
want to go to customers and say we're not supporting a
feature we used to have.
Ernstrom believes that his customers are
happier than ever before. The company has increased sales 25 %, added three more products to the pipeline, improved time
to market by 40 %, and reduced research and development
costs by 20 %. The cultural healing has persisted, even
though Guillaume recently parted amicably. Schultz, the star
engineer turned product manager, has helped assume
Guillaume's role. It hasn't been easy, but everyone at Voyant now agrees on the goal. As one engineer puts it,
"We're building stuff that people use."
Can you see the patterns that were used here?
Based on what we know about evolutionary biology and animal behavior
studies, these are the same strategies that Mary Lynn and I
identified based on our own experiences and those of other
successful change agents. The role that John Guillaume played,
someone who could talk to both engineers and the business guys, is
called Bridge Builder. Many times the great ideas we have are
not accepted, not because the idea is bad, but because the idea is
being proposed by the wrong innovator. Many times people will only
listen to those who have credibility—for them. Finding the right
person who has the ear of the target group will help get things
going. In other words, it’s all about the messenger.
The other, very strong, pattern in the story is
Group Identity. When we see ourselves as a "team" with a
common goal, we naturally cooperate. It is in our own best interest
to help each other. Whether it’s pulling down cubicle walls or
re-arranging offices or buying t-shirts, building a common, shared
vision of who we are is a powerful motivator. In an organization we
need to see ourselves working together as the Voyant engineer said,
"…building stuff that people use." In other words, we’re all on the
same side.
I heard this story from a consultant.
One of my clients asked me for a quick
fix to a rough peer relationship he had to improve. I asked
him if he could give it five minutes a day of concentrated
influence. He said, "Sure, I guess it’s worth five minutes a
day if I could turn this relationship around." I told him
simply to seek common ground with this person—that he
shouldn’t push this person at all during these five minutes
but should focus on what they had in common and express this
commonality directly. I told him that the best influencers
can find commonalities between themselves and almost anyone.
That was a real challenge for this engineer, a very
assertive person. Two weeks later, though, he emailed me to
say that although he and his peer still didn’t agree on most
issues, their relationship had markedly improved and he
could see now that he and his peer had much in common. This
was their first step to a good working relationship.
This theme was brought home when I heard a recent
radio broadcast. Andre Codrescu was talking about New Orleans’ Mayor
Ray Nagin’s proposal to build a light rail system connecting New
Orleans and Baton Rouge as part of the recovery effort after
Hurricane Katrina. The benefits are obvious, but for non-residents,
the reasons why this proposal was not taken seriously until now are
as muddy as some of the standing water in the besieged Louisiana
cities. Baton Rouge and New Orleans have long been adversaries. The
two urban centers have battled each other on all fronts. The short
distance (about 90 miles) doesn’t come close to showing the real
distance felt by residents who held each other’s city in complete
disdain.
Only in the recent wake of Katrina did many
thousands of New Orleans’ evacuees discover that the citizens of
Baton Rouge were not only generous, but also human, with the same
needs and hopes as themselves. Common interests became abundantly
clear as well as the years of mutual neglect. Residents of both
cities saw that light rail would be beneficial to the entire area,
not only to provide easier future evacuation, should that be
necessary, but to allow civilized transport for a whole host of
reasons. We can all look forward to an era of cooperation based on
the new connections and awareness.
Citizens of these two cities realized that they
are on the same side— that "they’re all in this together," as Red
Green wisely notes at the end of his show. It’s a good lesson for
all of us. In our teams and wider organizations, we all know that
working together will produce the most powerful results, but we
don’t always know how to make that happen. I hope that thinking
about the results of these experiments and the work that’s being
done by sociologists, psychologists, and biologists, will give you
some ideas to apply "on Monday morning." I recently saw something at
an innovative company where testers and developers realized that
they really were "on the same team" and that their job was to
deliver a product that delighted the customer. They were all
involved in the same task. They shared a common goal. Working
together was the best way to make it happen. It’s amazing how a
different view of the world of work can help a team "take off." It’s
magical.
Let me know if you see magic happen for you and
your team!
References
Clifford, S., "How to Get the Geeks and the Suits to Play Nice,"
April 2002 Business 2.0, www.business2.com
Codrescu, A., Poet on Call, All Things Considered, NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4945326
De Waal, F.B.M., "How Animals Do Business," Scientific
American, April 2005, 73-79.
Dugatkin, L., Cheating Monkeys and Citizen Bees: The Nature of
Cooperation in Animals and Humans, The Free Press, 1999.
"Emory Brain Imaging Studies Reveal Biological Basis For Human
Cooperation," news release issued by Emory University Health
Sciences Center.
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About the Author
http://www.lindarising.org
risingl@acm.org
Linda Rising has a Ph.D. from Arizona
State University in the area of object-based design metrics.
Her background includes university teaching as well as work
in industry in telecommunications, avionics, and strategic
weapons systems. She is the author of numerous articles and
has published three books: Design Patterns in
Communications, The Pattern Almanac 2000, and A Patterns
Handbook. Follow this link for information regarding her
latest book "Fearless Change: patterns for introducing
new ideas".
http://www.cs.unca.edu/~manns/intropatterns.html |
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