I have discussed in an earlier article a few examples of the way evolution psychology impact our lives. In this article, I will like to talk about two maladies of office life which managers and staff alike have been trying to eradicate, not knowing that is virtually impossible because it is hardwired into our brains. We will take each one of these two in turns.
Pre-judgements
As humans, we have evolved to make quick judgements. That rustling in the leaves - is that a tiger lurking behind the bushes or just wind? We have to make a very quick judgement in those situations to keep us alive. Eventually as a human species, we evolved to gather & roam in groups of dozens of individuals and often encounter other similar groups. From the point when this other group come into view, we have to make very quick decisions as to whether this other group is friend or foe — will they share information with us about the next water source or will they be taking our food and women? We use any information that we can glean about that group – their language, their dressing, the way they walk, whether their women & children stay behind or beside them – and base our judgement on previous experience with similar groups. We prejudge them, in that we conclude about their nature even before interacting with them (isn’t that the definition of prejudging?), but again this is what keeps us alive.
Today, we do the same thing in our professional life, indeed in normal everyday life. As humans, we can only relate to somebody within a context, the context often being the social environment that generates an expectation of the behaviour that will regulate the encounter between two persons. At a first professional meeting for instance, we behave differently than if it was a casual encounter – a handshake rather than a hug (I am still hankering for pre-pandemic days, aren't I?). If we are meeting a businessman in China for the first time, we may bring along a small gift (a bottle of some alcoholic drink is often a good idea) as this may be the expected norm. If we know that he has been educated abroad, we may break the ice by talking about the city in which he was educated. We make very specific decisions about how we would behave towards a person that we have never met based on the information that we have available.
As we interact further with the person, we gather more information about him and we tend to modify our behaviour and conversation accordingly. As humans animals, we have evolved this ability and it has become fundamental to our social interactions, to the point is that if someone is thought to be deficient in the ability to read someone else's response to our conversation, it is considered a disorder.
Of course we could be wrong in the analysis of our information. The businessman in China that we were meeting may be a germaphobe who avoid handshakes; he may be a teetotaller for whom a bottle of drink is useless; he may have hated the city in which he was educated and talking about it may bring on dysfunctional behaviour. In truth, our first judgements will almost always be wrong; at best, it may be incomplete but there will be a flood of new information flooding in as we interact with that person.
Information on which to base our judgement could be about the ethnicity or religion of the person concerned. We bringing a bottle of drink to a China businessman because our perception of the norm in the China society. For a man not to shake hands with a conservative Muslim woman may be considered an appropriate reaction to the hijab she is wearing. Yes, if basing judgement on a person’s race or religion is considered racism, then this is racism. (Though somehow it is racism only when the judgement is seen to be negative not positive. Well, whether a judgement is positive or negative often depends on the value system of the person making the judgement: bringing a bottle of alcoholic drink may be considered negative if you are Prohibitionist or if you consider it bribery.)
The reality is that basing one’s judgement on information, positive or negative, is how we evolved and is fundamental to the workings of society; and such information could include race or religion. For me, it is only racism if we are unable to or refuse to modify our behaviour on receiving new information that nullify our earlier judgements based on one’s race or religion. That is a skill deficiency that would apply to any other basis, not just race or religion. Maybe, what we really dislike is not racial or religious prejudgment but rather stereotyping - the imputation of certain attributes to all individuals of a particular race or religion.
Learning lesson
We should acknowledge the prejudgements that we make about people before we interact with them and understand the information & analysis underlying the behaviour we chose to adopt. We should be aware that our information or analysis could be incorrect or incomplete and plan our behaviour with a plan B in mind. And we need to be agile to modify our behaviour as new information comes in or on realising that our earlier analysis has been incorrect. In short, be aware of how we think and co-opt it into our decision-making.
Gossip
Gossip is something that people explicitly declare themself as disliking, particularly if there is a possibility the gossip is about them, but would happily indulge in it, justify it as an exchange of information. But it is true that gossiping is something we cannot help ourselves doing because we are we have evolved to do so.
In primates that live in social groups such as humans, there is a hierarchy with an alpha male, and often an alpha female as well, at the top of it. Alphas has food and mating rights over lower-ranked individuals and generally enforce discipline within the group but are occasionally toppled by a stronger individual. When an individual takes over as an alpha, he will gather support around him to consolidate his position and will move quickly to marginalise the deposed alpha and the deposed alpha’s supporters. In such social groups, it pays to know who are friends with the alpha, whom we should befriend, and whom the alpha dislikes, whom we should keep an arm’s-length away if we wish to stay safe.
Knowing this is important for an individual’s survival and progress within the social group. We as humans have inherited this need to know who is in the in-group and who is in the out-group. With our development of language, though, we have taken the acquisition of such information to new heights by exchanging information with people for something of value to them, often some other information they desire: who is friends with whom, who is likely to be the next boss, or who is challenging whom to be the drinking group's alpha male. This is the origins of gossip and being something that is hardwired into our brains, it is unlikely that we can suppress it.
Learning lessons
Communication abhors a vacuum and gossip thrives when information is perceived to be reliable is absent. It is therefore important that the leadership of any organisation should share as much information as possible with their stakeholders: employees, suppliers, customer. And that information must be seen to be reliable, not something intended to satisfy a need to say something when the leadership has no desire to share real information. It always amazes me how often companies that claim to hire the brightest & the best sometimes expect the brightest & the best they hired to accept empty statements management issued to satisfy rather than to inform. We have to share information that is complete and truthful if we wish to avoid emergence of gossip circles created to be outside our influence. Ministers telling us not to speculate will always be ignored.
Communication that leadership intends to disseminate could also be of an informal nature, which could in some circumstances be better disseminated through informal channels. We do this by having an informal chat with a person with a wide communication network, or with someone who will talk to the person with the wide communication network. Take care though to ensure the message does not get too corrupted as it flows through the communication network. We minimise this risk by crafting a message that is clear & simple and by later confirming the message with the recipients through further informal chats.
Root cause analysis
When I was an audit manager a very long time ago, I used to get annoyed when audit staff jump straight in to start the auditing work on arriving at a branch without thinking through and planning what they intend to do. Somehow, they did not make full use of the tools that evolution bestowed upon them.
Well, think about it: if a loud noise happened in the room that you’re in, what is the first thing you do? No, you do not bolt out of the room immediately like a dog would (no disrespect to the dog but that’s what all animals do). You turned to look at the source and try to figure out the appropriate action. You perform a root cause analysis.
Evidently, performing such a root cause analysis would have conferred an evolutionary advantage despite the disadvantage of needing additional time to react compared to animals that runs without analysing. Performing root cause analysis when reacting to such external threats increases brain capabilities that evolved humans to do more advanced thinking. It is very much the same today: repeated planning and analysing helps attune our minds to deeper and faster analysis in more varied situations.
Learning lessons: Plan before you start any action as long as you do not end up with paralysis by analysis. Set a date or time by which action has to start and whatever analysis you complete before that should be deemed sufficient.
I hope by now you understand how much prejudgements and gossips we do are outside our conscious efforts. Willpower and discipline may be able to suppress some of it in some individuals, maybe for some time or in some specific circumstances. We have to learn to live with our nature. We have to learn to recognise what we are doing, accept it and co-opt it in our decision-making. Let our sub-conscious hypothalamus be a partner of our conscious prefrontal cortex rather than a rival.
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