Apes, Humans, and The No Asshole Rule

The discussion of baboons in Harvard Business Review, as well as here and at the HBR site, reminded me of some intriguing work by anthropologist Christopher Boehm about whether humans (and other apes) are "prone to dominate or live harmoniously with each other."  The puzzle that Boehm tried to untangle was why, given that chimps, gorillas, and Bonobos (with which we share over 98% of the same genes) are so distinctly hierarchical and dominated by alpha males; yet studies of human hunter-gathers show that they are so distinctly egalitarian. Boehm studied 50 small, non-literate cultures to see how egalitarian they were, and why. He found that they were quite deliberately egalitarian- - and believed so strongly in maintaining political parity among adults, that males who turned into selfish bullies or who just tried to boss around everyone too much we were treated as "moral deviants."  Their peers responded aggressively by shaming, ostracizing, and ejecting them from the group. 

Boehm's interpretation of this intolerance for bullying and self-aggrandizement is fascinating, both in terms of the evolutionary basis of the no asshole rule and the tug of war that you see constantly in society between the numerous people prone to grab power and goodies for themselves and the numerous people that fight back to stop them (think of the current battle over executive pay).  Boehm's interpretation is that human hunter-gathers were actually quite similar to their fellow apes in that "they were prone to dominate each other," and thus "if these people had not so vigilantly worked against inequality, they would have soon turned hierarchical."  To put words in Boehm's mouth, people in these tribes aggressively enforced the no asshole rule as a deterrent against excessive dominance.

Boehm goes on to make a fascinating statement about we humans and our closest relatives that I think explains a lot about the behavior we see in so much of society: "We must ask, then, why a species so inclined to domination has been motivated to insist that power be shared so equally. And here, I believe, is the answer: Just as all four of the aforementioned species have strong propensity to domination and submission, so do they naturally resent being dominated."  In other words, we are both attracted to power (and to the powerful) but hate being pushed around and have a desire to parity (or more egalitarian relationships). 

I've been thinking about this a lot this morning because these tensions -- which clash the point of being irreconcilable-- help explain why there is so much inconsistency in human social behavior.  It also explains why being a leader requires walking a tightrope. On the one hand, people want a leader who they see as strong and in control (and leaders want to dominate their followers), but followers also want a leader who is unselfish, benevolent, and egalitarian.  Striking just the right balance here, day after day, isn't easy for any leader -- and as I wrote about in the HBR article, the dynamics of power make it even tougher because of the toxic tandem (people in power tend to become oblivious to their followers; while followers tend to watch their leaders actions very closely).  Yet to walk the tightrope, leaders need to be especially in tune with how their people react to every little move they make.

P.S. You can read Boehm's article here in Greater Good or if you really want to dig-in, check out his book Hierarchy in the Forest.

Comments

[patrick]

I believe there's another dynamic that contributes to the differencee between the apes' (at least the patriarchal species) and humans' leadership beahavior.

Being less evolved cognitively than humans, plus lacking the ability to vocalize and communicate ideas in a sophisticated way, leaves physical strength as the primary - or perhaps only - effective method of dominance. Since the traits of selflessness, intelligence, fairness, etc do not correlate directly with physical strength (and in some cases may correlate negatively), there are fewer opportunities for apes with those characteristics to be leaders; and the ability to develop those traits (skills?) by alpha males is obviated by their superior physical strength. It's simply not necessary to be a "good leader" in order to be effective in dominance.

[Jan]

Great post! I have heard from Danish anthropologists that we used to live in groups of 60 to 90 individuals. I have also heard other numbers (30 to 50 individuals). Maybe it was possible to fight the dominance/submission tendencies in so small groups, but it becomes impossible in corporations of thousands and thousands employees.

[Ruth Schimel]

Small, but perhaps useful point. The bonobos are matrilineal and therefore not dominated by alpha males. I've long been intrigued by their culture and what we may learn from it, metaphorically speaking.

Thanks so much for your original and interdisciplinary thinking!

[Wally Bock]

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/06/03/6309-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx

Wally Bock

[Wally Bock]

Thanks for your usual thoughtful, link-riddled, post, Bob. One way to extract value from this kind of research is to see if it has implications for changing the workplace. Dblwyo's point about different "strengths" of leadership seems to map to what we know about leadership in a start-up versus a corporation that's farther down the lifecycle. The comments about collaboration and innovation emphasize the source of competitive advantage in a knowledge economy.

The reason all this is helpful is that it seems we're moving toward more anthropological and biological models for the way we do work. Ricardo Semler has written about seeing the work group as a tribe (in the anthropological not Seth Godin sense) and how that implies different workplace rules and norms.

[Murthy]

Hi Professor Sutton,

A very interesting connection between the world of anthropology and management indeed. I think its important to really look at the independent variables and not just accidentally mix concepts in a soup of related but different things.
Here is how I would break these things down.

First, the metaphorical ape was like any other animal - it feasted on animals who were less powerful than it; weaker males expected to be subjugated by the alpha. Lets be clear about the relationship: the alpha didn't protect or provide resources for his weaker peers, he did not lead them, he was just the biggest asshole in the room.

Then one day, an enlightened ape thinks to itself, "hmm, instead of spending all day beating up my peers over a chicken, why don't we work together and take out a giraffe?" The motivation to collaborate was purely mathematical. If I fight, I get reward R. If I cooperate with N peers, we can collectively take out a resource of greater than NR value, therefore giving each of us individually greater reward than each of us could find on our own.

Humans evolved to cooperate because cooperation served our innate selfish desires more than non-cooperation did.

But to effectively extract maximum collective productivity, we still needed leaders to set vision, organize resources, and manage the interests of people. So we created social contracts called "management" - a hierarchical form of governance that is not based on egalitarianism, but based on the capabilities of each performer. By participating in this contract, an individual assured him/herself that they could receive greater reward than they could on their own, in exchange for exercising their capability for the good of all.

The dysfunction of the management social contract comes when the manager violates the contract and starts abusing their power, i.e. the asshole.

What makes humans smarter than the average ape: we understand that our individual reward can be maximized when we participate in collective activities with our peers vs. when we try to dominate them.

Now, on an entirely independent thread is the issue of creativity and innovation. The only reason that creative organizations seem less "top down" than more strictly operational organizations is because the contracts are totally different: you basically have to reward creative people before they actually produce something creative. This unique nuance requires leaders to be less concerned with results in the short run and be more concerned with maintaining the right environment that is conducive for breakthrough thinking. But this is just a change of social contract. Creative organizations still need leaders (IDEO needs David Kelley and Apple needs Steve Jobs), those organizations are hierarchical at some level too, the individual contracts are just different.

I don't believe there is any conflict or inconsistency is people's expectations of their leaders. People do not go looking for control or egalitarianism. They look for one thing: Dear Leader, show me how following you will earn me more reward than following someone else or being on my own. If you can answer that question (the answer is usually a combination of vision, behaviors, coaching/mentoring), then I believe you are on the road to being an effective leader.

[dblwyo]

I'd suggest that small hunter-gatherer groups prefer a weak dominance relationship with authority dependent on the health of the group, responses to emergencies and long-term issues and the need for social cooperation and collaboration to survive. Put another way a group needs leadership, of varying strengths, but that leadership has to act on the balanced good of the whole group and not sacrifice that interest to the advantage of the leader. Given the toxic two-step the tendency would be for exploitation to develop and disrupt then damage irrevocably the prospects of the group.

Think about the big picture social dynamics of socionomic health using predator-prey analogies and also breakdowns in health due to exploitative opportunism on the part of the leadership; using the Finance Industry as the bad exemplar. It also links back logically to why rules and regulations are necessary when self-supervision fails.

While a work in progress it seems to me there's a pony or three in here regarding the design of management systems and governance principles perhaps ?

[John Foster]

Yes, I totally agree with the previous comment. Simply put, assholes don't collaborate. Innovation requires collaboration. I believe it has something to do with the size of the human cortex and all of the other innate goodies packed in there like oxytocin, a chemical that supports collaboration. Yet, we still have some basal instinctive behavior in the more ancient portions of our brain. At our best the cortex overrides the reptilian brain stem and we collaborate. P.S. Women seem to have more inclination to the collaborative tendencies and have more oxytocin than men.

[Career Annie]

I’m inclined to think that the disparity between egalitarianism and authoritarianism might be related to the importance of innovation. There might not be room for innovation in a strictly authoritarian society, since otherwise creative minds might be stifled by the alpha’s influence. (I’m thinking of how the church tried to influence Newton…) Perhaps apes place a higher biological value on group cohesion, whereas humans place more value on innovation.