Human instincts in collaboration. A conversation with Andrew O’Keeffe
Andrew O’Keeffe is the author of Hardwired Humans, Successful Leadership Using Human Instincts in which he translates research by Professor Nigel Nicholson on human instincts into the world of human resources, change management, and leadership.
Andrew is my guest on the latest episode of the Cool Collaborations podcast (#17 Andrew O’Keeffe - An Instinct for Collaboration), where we talk about how those instincts apply in the world of collaboration.
While the framework Andrew presents in Hardwired Humans has nine human instincts, we focused on four instincts that in Andrew’s estimation are influential when it comes to collaborating: social belonging, bonding, hierarchy and power, and loss aversion.
Social belonging
“If we think of ourselves as a social being, we can collaborate like no other primate can do. Chimps, for instance, cannot collaborate with individuals outside their community. They can’t collaborate as a forest. They can only collaborate, and they do very well, within their community of up to about 50 individuals.”
Humans are a social species; it is in our nature to connect and relate to one another. And it is from this instinct to socially connect that we draw our ability to collaborate. While other animals such as chimpanzees can collaborate, their collaboration is limited to their own family groups. In contrast, humans can and do collaborate with people outside their community, provided those from outside your group “come in peace”, as Andrew put it, and there is a degree of trust. As we discussed this further, it was clear to me that a common purpose and a willingness of collaborators to work on that common purpose is a key method for addressing our human instinct for belonging, especially in groups of strangers.
“Whereas humans … we can collaborate with others beyond our community, beyond our organization, beyond our group.”
A few other aspects of belonging come into play. Key among them is the size of the group. Our evolution has focused on family groups, typically about 7 people, when it comes to making decisions. Smaller groups of 2 up to 4 is essential for providing everyone to have a say. Andrew describes an example of people taking a break at a conference will naturally congregate in groups of two, three, or four. When new people include themselves in the group, someone will very likely move on from the conversation.
Bonding
Bonding in humans is directly tied to language; we bond through ‘chit-chat’ or the informal banter that allows us to understand one another at a human level. It usually shows up during the time we think of as ‘socializing’, such as connecting over coffee, meals, sharing stories.
The ability to bond is tied back to the discussion on group size, because the most effective bonding occurs in the groups where everyone can be heard, namely in groups of two, or three, or four. Our instincts to create social bonds and use language to groom one another governs our behaviour to select into and out of groups of a certain size and ensure we are heard.
Andrew mentioned that when leaders can create the opportunities for informal connection within their team, much of the tension within the group can disappear.
“David figured out what he needed to do to apply human nature, and human nature did the rest.”
Hierarchy and Power
The role of power has come up in other conversations relating to collaboration, but often in some version of a ‘sharing of power’ among the collaborators. Andrew, in contrast, talks about power being used ‘for good’ or ‘for bad.
Andrew has had the opportunity to connect with and present alongside Dr. Jane Goodall, the famous primatologist, and he described the role of Figen, the alpha male chimp of the Gombe group from Dr. Goodall’s research to illustrate the role of ‘good’ power in a group. As Andrew tells the story of his conversation with Dr. Goodall on Figen’s leadership, Dr. Goodall describes Figen as “very powerful. He used his power well and he ensured social harmony”.
Andrew goes on to describe how all humans have a degree of personal power, so being able to maintain our individual power is helpful in countering the power of another individual, especially a person with high power (status, rank, etc) and not submitting (the flip side of power).
Loss Aversion
“People are more motivated by keeping out of harm’s way, so avoiding loss.”
I was a bit unclear to start at how loss aversion was important to collaboration, but through the course of the conversation, Andrew explained that it is really related to how we act when we do not have all the information, when we are uncertain how the process will go, or what the outcome might be.
Given collaboration can be inherently vague where the exact outcome isn’t known in advance, then the subtext in everyone’s head is that it will be bad. It is our natural instinct to protect ourselves from potential harm, so our default is to counter any uncertainty with protection from loss. In turn, this means that effective collaboration process should be as transparent as possible and provide as much information as available, but also speak positively about the process and the potential outcomes as a means to counteract our natural aversion to loss.
“I’m compelled to classify and make sense of this, is this good or bad, and if at that moment I can’t quite make sense of it and I don’t know whether this is good or bad, then I’m going to prepare myself just in case of the threat, the loss, the negativity, the hurt and the harm that might come with that.”
Andrew and I had a great conversation, and I suspect we could have spent a good deal longer digging into more connections between collaboration and human instincts. I think there is a lot we can all learn from Andrew’s work connecting human instinct to leadership practice and from my conversation with him. Take in the whole episode and let me know what instinct intrigued you most.
Happy collaborating.
Scott Millar, through Collaboration Dynamics, often works as a "peacemaker" by gathering people with different experiences and values and helping them navigate beyond their differences to tackle complex problems together. As the host of the Cool Collaborations podcast where he explores fun stories and insights of successful collaboration with guests from around the world, and then dives into what made them work. Cool Collaborations is currently available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.
