I Don't Agree. Michael Brown

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      Sulloway incorporates Darwin into his argument: in nature, any source of continued conflict – competition for parental affection, for instance – will promote adaptations that increase the potential to come out on top. Darwin called this the principle of divergence. In nature, diversity is an evolutionary strategy that allows species to compete for food and territory.

      Sulloway riffs on Darwin’s (famous) finches as a manifestation of this principle. In the geographically isolated Galapagos there are 13 species of finch that have evolved to live in different ecological niches on the same small group of islands. The differences in size and shape of beak or claw reduces competition for the same food in an ecosystem containing limited resources. In a process called adaptive radiation, some finches evolved characteristics to enable them to feast on insects, others eat seeds or leaves, and two adaptations of the finch to eat cacti – a spiky illustration of the economy of nature!

      Now, humans are certainly not finches. BUT.

      Sulloway asserts that children undergo adaptive radiation to counteract the effects of the family pecking order. You could think of this as an accelerated form of adaptation, given that Darwin’s finches would have evolved over multiple generations. However, it does not disprove what Sulloway is saying, that human beings possess an open genetic program that allows adaptations to occur in the development of an individual life. Which is just as well. When your big bro has eaten your lunch, snatched your pocket money and is hogging the parental limelight, a kid’s got to adapt!

      A latter born – at a disadvantage to the firstborn in size, strength and cognitive ability – may develop a more subtle counter strategy: a differentiated personality. Acquiring different abilities and broader interests increases the likelihood that a parent will see something worth focusing resources on. It was arguably this quest to occupy a unique family niche in their formative years that propelled individuals like Darwin, Galileo, Voltaire et al. to reshape the world to their thinking – they were socking it to their brothers and sisters!

      Within the warm embrace of each family bosom lies a heated competitive force driving us to sharpen our instincts for conflict – but also to adapt and grow in unique ways.

      How could this not influence our actions after we flee the familial home? These three factors – the need for parental attention, our place in the pecking order and the need to diversify to survive – have powerfully shaped who we are. It might be that in the extended family of any human endeavour, the urge to compete has held back our ability to collaborate. A bit like a dominant firstborn lording it over younger siblings.

      How evolutionary strategy affects our professional lives

      In commercial organisations, the need to differentiate is well understood. A market leader is unlikely to remain top dog if it’s unable to communicate to its customers how it differs from challenger brands. Likewise, a challenger brand will struggle if all it does is seek to emulate those at the top of its sector.

      Our education system is similarly geared – a major focus is to give children a competitive edge for when they arrive in the job market. But if everybody is being pushed towards the same goal, being a straight-A student may not be enough to make you stand out.

      Which is why in the opening salvo in the battle to find employment (the post-graduation CV), you will often find exceptionally florid descriptions of extra-curricular activities, designed to communicate that the candidate is an ambitious, cut and thrust go-getter, vitally different to every other applicant.

      Later, having been lucky enough to land that first job, your average recruit will likely start work thinking of themselves primarily as a competitor, perhaps even a predator, stalking personal success, and not as a collaborator. Most new recruits, if asked if they are a team player, will make the intellectually right choice and answer in the affirmative. But their instincts might scream otherwise.

      In an attempt to prove this, I undertook an anonymous survey of values using 211 people from three media businesses I’m involved with. Questions required participants to remember back to their first day in the job. When asked if they came into the role thinking of themselves as a team player, 77.5% claimed a very firm, ‘Yes, all of the time’. A further 20% said, ‘Yes, but only some of the time’ – a revealingly flexible approach to teamwork which may suggest that these people only play ball when it’s personally advantageous to do so (a behaviour definitely driven by evolutionary strategy).

      Only 2.55% admitted an outright, ‘No, none of the time’.

      Obviously this latter minority were honest, brutally so, but how about the majority?

      When asked if, on that first day, they also imagined themselves getting promoted at some point in the near future, 79% of respondents (i.e., more than those who claimed to be team players) said ‘yes’. I thought the juxtaposition was interesting – getting promoted means you become elevated above your colleagues, which jars against the success of a team (a situation that demands everyone accept equal reward and recognition). Even more intriguing: 48% said they imagined themselves working their way up to the top – in other words, elevating themselves above everybody else in the building. Again, this grates if you claim to be team orientated.

      It raises the question of whether or not it’s possible to be truly collaborative if you also seek personal glory.

      It might be easy to pick a few holes in the survey – it may be that people in media are not as nice as those in, say, healthcare – but these answers are indicative of how hard you have to work in order to better channel this perpetual drive to compete. It’s harder still to point it in a direction that is beneficial to the entire business and not just a select few individuals.

      For me, the failure to manage this drive is the first step towards a flawed – or worse, toxic – internal culture, riven with conflict.

      How you can use evolutionary strategy to reduce conflict

      Darwin’s finches point the way forward: these tiny birds found a way to live in harmony by diversifying. The net effect was that they avoided competing for the same food resources. In professional life, people compete against each other, too – not for food, but recognition and reward. The parallels between organisational life and the family dynamic are striking; the struggle for attention and the need for a person to find a niche to divert investment in their direction spring to mind. It’s evident that any organisation can be a Darwinian minefield, but one way of avoiding standing on any booby traps is to be more finch!

      In practice, if you are a project manager tasked with building a team from scratch to deliver a particular project, you should think of your project as the Galapagos, and the people required to deliver it as the finches. You might then think about how to break down that project into individual layers or workstreams.

      Consider what kind of temperament, qualities and expertise each goal requires and, subsequently, what type of finches you need.

      Who are your cactus eaters and who are your leaf eaters?

      I was prompted to think of Darwin’s finches and how their behaviour might help me while trying to put together a team to crack a tough client brief. After posting an internal request, I got a deluge of responses for one particular role, which happened to be the glamourous, high-profile role in my line of work: the creative lead. There were no responses for the others.

      By being more finch, it may be possible to manage our innate propensity to compete with each other and ensure that our endeavour, whatever its goal, is not an extension of the evolutionary СКАЧАТЬ