The surprise link between chimps and your office behaviour

Andrew O'Keeffe:
Individuals become high performers through their connections. High performers get things done faster, more efficiently, more effectively because they know who to go to in their organisation.

Jackie Blondell:
Welcome to INTHEBLACK's latest Career Hacks podcast series. I'm Jacqueline Blondell, and this season we're exploring the human factor at work in the AI age, what it means to be human as technology reshapes how we work and connect. In this episode, we look at the instincts that still drive human workplace behaviour: belonging, hierarchy, gossip and connection, and what chimpanzee social structures can teach us about getting on with people at work. I'm joined by Andrew O'Keefe, author of Hardwired Humans, whose work draws on behavioural research as well as insights from the late primatologist, Dr. Jane Goodall. Hello, Andrew. Welcome to the show.

Andrew O'Keeffe:
Thank you, Jackie.

Jackie Blondell:
I thought first we could look at the workplace being, as you write, a relatively recent construct. Humans have only been in work or very regulated offices for around 250 years. So how much of our pre-industrial behaviour patterns do we retain and why?

Andrew O'Keeffe:
Workplaces are not our natural habitat through the long journey of human history. We've only recently moved into these strange places called workplaces. So much of our experience as a species was in our small bands and then villages, and suddenly beginning in the north of England with the industrial revolution in the mid to late 1700s, we started this shift into workplaces. And so that two, 250 years at the maximum, continental Europe was really into the early 1800s with the industrial impact.

That's no time to alter what it means to be human. And so the behaviour that served us well in a very different setting in our ancestral setting and rural villages still presents itself at work. And the question or the benefit of this approach is to help make sense of human behaviour. In making sense, we can then make better choices about what we think and what we do.

Every species that survived exists on this planet, scientists say, has or had a single attribute that allowed it to succeed in what generally is a pretty hostile climate. We're not big like an elephant, an elephant calf. Once it gets beyond a certain small size, protected by its mother and aunts, its size protects it against predation. We're not really big, we don't run really fast, we don't fly, we don't have a protective shell. What's our unique attribute? And it's that we're a big brain species, and that big brain allowed us to live in relatively quite large groups.

Another one, just maybe a third example is on hierarchy, which is really about relative power and how people at different levels of the organisation deal with the relative power that they have. So it's some of those examples which help us to begin to say, "Yeah, we're not captive of our natures, but they are there." Instinctive behaviours are those that we don't have to learn. They are there, they're operating, they've served us overall very well. Through our long history or experience as humans, they still present themselves in this strange habitat.

Jackie Blondell:
So let's turn to the chimp world, speaking of hierarchies, because I find it very interesting that we probably transported our village band hierarchy into the office because it seems that we've got very hierarchical setups in offices. Can you use your big brain to tell us how chimps' complex social structures are similar to human society, particularly in the workplace?

Andrew O'Keeffe:
That's right. We have to keep bringing it back to the workplace. I said they live in relatively large groups, not quite as brainy as us, so their natural size group is 50. We're that much brainier relative to body size. Our natural size group is up to about 150.

So when I worked at IBM, which is probably 100,000 people around the world, a human being doesn't associate with 100,000. We associate with the immediate team and division, which in my case was human resources. The next size group was 3,000 people in Australia and New Zealand. That became a bit of a stretch, but it says that then the natural condition where we can bond and work well is about that size compared to chimps.

One of Jane Goodall's experience that she observed was a chimp group that got bigger than about 50, broke down. They separated, they fractured, and then they turned on each other. What were erstwhile colleagues were suddenly the enemy. It's like that territorial, the great rivalry in football teams or sports teams are those that neighbour each other. So that's one.

The other from Dr. Goodall was very much around hierarchy and power. In a chimp community, every individual is a pecking order, a relative power relationship with every other individual. So they know their place. If they have ambition, but not all individuals, she said, have ambition, then they might want to progress through that hierarchy. They progress through dominance displays, banging the table, throwing the biro, yelling, whatever it might be, the bluff and the like. So they'll progress.

In terms of alliances, might be that a family member will more likely to support another family member to try to get to the top. They get to the top finally by the ultimate dominance display, which is the prior alpha will concede to the challenger. And so there's a change in power.

The other thing that made sense based on what I've been experiencing in the first half of my career as what happens when there's a change of leader is that there's a risk to those who are associated with the prior leader and they typically go to the outer unless they quickly change their allegiances to the new leader. So I saw that in workplaces where people brought in their previous confidants and colleagues. So yeah, there's some of the... And then we'll come, I think, to probably the other big one with Jane Goodall as the way in which these communities bond and stay connected.

Jackie Blondell:
What positive things can people in our careers and in our workplaces learn from this chimp troop hierarchy and behaviours that can teach us how to get on with people at work and really build meaningful connections?

Andrew O'Keeffe:
Yeah. So one really helpful insight with this is the way in which social species bond. So we only form relationships and maintain relationships through the practice of bonding. Now every social species, if we go back to chimps, chimps bond by physically grooming. In fact, for chimps, it's the second most important daylight activity after foraging for food. They'll spend 15 to 20% of their day hanging out with others, their friends, if you like, or individuals they might be forming a connection or allegiance with and choose to groom that other individual.

We don't groom physically. We have this ability of our great vocal capability. So humans, with our bigger brain and our language and vocal capability, we groom through social chit-chat. And the big point here is that we cannot bond, we cannot form a relationship, we cannot maintain a relationship unless we engage in social chit-chat.

When I was talking to Jane Goodall about this, probably about 2011, I asked her about the significance of grooming to bonding. She said, "Andrew, two chimps cannot possibly be bonded if they don't spend time grooming." It's just beyond belief that she would think two individuals could say. So for work colleagues in the workplace, we cannot be bonded unless we spend time grooming, and that's through social chit-chat. So the next step of that explanation is what subjects related to social chit-chat?

There are subjects other than technical or task talk. They're subjects like interests and hobbies. They're also work subjects like organisational chit-chat. "Hey Jackie, I've just been to a meeting and I though there was something that I picked up that you might be interested in." And it's not negative gossip or malicious or anything, that's for a different purpose, that's for undermining and the like. And that's a small part of gossip. Overwhelmingly, it's a really pro-social, it's a really beneficial behaviour.

Another social chit-chat is when a new leader comes in and just sharing thoughts or what do you think about the new leader, that's normal sort of behaviour for us humans as big brain social species. And so the key point of what that bonding and chit-chat leads to is that we cannot... To paraphrase Dr. Goodall, we cannot be bonded with our colleagues, our peers, our boss, our clients, other stakeholders, we cannot be bonded unless we engage in a healthy level of chit-chat. You could imagine in terms of clients and stakeholders why that's important, colleagues, peers, subordinates, if you're in a leadership role.

Jackie Blondell:
That's interesting. So let's chit-chat more about you taking executives to the zoo to observe animal behaviour. Why did you do that and what happened and which animals?

Andrew O'Keeffe:
Yeah, it was always primates, big brainy species, if you like, most similar to us. Where it started was, from the first programme that we ran early 2007, we'd talk about humans in the room and we'd go out to the chimp exhibit or in Melbourne, be the baboons or the gorillas, orangutans in Perth, it was always the primates.

And so in the hands of the keepers, they would talk about the community behind us. And let's say for example, at the Taronga exhibit of chimpanzees, people always wanted to know, which you would coming out of the workplace, "Which one's the alpha?"

Jackie Blondell:
How important to career success is building meaningful connections in the workplace? We talked about gossip, chit-chat, grooming, but how important is... Because we often think we leave it behind. We think, "Oh, it's technical, it's efficiency." And we often forget about connections, particularly in an age where technology is driving everything.

Andrew O'Keeffe:
And it's so important in this age of technology, and the key observation there is that technology doesn't alter human behaviour, so it's still there, use it consciously. So in terms of conscious behaviour and relationships, individuals become high performers through their connections. High performers get things done faster, more efficiently, more effectively because they know who to go to in their organisation.

A second one is around an instinct, which is called first impressions to classify. We make snap judgments. We do so on very little bits of information and we do so as our sense-making process to classify and to binary alternatives. "I like that person, didn't like the person. They look like they're going to be a good team member. They were not a good team member. That's a good venue, that's a bad venue.'

Jackie Blondell:
Lastly, let's just look at human individuality because we are going through another massive technological shift. Is our actual individuality, our ability to connect with others, make us more valuable in this age? And basically how do we capitalise on that?

Andrew O'Keeffe:
It's around using the technology, not allowing the technology to drive us. Let's just use for an example, working from home or working in an online environment. Then that's helpful, but also it has negative impact in terms of the human interaction. So if you work in an organisation that allows working from home, my suggestion based on human nature is then only take that option to work from home cautiously, make sure you spend enough time in the workplace and you've got a better chance of getting on faster in your career, being more appreciated.

Jackie Blondell:
That's really interesting.

Andrew O'Keeffe:
And it could even be as simple as patronage. So one of the individual chimps I'm thinking about got on faster through the patronage of the alpha individual figurine at the time. We progress through what people think and say about us, that executives will be sitting down one day thinking about who to promote, who's got the better chance? That person who was seen, delivered, has relationships, more likely was spending more time. People aren't judging it based on, "Oh, they work more in the office." They're not taking that into account. It's unconscious things which led to an impression. So that's a significant thing.

If we work in a workplace that has euphemistically called hot activity-based working, which in plain English is hot desking, then there's a chance that the desk you'll be allocated that day is not connected at all to the people you're working closely with. The sensible teams in those organisations find a way around it and organise things so that they are working in a pod together. That's a really useful workaround which the designers of activity-based work weren't thinking about, but humans make better choices. So they'll say that... If I'm sitting in a desk or workstation not connected to anybody else I'm connecting to in my work, that feels to me like it's difficult, I feel lonely. Well, it is because you are lonely.

And maybe the third one in terms of... To answer your question about what we can do consciously in terms of our workplace experiences, there's an instinct called loss aversion, which says we're more motivated by avoiding negative and harm, keeping out of harm's way than we are seeing the positive or the gain associated with. It's like being careful about what was that that moved in the bushes. I won't just innocently go and inspect because it might be a predator. I take care about harm.

So in terms of feedback, we get on in our career if we're accepting a feedback, if our manager finds us someone who's quite open to feedback and not precious and overly emotional or drop our bundle. So be the sort of person who is open to feedback, you'll benefit from it, your manager will be more inclined to share their insight without being so careful about it, if not avoidant in giving you feedback.

Because with loss aversion, let's say you're having a performance review and your manager says nine really good things about you and there was one negative. Guess what? Human nature, guess what one we focus on? The one negative. That becomes a conversation. Manager either thinks, "I shared nine really positives with the person. Why did they get hung up about the one negative?" It's because they're human and our default is to focus on the negative loss aversion. But we can consciously make a choice that says, "Okay, I'm going to acknowledge the nine really good things.

I'm going to explore in a non-defensive way the one negative. I'll benefit from that. I'll show the manager later that I've taken that feedback on board and I'm doing something differently. And we'll benefit from our career progression through not being captive to our nature of being so avoidant of loss that we're open to the negative and I'll benefit from that insight into human nature."

Jackie Blondell:
That's brilliant, Andrew. Thanks so much. It has been an absolutely fascinating conversation. There's loads of things I'm going to take away from this. And the last one about not focusing on the negative I think is actual primo advice. So thanks for joining us.

Andrew O'Keeffe:
It's a pleasure, Jackie. Thank you.

Jackie Blondell:
That's it for this episode of Career Hacks. Join us next time as we continue exploring the human factor at work in the AI age. Don't forget to like and subscribe and share this episode with your friends and colleagues. As always, thanks for listening.