Mike Lehr's Blog

We sometimes hear, “Nice guys finish last.” However, in genetics altruism creates a dilemma because it exists – and not just in humans. The question is why. Even Darwin considered it a challenge to his theory of natural selection. Why would any creature help another at a steep personal cost?

The article, “Kin and Kind,” written by Jonah Lehrer in the March 5, 2012 edition of The New Yorker, investigates altruism and its role in evolution. Whether its bats, bees, birds, ants or humans, the presence of altruism in these species suggests that kindness can’t be a losing strategy. In fact, insects displaying an extreme form of altruism called “eusociality” tend to dominate the insect world over their self-interested brethren.

E.O.Wilson, a main proponent of altruism as a positive contributor in evolution summarizes it this way:

Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups.

If we look at the Napoleonic era and the rise of the nation state, we find that the demise of mercenary (self-interested) armies began when citizen (altruistic) armies, cemented by patriotic and nationalistic emotions arrived on the scene. However, the reason why we don’t see more altruism in nature and our everyday lives is that a cohesive group must exist first. Again, context matters; encouraging self-interest will yield a self-interested culture, encouraging altruism will yield an altruistic one.

Of course, this prompts the question: Can a company built upon self-interested incentives triumph over a company with a cohesive, altruistic culture? Evolution suggests it won’t. Of course, that doesn’t mean a few self-interested people inside the altruistic cultures won’t try to take advantage of the others. Perhaps they are there to really test how cohesive and altruistic the company is?

Nevertheless, it seems that evolution could really be on the side of the nice guys.

Other posts in this series:

• Cooperation vs. Competition on the Business-to-Business Level
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest: Which Reigns Supreme?
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 2): Context – The Great Influencer
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 3): Empathy
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 4): Intrinsic Rewards
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 5): Humans vs. Apes
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 6): Incentives & Rats

Businesses spend much money on developing their visions, strategies and processes; however, they spend relatively little on culture, which trumps all of the others. Megan McArdle discusses her observations of General Motors and others in “Why Companies Fail,” appearing in the March 2012 issue of The Atlantic.

When we talk about vision, strategy and process, they are very much head concepts as opposed to heart ones. For example, they don’t concern themselves much with the relationships that employees have between one another or even the relationships that the management team has with employees. The simplest relational techniques are rarely connected to these heady concepts when, in fact, it’s relationships that drive the cohesion and morale of any organization.

Unless we touch our employees on their emotional foundation, vision, strategy and process will fall far short of their intended success. This perspective transforms leadership into more of an emotional function from a rational one.  This perspective also helps us understand why common business tools such as incentives and processes can retard our efforts to build relationships and effect change.

Using a farming analogy, it doesn’t matter what vision, strategy and processes we use; if the soil isn’t good, we will struggle. In business, the soil is the relationship between the management team and employees. It forms the foundation of a company’s culture. If that team can’t develop effect relationships or isn’t motivated to even use simple relationship building techniques, then how can we expect it to implement great visions, strategies and processes?

Related post: Great Strategy? Don’t Neglect Culture

In Part 4 of this series, I discussed the positivity of intrinsic rewards in the workplace. Let’s now address the negative impact of monetary motivations which are the primary extrinsic reward in today’s business world.

As Yochai Benkler in his article “The Unselfish Gene” of the July-August 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review writes on page 84:

Whenever you design a policy that relies on monetary rewards, you have to assume that it will have side effects on the psychological, social, and moral dimensions of human motivation.

While it might be easy for us to see how monetary rewards encourage us to pursue our selfish interests, it’s difficult to see their deeper negative side effects. For instance, in many ways incentives encourage us to feel no better than rats in a maze. Rats seek out the cheese to guide them successfully through the maze. A right turn returns cheese while a wrong one does not. When businesses help employees navigate the maze of their business plans, making the “right” turns brings monetary rewards. When they make the “wrong” turn, the cheese is not forthcoming.

Now, many will claim, “I don’t feel like a rat.” However, as we come to understand ourselves better, we find much of this affects us subconsciously. We see this whenever we jokingly refer to the business world as the “rat race,” the “dog-eat-dog world,” or other similar descriptors. Of course, as Lily Tomlin pointed out, “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”

This isn’t to say we eliminate monetary rewards. It’s similar to eating; people require diverse foods to be healthy, so they also require diverse motivations for their professional health. In other words, we can’t create a cooperative culture on money alone.

Other links in this series:

• Cooperation vs. Competition on the Business-to-Business Level
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest: Which Reigns Supreme?
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 2): Context – The Great Influencer
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 3): Empathy
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 4): Intrinsic Rewards
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 5): Humans vs. Apes

Thanking employees periodically for doing their jobs generates a superior return on our time. It’s an effective cost-containment technique for our labor cost; the less employees like the culture the more money it will take to keep them. Consequently, no employee should go more than three to six months without an executive or senior manager thanking him for his work.

Moreover, Thank You’s power extends beyond the immediate employee. She will assuredly talk to other employees about her experience, thus producing a ripple effect. We are making the company’s grapevine work for us.

Here is a simple, direct thank you:

Hi, Tom. How are you? Listen, I just wanted to thank you for the work you’ve been doing for me. I appreciate it. You’ve really been helping us out.

Often, employees will respond with something like:

Well, I’m just doing my job.

To which we can respond with:

Perhaps, but I know that you don’t have to show up and you don’t have to apply your total effort. So, I’m thanking you for those things too.

Occasionally, I’ve heard executives and managers say:

• If they don’t like it, there’s the door!
• Why should I do this when their paycheck is our thanks?

First, employees are under no legal obligation to show up for work; we cannot sue them for not showing. We avoid headaches when they show. Second, every company issues paychecks; every company does not issue thank you’s. They give us a competitive edge in securing and keeping talent. Third, if money is the only way we show appreciation, then money will be the only thing that motivates them. Thank you’s allow us to develop and leverage personal connections. These build a team culture and make goals more achievable.