The Genetic Roots of Teamwork
In 1964, W. D. Hamilton, one of the most influential evolutionary biologists of the 20th Century, introduced the theory he called “inclusive fitness.” Inclusive fitness involves the number of offspring and offspring equivalents an individual rears, rescues, or otherwise treats altruistically. Hamilton showed mathematically that, because other members of a population may share one’s genes, a gene can also increase its evolutionary success by indirectly promoting the reproduction and survival of other individuals who also carry that gene. This observation engendered the “kin selection theory.”
As the theory explains, a gene’s fondest wish is to be passed into the next generation. This occurs when the creature carrying the gene survives to reproduce. But the propensity to reproduce also occurs if the creature’s relatives, who carry the same genes, survive to reproduce. This theory helps to explain why a small bird will fake injury to distract a hawk from its young, thereby acting altruistically toward its kin.
It also helps to explain how relationships not only intensify our willingness to help those we consider part of our clan, but how they also cause us to want to. When we share an identity with others, either through our genes or associations, we have a heightened ability to influence others, and they, in turn, have the power to influence us.
Employees who work in hospitals that have healthy cultures leverage this power of kinship. The more closely we share an identity with those with whom we work, the more dramatic the feelings of merging with one another.
Although members of healthcare teams continue to function as individuals, the process of group formation causes the collection of individuals to form a new entity, something that has a new, unique identity. These teams do not consist of mindless individuals all conforming to some preordained path to group consensus. Rather, individuals continually structure their groups through their communication behaviors. All groups, no matter how stable they appear, change with members’ interactions—a process that both internal and external factors shape. These factors take on more significance when we realize people tend to help most those they consider in their in-crowd.
A series of studies by British psychologist Mark Levine indicates that, in the most extreme of cases, some things bind rather than divide us. Levine and his team asked Manchester United fans to write down what they liked about their team, which was the first step in a multi-step experiment. Then they had the fans move to another building for the second phase. Along the way, they encountered a seemingly injured jogger who was part of the experiment. Sometimes the jogger wore a Manchester shirt, sometimes a plain shirt, and sometimes a shirt of rival team, Liverpool. When the jogger wore a Manchester shirt, the overwhelming majority of participants stopped to help, but few stopped to help the Liverpool jogger. The researchers concluded people have a strong tendency to help most those they see as belonging to groups with whom they identify.5
The British researchers determined commonalities bind us, which should not surprise anyone. But anyone who has worked in the healthcare world realizes that uncommon commonalities bind people even more intensely. They are part artist, part social worker, part businessperson, and part technical expert. Peers like these share features rarely found in other external individuals and groups. These uncommon commonalities cause peers to feel connected, and at times, to develop a them-against-us mindset for those outside the clan. This sort of bond and mindset create a bedrock on which to influence. And it doesn’t take much.
Peers play a tricky balancing act in influencing. They can have an “everyone is doing the right thing, and you should too” inspiration, or they can overuse a good thing to the point that it stimulates negative results. That’s what social psychologists Irving Janis concluded in 1972 when he first identified groupthink as a phenomenon that occurs when decision makers accept proposals without scrutiny, suppress opposing thoughts, or limit analysis and disagreement. Historians often blame groupthink for such fiascoes as Pearl Harbor, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Vietnam War, the Watergate break-in, and the Challenger disaster. We now realize groupthink causes a group to make an incomplete examination of the data and the available options, which can lead the participants to a simplistic solution to a complex problem.
Researcher Robert Cialdini addressed the ways peers influence each other in his seminal work, Influence. According to Cialdini social proof provides a potent weapon of influence. This principle states that one way to determine correct behavior is to find out what other people deem correct. We view behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.
I advise clients not to major in the minors, but sometimes the minor things can have a major impact. Everyone seems to agree peers play an important and profound role in shaping behavior and influencing each other. The job of those who lead these teams is to shape the environment so that positive influences can persuade people to behave in accord with what serves the group and to avoid the mind-guarding that leads to groupthink.
Author John Gardner wrote, “ We must learn to honor excellence in every socially-acceptable human activity—and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity—and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity—will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theory will hold water.” Although accurate, Gardner didn’t go far enough.
He neglected to mention what care teams must do to embrace excellence and scorn shoddiness. Gardner overlooked, but hosptial leaders can’t afford to ignore, the role influence and persuasion must play in defining individual and organizational success.
