By Bill Caswell
Special to Ontario Construction News
In 1967, Desmond Morris wrote:
“Our unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining its higher motives and an equal amount of time ignoring its fundamental ones. In acquiring lofty new motives, the human has lost none of the earthly old ones.
“This is frequently a cause of some embarrassment to the creature, but the old impulses have been with the beast for millions of years and there is no hope of quickly shrugging off the legacy of the whole evolutionary past.” 1
Today, more than ever, it seems, humans think they can rise above the past. They continue to shrug off our world’s evolutionary history. But every so often an author comes along to remind us that things really work differently than our lofty ambitions suggest.
The CEO must get a grip on reality. Leaders have the chance to search for the messages of reality through several highly principled, revealing books. I list some below (in order of publication date). The “reality” reflects the message that people don’t want to hear.
The Naked Ape (1967), Desmond Morris, 252 pages
General message: It took millions of years to get us humans where we are, most of it by following instinct.
Reality: Despite our intelligence, we are still programmed to follow many of our animal-like instincts
Example: Women’s alarm system (scream), that was used to alert cave neighbours to a problem, still works very well today.
Chaos (1987), James Gleick, 352 pages
General message: Gleik shows how chaos and chance are responsible for most things as they are today. Yet an element of control enters the chaos picture. Example: No matter in which way I shoot at the goalie, I cannot predict when the puck will go in. Yet if I shoot more often, I can increase the chance that it will eventually go in. Thus the control I have is to shoot more often.
Reality: Chaos is a tool we can use to our advantage to speed up many endeavours. Yet most people are completely unaware of Chaos Theory and hence do not apply it when it would save a lot of time and provide better answers.
Example: Over 200 candidates of CCI (a subsidiary of CCCC), were unable to find jobs previously. Using the chaos approach, CCI located ideal jobs in an average time of 13.6 weeks (vs. the national average of 39 weeks). CCCC has used the chaos approach in solving thousands of problems correctly and quickly – with a 100% success rate.
Punished by Rewards (1993), Alfie Kohn, 430 pages
General message: Rewards fail. Years of proof of their failure confirms that rewards, as a long-term solution, don’t work and never have worked.
Reality: Instead of using rewards to motivate use good management.
Example: Reward programs often end up with most participants resenting the ‘inadequate’ reward allocated to them, while the few well-rewarded people become pariahs.
The Language Instinct (1994) by Steven Pinker, 494 pages
General message: Pinker illustrates how much of our language development in children is instinctive.
Reality: Instinct plays a role even in our language development.
Example: Long before they are old enough to learn from others, children deliver simple, structurally correct phrases.
Climbing Mount Impossible (1996), Richard Dawkins, 313 pages
General message: Dawkins has the same message as Charles Darwin, but with added clarity – so this book is coupled with Charles Darwin’s tome.
Reality: Great amounts of time have allowed the evolution of extremely complex and successful organisms.
Example: It takes less than 500,000 years for an eye to evolve as it has on 40 to 50 separate, independent occasions.
On the Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin, 415 pages
General message: Published 150 years ago, Darwin showed that we humans, and all creatures, evolved over time (See above).
Reality: We were not created in a stroke of generosity but over eons (See above).
Example: The bests guess is that life on earth began 700 million years ago.
Respect Revolution (12-book series), (2009), William Caswell, 2,770 pages
General message: There is a predictable way to achieve long-term business success. Among the tools explained are (a) personality temperaments, (b) the basic need of individuals to be in control of their own situations brought about by (c), respecting employees, which means greater sharing and empowerment.
Reality: Respecting employees leads to more co-operation, which results in higher productivity – as long as the leaders keep sharing information with (i.e. respecting) employees.
Example: Over the first decade of CCCC operation, the companies CCCC has assisted with its tools have increased performance at an average of 32% in their first 12 months of the CCCC intervention.
The Spirit Level (2009), Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, 321 pages
General message: Countries with less differences in salaries between lowest and highest do better as a society. Various states in the USA yield the same results.
Reality: More equal societies always do better socially, having less crime and fewer social problems.
Example: California, with a large gap between rich and poor, has considerably more social problems than New Hampshire, where the wage gap is smaller.
Sex at Dawn, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, 416 pages
General message: Humans’ tendencies to stray from marriage follow the same path as our plains-wandering ancestors.
Reality: We humans are enormously pre-occupied with sex.
Message: Wandering libidos of J.F.K., Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger – do we need to go on?
Thinking Fast and Slow (2011), Daniel Kahneman, 499 pages
General message: The brain can be said to be broken into two competing parts, the emotion and the logic sections. The emotional part is faster and more dominant than the logical part. The pre-frontal cortex (logic) vs. the limbic system (basic emotions),
Reality: Emotions almost always trump logic. (We make mistakes because we tend to ignore this fact.) The 700-million-year-old limbic brain section (emotions) overrides the 50-million-old (logic).
Example: Harry spends more time in the interview of a good looking, well-built blonde than he does with an unattractive job candidate.
A Series of Fortunate Events (2020), Sean Carroll, 213 pages
General message: Human existence came about by a series of events, any one of which could have prevented our arrival.
Reality: Luck plays a very large part in all of our lives – contributing to our success and failure.
Example: Sarah, born intelligent, without health defects, in a rich country inherits her dad’s business. Sandy is born with multiple sclerosis.
When Brains Dream (2021) Antonio Zadra and Robert Stickgold, 321 pages
General message: Sleep allows the brain to scan the day’s 10,000+ new bits of information and assess how they must be fitted into our memory banks. Dreams are mechanisms to explore improbable connections between the day’s information and remotely held memory data.
Reality: If we don’t get enough sleep, we cannot complete the assessing function and we will perform less well during the day. Dreams do not have obvious interpretation (or do they need it.)
Example: People fight the urge to go to bed when necessary because there is negative social stigma attached to going to bed each night at 9:00 p.m. Result: Lack of sleep always leads to poorer performance the next day.
Conclusion
Be open to accepting that behaviours that “should be” are not necessarily “what they are” – and be willing to follow some of your instinctive thoughts…but not all.
1Morris, Desmond, The Naked Ape, Jonathan Cape publishers, London UK, 1967
Bill Caswell leads the Caswell Corporate Coaching Company (CCCC) in Ottawa, www.caswellccc.com or email bill@caswellccc.com.
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