Principles to live and work by (revisited)

Earlier this year, I invested some time to put down on (electronic) paper the principles that I follow (or try to follow) in how I work.

I decided to write this in response to a request for a CV from someone who had just joined a new company and was looking for collaborators — you can read this article here.

I didn’t want to write a CV because it didn’t allow me to describe myself in a way that felt natural and honest. CVs tend to turn us into commodities and I’m just not happy with doing this. At the moment, I have the luxury of choosing not to do anything that feels fake even if it is what society expects.

My perspective has moved on a LOT since then. The emergency of climate heating came onto my radar when Extinction Rebellion hit the headlines in April.

In this post, I’m going to give you a sense of how my thinking has moved on and also write some principles (in fact, to borrow and adapt from some of my new sources) that will help shape how I (and maybe we?) live and work. At this stage, I don’t even know how well this will work out. But that’s not the point, the point is to try so that I learn and can decide where to go next.

My focus has been on helping organisations become inspiring and fulfilling places to work. As part of this, I’ve been researching to understand our current society, the capitalist and consumerist paradigm and how that drives our beliefs and behaviours.

I’ve studied this but also spoken to different people to get diverse perspectives. One of my main sources is through weekly, wide ranging conversations with Hilary and Bard. They are independent thinkers with a desire to learn about the human condition to play their part in improving the world. You can find the conversations here.

I’ve also started attending anthropology lectures (thanks for the tip Hilary) to help understand the nature of today’s society and create some hope for how we can do better. The tools of anthropology are used to explore how our forebears lived (hunter gatherers) and also by studying groups living today who haven’t taken our consumerist, capitalist path.

You can watch their videos here or attend their lectures in person in London.

I will probably write more about some of new insights as the mood takes me. For the moment, I’m just recording my conversations with Bard and Hilary to share our problem solving and the thought processes. As I mentioned, these are available on a youtube playlist.

So I find it helpful to have a question that frames what I am trying to explore:

How do we promote the common good through cooperation?

There is a point of view held by many anthropologists that morality evolved as a means of helping us collaborate.

A study of morality around the world (conducted by Oxford’s Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology established that there is a core set of rules that are found everywhere (although the priority and emphasis may vary).

This seems a useful model which we can use to start answering this question.

In trying to simplify this but keep the essence of the original study, I found some simpler summaries but have also expanded on each of the rules by referring back to the original study.

Allocation of Resources to Kin

help your family

This seems to be intuitively correct and beneficial. For the majority of us who are lucky enough to start with a family, we have a team backing us from day 1. Of course, this team is not always helpful some of the time and, in the worst cases, they are exploitative and damaging.

But many of us do turn to family because there seems to be an instinctive desire to help which comes without obligation. As I write this I realize there is an obligation — perhaps it’s a mutual obligation — I will help you because we are related by blood and I can expect the same of you in return.

Either way, it’s our very first community and also very influential.

I suggest that sticking with this community alone is high risk — they will give you a very limited perspective; they can be too close. Also, that strong bond can be damaging. Sometimes we need to feel pain to grow and that nurturing instinct may get in the way.

Some of the remaining rules are important in how they help us participate effectively in other communities.

Coordination to Mutual Advantage (Group Loyalty)

help your group

Seems pretty fundamental this one. Perhaps ‘helping your group’ is the very essence of being a member of a group. Until you’ve helped the group, you are merely a passive bystander.

This does bring up the question of the limit of resources. You have limited time and resources. How much help should you offer? What if you would like to be a member of several different groups. Why would you want to be a member of any group?

From the self-interested perspective of the individual, they give you ‘something’ that you want and can’t get elsewhere or, at least, not as easily.

This leads naturally to the next rule.

Social Exchange (Reciprocity)

return favours

This seems fairly obvious. In every exchange, it is important that this is perceived as fair. If favours go only one way, one party is being exploited and this will not end well.

More positively, a constant exchange of favours builds trust over time.

It is interesting to note that money isn’t part of this. Money dehumanises the exchange and does not build trust. It means that the ‘purchaser’ is expecting some sort of value or outcome and has no interest in the ‘seller’ apart from whether they deliver the expected outcome. It is typically a transaction and is very unlikely to build a relationship between the two individuals.

Contests between Hawks (Bravery) and Doves (Respect)

be brave

defer to superiors

I found the following useful to help my understanding:

Morality-as-cooperation leads us to expect that these types of cooperative behavior — hawkish displays of dominance (the “heroic virtues” of bravery, fortitude, skill, and wit) and dovish displays of submission (the “monkish virtues” of humility, deference, obedience, and respect) — will be regarded as morally good (Curry 2007).

I found this problematic because dominance hierarchies exist within our society that cause income inequality. Also, the concept of the servant-leader which is coming to the fore also flies in the face of this where the servant-leader exhibits more “monkish virtues” than “heroic virtues”.

Although this rule indicate that there is always status and hierarchy, it does not indicate the degree of power that is reasonable and, perhaps, becomes abusive. I would be interested to understand whether this is inevitable, required or how we manage the risk of this being abused.

The rule of dividing resources fairly seems to show some promise in preventing this becoming abusive.

As an experiment at work, I have been asking people at work (LLoyds is a traditionally hierarchical organisation) whether they think a hierarchy is inevitable and/or necessary (as opposed to a flatter structure, group of groups for example).

Most people have indicated that it is required. Raymond said that hierarchy can be based on knowledge or expertise, indicating an alternative to the traditional approach where the organisation grants authority and power (as opposed to the individual members giving authority to an individual).

Extinction Rebellion (the enivronmental activist group) has these values:

So they have a structure that tries to avoid abuse of power and genuinely empowers individuals. However, they still need to provide direction so they do have central groups who have responsibilities that are in service of the whole organisation. They also have provided a structure and a template for decentralised groups to establish themselves. There will be lessons to learn from this experiment.

Extinction Rebellion and Lloyds bank are clearly very different types of organisations. One difference I woud like to point out is that Lloyds is on money-making organisation and everyone involved has a contract of employment, based on money in exchange for people offering their time and expertise.

Extinction Rebellion has no money (there is some fund raising) and the people are participating on a voluntary basis, offering as much or as little time as they want.

I would argue that, on average, individual motivation in Extinction Rebellion is significantly higher than in Lloyds Bank. Employee disengagement is an ongoing topic of discussion in the corporate world.

This speaks to individual meaning and purpose and the impact of money, autonomy and freedom. Something to explore in a different post I think!

Division (Fairness)

divide resources fairly

This would seem to be a good rule for moderating abuses of power. I wonder how we would assess what is ‘fair’. Most of us probably have an instinct of what is fair. For example, I suspect many people would argue that executive pay in the UK has gone beyond what might be considered fair.

Individual perpsectives will vary depending on vested interest. For example, even the most fair-minded executives will presumably see some justification. Context seems relevant too. If there is a huge disparity between the ‘poor’ and the ‘rich’ this inevitably causes tension in society which will ultimately correct this ‘unfairness’ (e.g. the French Revolution).

a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay

Perhaps this might be one of the reasons for employee disengagement.

Another element to this is who we consider when dividing resources. It is a sad fact that our current system does not consider everyone equally deserving of receiving a fair cut.

women, ethnic minorities, young, poor, vulnerable, the global south

When it comes to money, it seems to find its way to older, white men, especially those who are members of elite groups.

I suspect that most wars and injustices have unfair division of resources at their heart. And money is the resource that is most relevant as this is how power is expressed.

It is difficult to see how we can expect ‘cooperation’ when this injustice is so widespread. Perhaps we can find or creat places where this injustice is held at bay or has limited impact for true cooperation to thrive.

I’ll speak more about Extinction Rebellion and Community Cook Up at the end of this post to explore this further.

Possession (Property Rights)

respect others’ property

I found this a little problematic too. I have been brought up in a (Western) society where this principle is embedded in law and is taken as a given. This applies to houses, money, goods and even ideas (intellectual property which can include a company).

The most obvious alternative to this is Communism which has failed in the form expressed in the Soviet Union. Any discussion on the ‘type’ of communism that was expressed here is beyond the scope of this post.

It might be useful to dissect ‘respect others’ property’ to understand the issues in this.

One question we might ask is:

who decides or how do we decide who has the right to property?

It is difficult to respect property rights if they don’t reflect a fair division of resources in the first place. We could go back to the situation with executive pay to see why the granting of property rights is perceived to be undeserved.

It would appear that these rules can make sense but (as discovered in the survey), this is not a ‘pic and mix’ — they need to be used together. In my opinion, divide resources fairly is critical to avoid abuses of power and, without this, the other rules are likely to be ignored— defer to authority and respect others’ property being obvious.

As this is a theoretical discussion, I thought I’d look at some of the areas in my life where I cooperate with others to see if I can learn anything else.

Also, group membership is an important topic in today’s society. We talk about the risk of polarisation and group-think. Polarisation creates divisions in society. Group think arises when we are exclusively members of groups which think like us. Actively seeking to learn from different perspectives increases our understanding and helps unite us (across different groups). It helps us recognise what we have in common and reduces the perception of those outside our groups as the ‘other’. This challenge and how to address it is one that I think about a lot.

I am a member of a number of groups (outside of my friends, family):

• my work family (currently Lloyds Bank) — this is a group I have been a member of for 30 years. As a freelancer, this changes whenever my contract comes to an end.
  In my latest team I have invested more personally as I more committed to the work (it’s not just another job). I have got a great deal more out of this than I have in the past. Ther is also a risk — I won’t be content with ‘just another job’ when this contract comes to an end.
• business analyst profession. I was an active member of this community from 2009 when I served on the board of the professional association. This was volunteer led and reflected my interests in serving and promoting the profession.
  More recently my purpose has changed to making work an inspiring and fulfilling place. This is part of my journey to move out of financial services and satisfy my desire to have a positive social impact. This community, by definition, has a limited perspective with the business analyst at the centre. I don’t define myself as as a business analyst so that I can pursue my goals and find a new community who shares these goals. I wrote about this here and here.
• Bard, Hilary and me. As part of seeking opportunities to pursue my new goal I encountered Bard and Hilary. These were very random encounters but also a result of me sharing my thoughts on LinkedIn and joining HiveMind to seek opportunities.
  They think very differently and provide me with very fresh perspectives that help me to see the world more clearly. As part of my mission to be open about my journey, we record our Friday conversation as ‘Conversations that Matter’. We talk about a huge variety of topics including being a member of a tribe; problems with public sector and the technology sector; the impact of money; how to be yourself; the insidious effect of capitalism and consumerism; being a woman in today’s society.
  This has gone a long way to providing me a with a new community but, more importantly, some amazing insights and a path to greater growth.
• Community Cook Up. I started volunteering at this charity at the start of the year. I did this because Brexit was hiding the divisions and inequality in the UK which is something I wanted to change. I also still wanted to have a positive social impact and I was allowing my contract to get in the way. I hadn’t worked out how to get off the money treadmill whilst owning a house with three generations.
  This allowed me to do something positive and whilst I still had the money problem.
  This has allowed me to step outside my social bubble and my middle class ghetto. London, like many cities, is sharply divided into wealthy and poor area.
  Joining the volunteers and guests (many are homeless) at this community gathering based around a shared meal and an safe place to connect has helped me. At its most basic level I have overcome some personal fears and discovered the joy of helping others.
• Extinction Rebellion. I have only just started getting involved with this group. I was attracted by their purpose but also their thoughtful and human strategy. I saw similar ideas and philosophies to the transformation work I am involved in at Lloyds. The biggest parallel is with complexity and systems thinking which provides us with a philosophy and tools to change things even though the ‘solution’ is far from obvious and can only be discovered through experimentation.
  Celebrating and promoting humanity within the workplace is my goal. This is not an explicit goal for Lloyds but there are definitely echoes of this. Ultimately, XR is about recognising that our humanity has been corrupted and relegated to second place through our capitalist philosophy which only recognizes financial value and promotes inequality (my views of course!). Of course, there is a big difference in that Extinction Rebellion isn’t part of the economic system and seeks to change that. Lloyds is an experiment in changing the system from within. An experiment that will continue…

As I read these rules for cooperation, I felt there was a gap. There was nothing that told me what we are cooperating for.

What is the value we are pursuing when we are working together as humans?

I was reminded of something I encountered last year as a ‘reference’ for understanding human value. Perhaps we shouldn’t need a guide for this because we should simply know this.

At this stage of ‘evolution’, I think that we do need to be reminded of the basics.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, it is the Center for Nonviolent Communication’s ‘inventory’ of human needs which is categorised into:

Connection; Physical Well-Being; Honesty; Play; Peace; Autonomy and Meaning

You can read the full breakdown here.

I like the simplicity of this and the absolute focus on humanity without reference to human structures. There are the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

These are mostly laudable but they do also assume elements of our current system which limits the solutions we can consider. For example, the nation state and economic growth. These have both played a significant part on the system that has got to where we are today.

As ever, I want to learn and value debate and learning together so please comment or contact me directly if you’d prefer.

Some of my ideas may well be challenging — I can only describe the world as I see it today. I want to learn and see the world more clearly — your comments will help me and others so please don’t be shy.

Respectful discussion is welcomed!