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Team Building
The Caveman Effect -
The evolution of inventing High Performance Teams
by Arthur Carmazzi
Does a team's influence affect an
individual's personal competence?
The answer is an obvious "Yes", so the real question is how to make that
influence one that improves performance instead of deteriorates it.
If you wish to influence the dynamics behind superior team performance, you
need to understand the psychology that drives human reaction.
In the beginning...
The caveman needed to survive. Man found safety in groups. It was not a
matter of preference, it was a matter of necessity. If you were not a part
of a group, your chances for survival were slim. Conformity to the majority
became necessary to stay in a group and physical strength was the dominant
factor for group leadership. Those who were strong and successful in the art
of survival had the majority influence toward that conformity and only the
strong challenged these leaders. If you challenged the leadership, you
needed to be prepared to fight. And, if you lost, you were forced to leave
the safety of the group and fend for yourself. The risk was great so there
were few challengers and it became an ingrained survival response to gain
acceptance from the group, so people just kept quiet.
It was a time of compliance!
...Then came the significance revolution
The caveman's brains got bigger and more developed. Individuals became torn
between finding there own path and gaining there own recognition, verses
conforming to the group. Physical strength was no longer the dominant factor
for influence. Now, people could think! Survival was no longer the
acquisition of food and shelter; it had become a fight of ability. The more
intelligent you were (and able to apply it), the more valuable you had
become. The more influence you could exert over others, the more powerful
you became. We began to compete for significance trying to show others how
important and able we are, and if they believed us, or in some cases feared
us, we became even more important.
 We created a civilization that needed to be right!
Then came the industrial revolution...
...and groups evolved into teams but the fundamentals of our survival
instinct, our emotional evolution and the emotions that drive us were still
there, and a major part of our psychology. Our ability to work at our peak
in teams depended on the way these emotional drivers and understanding the
dynamics they promote.
Today, the caveman has evolved and the awareness of our psychology has
expanded.
We now seek better ways to improve our selves and our performance, but our
caveman nature sometimes gets in the way. While our modern brain is
influenced by numerous factors of emotional drive, the three that came from
our caveman days are still central to our performance in teams:
The drive to belong
The drive for security
The drive to be significant
As with our caveman ancestors, our fear of loss is more important that our
potential for gain. Loosing (or the potential of loosing) our sense of
belonging or our sense of security or significance are materialize in
caveman like reactions. These reactions are sometimes subtle.
Our caveman reaction for conformity is driven by our need belong and feel
secure in the group, so we keep quiet and comply. And if we do challenge, we
are probably depriving others of their significance or security, causing
them to react to "protect" themselves. This can either escalate to greater
conflict, or it may revert back to compliance and conformity to prevent
conflict. Either way, these are still caveman reactions and are NOT useful
to high performance teams.
The greatest obstacle to high performance is the caveman's reactions to
loosing significance, in order for the caveman to be right, he must make
someone else wrong, and that means, more caveman reactions from the other
team members! And the worst part is that reality is not what matters, the
caveman reacts on emotion without fact, and so "perception" influences
reaction. When someone feels wrong, they feel less able; they may feel like
they have less control and therefore are less secure, they react with
aggression or submission out of dissatisfaction, and a lesser desire to
cooperate affects their performance and the entire team.
So how do we get the caveman out of our teams so we can stop reacting and
act like the evolved humans we have become, able to perform at the peak of
our abilities?
There are 4 stages to our evolution into "awakened" team members
Each stage is a stage of awareness. It awakens our greater perception. But
for it to be effective, the entire team has to take this journey. But there
are consequences, once team members have awakened, they will never view
teams again in the same way. They can never go back to the way it was and
can never be satisfied with mediocrity. Each stage opens our eyes to the
caveman within ourselves and others, and it lets us use the intelligent part
of our brain to send this caveman back when he tries to invade our minds and
body. Different team members may be at different stages in their evolution,
where are you?
These 4 stages are as follows:
Stage 1: Acknowledge the primitive caveman
in you
Look at the behavior you have had in the past. How many times have you gone
against your better judgment to "go with the flow"? Discover your need to
belong to the group, to be accepted by your pears. How has this need
manifested itself in your interaction with others? What has it prevented
from achieving? Would your relationships Really be damaged if you expressed
your views and opinions or confronted someone else's potentially bad
decision, or is it possible you would gain more respect. As a leader, is it
more important for you to be liked than to get the expected results?
By reflecting on the behaviors you have displayed in the past, and realizing
the damage you are doing to your personal effectiveness and the
effectiveness of those around you, you can see the primitive caveman for
what he is. This is the first step in your evolution.
Stage 2: Soothing the significant caveman
Now the caveman in you has become more expressive. You tell people what you
want and how it should be. The problem is they react to you. There are two
types of reactions you receive:
-
If you speak out with little
confidence and conviction, you have only evolved in actions and not in
mindset. Others react to you with insignificance; they make you wrong or
unimportant. They do not pay much attention to you and you will
accomplish little. Your actions are the beginning but you must be
consistent and find your conviction. Imagine the alternative if you do
not... Extinction!
-
You have the conviction and the
confidence and now need to show how great you are and how much better
than everyone else your ideas and abilities are. Others react by
rebelling, some rebel externally and create open conflict. Others rebel
internally and while they quietly go along with what you say, they feel
that you treat them with insignificance, that you make you wrong or
unimportant. Here your ability to overcome fear of not being accepted
has brought you to this stage, but now you must learn to apply it
effectively.
You are at stage two because your
significance is central to your being, you tend to react to others that
"appear" to take it away from you. This creates confrontation and brings out
the caveman in your other team members. Then they react back and just make a
big mess! So before you can transcend to stage three, you must awaken to the
reactions that YOU create. Knowing you weaknesses is the foundation to your
evolution. FIRST though, you need to admit you are the cause of much of this
reaction. IT'S NOT OTHER PEOPLES FAULT! Don't make others wrong so you can
be important! You need to take full responsibility before anything can
change. You can find other more productive ways to fill your need for
significance.
Significance is about feeling important, so what if you had the power to
make others feel important, the ability to bring out the best in them, their
passion, and their motivation? Would you gain gratification from this power?
Would you get significance from the better overall results that could be
achieved?
Stage 3: Keeping the caveman away from your
team
The caveman shows up when your modern (intelligent) brain shuts off. The
more you can keep it on, the less time the caveman spends with your team.
Remember, when the caveman shows up, he brings out the caveman in the rest
of your team members. And before you know it, you've got a group of cavemen
either beating each other or hiding in the background. So STOP IT!
The key to using the Intelligent part of your brain, is to map the areas
that might cause reaction and tagging them with a "caveman alarm".
Write a list of issues that make you frustrated, angry, submissive, fearful,
etc. Put this list in a place where you will often see it. There is a part
of your brain that retains this knowledge in your subconscious, so when one
of these issue comes up and you begin to react (using the primitive part of
your brain), you remember the list and you remember that you may be letting
the caveman out. At this time the intelligent part of your brain kicks in
and allows you to work through the issue in an evolved manner.
Stage 4: Evolving into the awakened team
member
By this stage you can stop the caveman from coming out in you. You have gone
beyond your primitive emotional reactions to "fear of not being accepted"
and "fear of not being important". You don't always need to be right, and
you don't make others wrong. You don't avoid conflict because you're afraid
others won't like you or your need to belong.
You have awaked to an evolved individual that can think and act without
fear, an individual that gives value to the team instead exploiting them for
your personal emotional gratification. You take action in place of reaction.
You have cultivated the courage of an evolved individual.
But many of your team members often still react. At this stage, you
understand them more, so you don't react to their reactions. You can use the
intelligent part of your brain instead of the primitive reactive part. So
how can you affect those around you that do react?
Look at the way you express yourself. Knowing that that caveman can appear
in others instantaneously, how would you communicate when others react, what
would you do or say to make the caveman in these team members go away?
Well first, you must identify what
stage in evolution they're at. Knowing this gives you the understanding of
what they fear. Do they fear losing their security and acceptance the team
provides, or do they fear being unimportant, insignificant? This knowledge
provides the platform for you to help them fill these emotional needs and
put aside their fears.
Second, give them this article for
disclosure of your intentions and awareness of what's happening. If you all
have the same understanding, it becomes easier to achieve results as a team.
Finally, use questions to fill
there emotional needs of belonging and significance. Ask questions, DO NOT
teach or lecture. Discover how your team members fill these needs and how
the team can support each member in achieving them without the caveman.
The journey to the evolution of
highly effective teams is scattered with the angry beatings and quiet
disillusionment of cavemen everywhere. Effectiveness is against our nature.
Only in the face of our inadequacies can we evolve, can we increase our
ability to be intelligent in our actions, and can we assist others in there
evolution.
The advantages of this growth is a
happier, less stressful, and more productive life.
The consequences of not evolving,
are a life full of reaction, stress and un-fulfillment.
The caveman will always be in you,
the question is do you really want him around in your teams, friends, and
families?
Today, evolution is a choice.
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