September 16, 2024 • 33 mins
Some people think they need to be ruthless and selfish to thrive and survive in life. The theories of Charles Darwin are often wrongly interpreted to support this view that being competitive is the key to happiness and success. It isn’t.
Dr Laurie Santos and Dr Jamil Zaki find that there are plenty of examples in the animal kingdom and human world where cooperation, kindness and compassion prove to be the winning strategy.
Jamil's book Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness is out now.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. In southeastern Brazil, there are two small fishing communities
living just forty miles apart. The two villages are similar
in lots of ways, but they do have one important difference.
One community lives on the ocean, while the other lives
(00:35):
by a lake.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
About a decade ago, a young economist visited the lake
settlement and found it a trash strewn and unwelcoming place.
But traveling downstream to the sea, he was astounded by
the friendly greeting he received in the ocean side community. Intrigued,
he decided to properly study how trusting both sets of
fishermen were at the start of their careers. They all
(00:56):
shared similar outlooks, but those who spent years fishing on
the lake grew less trusting and more selfish, and those
who spent time working on the ocean grew more generous
and trusted. What could explain these different is the sea,
air pollution in the lake, the different nutrients in the
fish they caught. I'm Jamil Zaki, and in my book
(01:16):
Hope for Cynics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, I
wrote about this research. The reason that one fishing village
seemed mean and the other, more kindly, was to do
with the type of fishing its inhabitants undertook.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Fishing out on the high sea requires boats with heavy equipment,
ones that no one can operate alone. Survival on the
ocean requires working with others, But fishermen on a calm
lake use smaller boats, ones that wind up competing for
the best spots. Lake fishing thus becomes a lonelier, more
cutthroat way of life.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Which fishing village would you want to live in? Most
of us would prefer the sea. We find comfort in
trusting others, and joy and meaning in connecting with them.
But sadly a lot of us think we have to
live like the lake fishers, stepping over or on each
other to get ahead. This has long been the dominant
view of human nature, often wrong on Charles Darwin's theory
(02:11):
of natural selection, which argued that life evolves through survival
of the fittest. His work was co opted by so
called social Darwinists, who said that if the animal kingdom
was a never ending war of one against all, human
life must be as well. In this mini season of
the Happiness Lab, GLORI and I are exploring how to
find hope in a cynical world. If modern cynicism was
(02:34):
a building, social Darwinism would be a huge part of
its foundation. We might want to be nicer and more cooperative,
it tells us. But we can't deny our nature and
shouldn't believe anyone who tells us otherwise. But is that
the only way of looking at human nature? Are we
all destined to be stuck in lake towns? It turns
(02:54):
out there's more to human nature, and by tapping into it,
we can build ocean villages where cooperation rules and happiness rises.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to
be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What
if our minds are lying to us, leading us away
from what will really make us happy. The good news
is that understanding the science of the mind can point
us all back in the right direction. You're listening to
the Happiness Lab with me doctor Laurie.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Santos and me doctor Jamil Zaki.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Jamie and I wanted to learn more about the origins
of cooperation, so we called upon one of my favorite experts,
behavioral ecologist and historian of science, Lee Dugatkin.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
My own dissertation work back in the late nineteen eighties
was on the evolution of cooperation, and so, you know,
as a good grad student, I thought, well, I really
need to understand the history of this topic. And you know,
one of the names that kept coming up in the
literature was Peter Kropotkin.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Kropotkin's name got dropped whenever biologists made some claim contradicting
the usual notions of selfishness and survival of the fittest,
but none of the citations explained who actually was. So
Lee headed to the library to research this obscure Russian scientist.
He began reading about Kropotkin's life and his work, and
he was blown away.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
He seemed to be one of the most fascinating people
I had ever learned about.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Lee is now a huge Kropotkin stand. He even wrote
a biography entitled The Prince of Evolution Peter Kropotkin's Adventures
in Science and Politics. And the word adventures is quite
apt because Kropotkin had a very, very eventful life. Peter
Kropotkin was born into Russian aristocracy back in eighteen forty two.
(04:43):
His ancestors had been princes in generals, and Peter's father
served under Czar Nicholas. While many Russians lived in poverty,
the Kropotkins were rich. Here's how Peter described their lifestyle
and his memoir, Oh wait, Jamille, could you be Kropotkin?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I don't know, Laurie. No one wants to hear me
do a Russian accent, and any accent I try, I
swear ends up sounding just like Count Dracula.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
That's fine, just like read it in an aristocratic sounded way.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
We had four coachmen to attend, a dozen horses, three
cooks for the masters and two more for the servants,
a dozen men to wait upon us at dinnertime, and
girls innumerable in the maid servants room.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Peter's father hoped his son would follow in his footsteps
at the royal court, and Krapotkin got his wish. On
the eve of the Czar's twenty fifth anniversary celebration, there
was a grand ball, and little Peter, aged just eight,
attended the ceremony in an eye catching military uniform.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
And Zar Nicholas, for some reason or another, took a
real liking to young Peter Kopotkin, and he told his
father that this is the sort of boy that we need,
and What that meant was that when Kropotkin got old enough,
he would go to this thing called the core of Pages.
And these were basically young men who were the cream
of the crop, who were being trained to be the
(06:00):
leaders of the next generation.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
But the boys' training in the corps wouldn't lead him
to become a loyal czarist. You see, Kropotkin's academic tutor
was a covert revolutionary. That tutor snut his curious student
underground books on topics like socialism and anarchy. Kropotkin was
fascinated by these radical ideas, but he couldn't really share
his budding interest in anarchy with those around him, so
he took on a different topic of study, something hot
(06:23):
and fashionable. Biology. Jamil, can you do Kropotkin again?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
It was a time of scientific revival, and the current
which carried minds towards natural science was irresistible.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
He reads The Origin of species and starts discussing it
with his brother Sasha, and he becomes enamored with Darwin's ideas.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Kropotkin was especially enamored with the idea of natural selection.
The brutal realities of the natural world meant that organisms
faced a struggle for existence. The only way to survive
was to fight your way to the top. It was
a harsh mantra that scholars assumed held not just for animals,
but for humans too.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
The kind of intense competition that was part of Victorian
England was just a human manifestation of natural selection in
the wild. If you want to do well, you have
to out compete everybody else.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Krapakin wanted to witness the Darwinian struggle firsthand, so when
he graduated from the Corps, he set his sights on
becoming a field biologist.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
He's the top student, which means that he gets to
pick any assignment that he wants, and, to the chagrin
of his father and the Tizar and everybody, he asks
for a position in Siberia, which no sane person in
his position would have done, because this was taking you
as far away from possible of the seed of power.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Siberia was pretty much the opposite of the cushy core
experience Peter was used to. But the young scholar had
his reasons for the odd choice.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
He wanted to be as far away from the Czar
as he could, and there were also a lot of
other anarchists that either were in Siberia or who had
been sent to Siberia, and he got a chance to
interact with him.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
So Krapak can headed east Chris, crossing the desolate wilderness
on a trek that lasted over five years and covered
an incredible fifty thousand miles.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
I actually have been lucky enough to spend time in
Siberia in the winter, and it's an extraordinarily difficult environment
to survive in if you're not staying like I was
in a embassy suite hotel.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Siberian winters met enduring blizzards with temperatures of minus sixty degrees.
But Peter forged on, traveling by.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Dogsln there he was being driven around under this layer
of blankets, just moving from city to city, and it
was a very very difficult time, but he seemed to
savor it.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
In this unforgiving place. The butting scientist finally had a
chance to watch animal behavior in the wild, and he
expected to see just what Darwin had.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Whatever has to be done to get more resources and
produce more babies, that's what's going to be done. And
it was thought that that was mostly intense competition. What
Tennyson would later call nature red in tooth and claw,
that it was just a bloodbath out there.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
But a bloodbath is not what Kropotkin saw.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Instead, what he saw is what he began to call
mutual aid.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Everywhere he looked, Kropotkin saw animals cooperating with one another
in the face of tough conditions. Termites collaborated to build hives,
wolves hunted in packs, while horses and deer gathered together
as protection from predators. Kropotkin was particularly impressed by a
species of solitary beetle, which buried food underground to feed
(09:39):
their larvae. But if they found a big dead mouse
or bird, four, six, or even ten, beetles would arrive
to lend a hand.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
There was competition, but the competition was against a harsh
natural world, and that if you could help each other
overcome the difficulties of living in that harsh world, then
everybody would do better then if nobody did that.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
And what Kropotkin saw in Siberia's animals seemed to hold
true for its people too. Kropotkin observed example after example
of Russian peasants helping one another to thrive in harsh conditions,
just like those Brazilian ocean fishermen sailing as one into
dangerous seas.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
And what he hypothesized was that the further away from
the seat of government the village was the more mutual
age you saw in the people when they were freed
of the shackles of government, that's when they cooperated with
each other.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Kropakin returned from his five year Siberian trek convinced about
mutual aid and much more radical in his political views,
which he soon began promoting all over the country. But
zarre Nicholas wasn't such a big fan of anarchists, and
so he sent his former protege to prison. But Kropawkin
wasn't ready to give up. He began conspiring with fellow
(10:55):
revolutionaries on a jail break.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
The first plan was that a woman in a beautiful
Russian dress would be standing outside the prison and she
would have a red balloon, and when she let it
go up to the air, this is when it was
safe for him to try to escape.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
But even though the coast was clear, there was a
hitch in the escape plan.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
This was the one day that outside the prison there
weren't a bunch of people selling these little red balloons
that they had for kids.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Not a single balloon was to be found. One was
discovered at last, in the possession of a child, but
it was too old and would not fly.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So Kroupac can bide it as time until a brief
illness landed him in the prison hospital, where the security
wasn't his tight. It was time for jailbreak.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Plan B.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
My comrade was to walk up and down with the
handkerchief in his hand, which at the approach of the
carts he was to put in his pocket. A violinist
stood with his violin ready to play. When the signal
streak clear reached him.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Jamille, you're getting really good at this whole aristocratic voiceover thing. Anyways,
this time the escape plan worked.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
He escapes, and its big news.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Kropakin had to flee Russia, but he didn't exactly keep
a little.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
He actually starts working for Nature magazine, the magazine today
that's still considered one of the best science magazines in
the world, and this is where he begins to comulgate
his ideas on mutual aid.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Kripawkin presented a new theory of human nature, one based
on cooperation and kindness, not Darwinian competition and strife, and
people flock to these new ideas. Kropakin was soon booked
on a sold out around the world speaking tour, and
this time he traveled without the dog sled.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
These are tours that are being followed by the New
York Times. They love every move he makes. He has
a kind of Santa Claus look by this time that
makes them kind of very lovable. He's talking and everywhere,
from the National Geographic Society to Harvard to everywhere you
can imagine.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Kropoakin became a scientific and political rock star. An OG
influencer Oscar Wilde even christened him the White Christ.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Okay, that's an alright name for him, But I've got
an alternative. You ready for this? So the Buddha was
a prince, just like and just like Krapotkin gave it
all up and found his tradition. So what do you think,
Kropotkin the Russian Buddha.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but I get it.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's fair. Okay, I'm no Oscar Wilde.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Kropotkin and his ideas remained a hot commodity for decades,
that is until the whole anarchy thing fell out of favor.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
There was an anarchist who killed William McKinley, President of
the United States. There was even a rumor that Kropotkin
was involved, which was completely false. But there was a
very strong negative response to this notion of anarchism, and
Krapotagin was so tightly tied to that that his ideas
not only a bad anarchy, but his ideas in general
(13:50):
became much less popular.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Mutual aids soon took a backseat, and social Darwinism became
the dominant economic theory of the day, in part because
the rich and powerful of the early twentieth century kind
of liked the idea that wealth and privilege naturally went
to the fittest of the species. I mean, what a
great justification for the perialists, racists, and robber parents of
the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
So we're obviously not fans of how some people have
framed Darwinism over the years, But do Krapotkin's ideas about
mutual aid stand the test of time? Are humans and
other animals like Darwin's competitive strivers? Or are we more
cooperative than most people assume? Find out when the Happiness
lab returns in a moment.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
It's September nineteenth, twenty seventeen, and Hurricane Maria is barreling
across the Caribbean Sea. The category five storm was the
most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded, and its one hundred
and seventy five milin hour winds would soon hit madeland
Puerto Rico, causing a terrible humanitarian crisis that would kill thousands.
I remember watching the radar that day in horror, terrified
(15:05):
not just for Puerto Rico, but also for a much
tinier island that happened to know very very well. Cayo Santiago,
which sits about a mile off the coast of Puerto Rico,
is known as La Isla de los Monos, the Island
of the Monkeys. Kyo is home not to humans, but
to a population of more than a thousand reesis macaques.
(15:25):
The monkeys were brought to the island for scientific observation
back in nineteen thirty eight. Since then, hundreds of researchers
have traveled there to study the monkey's natural behavior, hundreds
of researchers, including me. Fun fact, before I became a
happiness scientist, I studied monkeys and Kyo was my main
field site. I started working on Cayo when I was
only a college sophomore. I won't do the math for you,
(15:48):
but that means I've known this group of monkeys for
a long time. They're kind of like an extended family.
So when the deadliest hurricane in history was poised for
a direct hit on Cayo at the most powerful point
in its trajectory, I was terrified. There are no structures
to shelter in on Cayo, no place for the monkeys
to hide. A storm that powerful meant the entire column
(16:09):
might perish. For days, we couldn't find out what happened,
either to the people living close to Kyo or to
the monkeys themselves. Eventually, one of my colleagues sent a
helicopter to fly over the island and view the damage.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Oh my gosh, this sounds terrifying, Lorie, I'm kind of
scared to ask. But what happened?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Well, there was good news and bad news. The good
news is amazingly most of the monkeys had survived all right.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Well, that part's a relief for what's the bad news.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Well, most of the island itself was demolished. All but
a few of the island's palm trees were knocked down
or snapped fully in half, and nearly two thirds of
the island's other vegetation was gone. Less vegetation meant less
tree cover, and less tree cover meant less shade for
the monkeys. Without shade, parts of Cayo can heat up
to over one hundred and four degrees. With so many
(16:57):
cooler spots completely gone, how far would the monkeys go
to compete for the little shade that was left?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yikes? What ended up happening?
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Well, Reese's monkeys aren't the nicest of primates. Scientists placed
monkeys on a continent from egalitarian nice to despotic nasty,
and reesis macaques are the most despotic of all monkey species.
They're pretty much jerks to one another on a regular basis.
In the face of scarce shade, I assumed that the
whole island would turn into a blood bath.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
So I guess you had kind of a cynical prediction,
was it right? Well?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Primatologist Lauren Brent and her colleagues returned to the island
to collect data on the monkey's aggression. They expecting the worst,
but what they saw was shocking the monkeys were being
nicer to one another. The team compared the monkey's behavior
post Maria to what they'd observed and the five years
before the hurricane. The changes were striking. After the storm,
the overall number of fights decreased. Rather than a bloodbath,
(17:50):
the monkeys seemed to be working together to coexist peacefully
in the small number of shady spots left. The researchers
also examined the monkey's survival rates. They found that the
monkeys who fought less before the hurricane, those kinder and
more cooperative monkey souls. They lived longer after the storm
than the more despotic, competitive monkeys When the going tough.
It was the nice guys that survived and flourished in
(18:13):
a changing world in which monkeys had to sit in
close proximity to stay cool, there was a cost to
being a jerk. In this environment, cooperation was more successful
than competition, and modern scientists have observed the same pattern
all over the animal kingdom.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Evolution has equipped animals to adapt beautifully to their situations,
but oftentimes survival of the fittest actually means survival of
the kindest. Individuals and groups who work together tend to
win out. A lot of great research suggests the same
might be true of people. There's a stereotype that disasters
(18:48):
reveal our true colors. For cynics, this is a bleak story.
Sure we can be polite and kind when everything's going well,
but when things fall apart, so do we. News coverage
during Hurricane Katrina was a great example of this. Journalists
focused on looting and even reported that a lot of
murders occurred in New Orleans during the flow. The truth
(19:10):
is far different. Research reveals that the hardest times often
bring out our best. Like the friendly macaques on Cayo Santiago,
people come together to help strangers and support one another.
People in war torn towns cooperate more with each other
than during peacetime. After earthquakes, tsunamis, and terrorist attacks, donations
(19:30):
within a community increase. A lot of the salacious reporting
after Hurricane Katrina turned out to be wrong, and although
it didn't make as much news, hundreds of private New
Orleanians formed the Cajun Navy, a boat brigade to help
people stranded by the floodwaters. Of course, we all lived
through a generational disaster not that long ago, giving us
(19:52):
another natural experiment, What do you think the COVID pandemic
did to human kindness? I recently asked a thousand Americans
this question. Most of them thought the pandemic had decreased
kind behavior, a standard Darwinian assumption, But it turns out
the opposite is true. In twenty twenty, twenty twenty one,
(20:13):
and twenty twenty two, donations to charity, volunteering, and helping
strangers all increased. Again, tough times brought out human goodness,
whether the world noticed or not.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
But Jamil, there seems to be at least one thing
that's different about humans. Unlike animals, we have theories about
how people behave during a crisis. How does that affect us?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Here's where things get more complicated and more interesting. Unlike
other animals, we have complex predictions about the future and
even about our own nature. These are the stories we
tell about ourselves. But they don't stay just stories. They
change how we act and become self fulfilling prophecies. So
it turns out that if you believe in social Darwinism,
(20:57):
it might become true for you. One example of this
is so called homo economicus. This is a name created
by economists to describe a hypothetical person focused only on
maximizing his own gain very social Darwinist. As we've seen,
people are nothing like homo economicists. They are way more
helpful and cooperative, even when it means giving up their
(21:19):
own resources. But it turns out that just learning about
this idea can change people. When college students become economics majors,
they learn this selfish view of human nature in many
of their classes. Over the years, they become more selfish,
like fishermen working on the lake. When leaders adopt a
selfish view of people, they don't just change themselves, but
(21:42):
the people around them too. Lots of companies use stack ranking,
where managers have to rank their teams from best to
worst performers, and people towards the bottom would be warned
or laid off. The logic here is that workplaces are
Darwinian contests for survival, and the best way to motivate
people is to tap into that selfishness and competition. In reality,
(22:04):
stack ranking is a disaster for workplaces. It makes people
less happy and more stress no surprise there, But it
also makes them less creative and productive. Why take a
risk on a new idea if the person next to
you would love for you to fail. Why share your
knowledge or skills with the colleague if they're really your enemy.
People in stack ranked environments are treated like their selfish
(22:26):
and they become more selfish. But that doesn't help any
of them succeed. Nonetheless, lots of bosses seem firmly wedded
to these old ways, thinking that a company only profits
when its workers are pitted against the opposition and against
each other. Not all bosses, though, some flourish by using
the philosophy of mutual aid instead.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
All of a sudden, I didn't see people as receptionists
and hourly workers and machinists and accountants. I saw people
as somebody's precious child that was placed in my care.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
We'll hear more when the Happiness Lab returns after this
short break.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
One of the best examples of the power of mutual
aid in our own species comes from a rather unlikely place,
the cutthroat world of manufacturing.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
My name is Bob Chapman. I run a global organization
called Barry Way Miller, and my goal is to use
business as a source for good in the world.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
While became a senior executive at Barry Way Miller back
in the nineteen seventies. The company was founded at eighteen
eighty five making equipment for brewing, but it wasn't in
great financial shape when Bob arrived. But under his leadership,
Barry Waymiller has completely turned around. It's now a thriving
company with sales of over three billion dollars and renowned
clients like Coca Cola and Procter and Gamble. But if
(23:46):
you ask Bob why the company is so successful, you
won't hear any mention of earnings or stock prices or
fancy manufacturing techniques.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
It's about people, purpose and performance, and the first word
is people. Our mission is we measure success by the
way we touch the lives of people. We touch our customers,
we touch our team members, we touch our suppliers, and
thinking about the impact we make on people's lives.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
As he explains in his book Everybody Matters, the extraordinary
power of caring for your people like family. Bob is
evangelical about a practice he calls truly human leadership.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
To be good stewards of people, we've got to have
a good business model, and then the fuel that activates
that business model is the culture of caring. If Ferrari
builds the ultimate high performance engine, and you put eighty
five octane in that engine, it'll start, it'll run, but
it probably won't run to its potential. But if you
put premium ninety one octane in it, it'll run to
(24:42):
its potential. So the premium fuel is our culture of caring.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
But Bob wasn't always such a fan of this people
centered approach to leadership. Like many CEOs, he was trained
in the usual profit focused management practices.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
It's all numbers, okay, it is all organic growth, you know,
share price appreciation, financial stability as well.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
We're taught.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
I was never taught, never heard, never told that the
way I would run Whimler would affect people's health and
people's personal lives. I thought it was about paying people
fairly and giving him benefits.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
I was a nice guy, we had a nice company.
But I saw people as functions for my success, and
that's what I thought business was about.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
But all that changed when Bob had a set of
leadership revelations, as he puts it, insights that helped him
realize just how impactful mutual aid could be in his business.
One of these revelations happened fittingly enough, while at church
with his wife.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
And I said, our rector has only got us for
one hour a week. We have people in our company
for forty hours a week. We are forty times more
powerful to impact people's lives than our church. As I
walked out of the church that day, I said to myself,
business could be the most powerful force for good in
(26:04):
the world if we had leaders who had the skills
and curve reach to care for the people they had
the privilege of leading. So it's a completely different view
of what is the responsibility of leadership.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Bob was excited to put this new vision of leadership
into practice at Barry Wymiller, but many at the company
were skeptical, at least at first.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
One of our team members said to me about a
lot of great companies have great statements on their walls,
they just don't live them. And I took that as
a challenge.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
That challenge came to a head during the economic downturn
of two thousand and.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Eight, the likes of which I had never seen before.
I mean, the world seemed like it was falling apart.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Like other manufacturing companies, Barry Way Miller found itself receiving
fewer and fewer new orders. Ever, the optimist Bob believed
the company would find a way and navigate the storm.
But while traveling internationally, he got an email announcing that
the company's biggest purchaser had pulled out.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
And I sat in my hotel room and I said,
oh my god, it's hit us.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Bob's mind immediately went to the standard advice he'd heard
in business school.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
You got to let people go. It's not fund it's
not easy, but you got to do that. The organization
won't get through this if we don't.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
But extensive layoffs didn't really jive with the new philosophy
he'd been espousing.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Oh my god, if we measure success by the way
we touch the lives of people, and we lay people
off in an environment where there's no jobs, we are
going to hurt people.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Bob had heard over and over that during tough times,
businesses needed to be Darwinian, that only the fittest would survive.
But Bob wanted a different approach. He hadn't read Peter Kropotkin,
but the solution he came up with looked a lot
like mutual aid.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
And I said, what would a caring family do if
a member of the family had a crisis, we'd all
pitch in and take a little pain so that that
family member would not take a great deal of pain.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
He called his board with what, at first glance seemed
like a ridiculous plan, and I.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Said, what if we ask everybody to take a month
off without pay so we don't have to let anybody go.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
The board reluctantly agreed, and Barry Way Miller rolled out
its radical no layoffs approach.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
We had validated that we actually care about our people,
and I have never seen anything like this. The relief,
this comfort, and the feedback we got. They felt safe
all of a sudden, in this world where everybody was
falling apart, they felt safe. And what was astounding to
me is people didn't really feel like they were giving
(28:35):
up a month's paid They really felt like they were
helping their fellow team members keep their job. And we
even had some of the older team members say, look
at I'm fifty five, I can afford to take two
months off, and maybe young Bill or young Mary who's
got a young family who can't afore the month. And
so we actually had people volunteer to take other people's
(28:57):
time off.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
When feast with a sharp downturn, companies assume that aggressive
staffing and pay cuts are the only way to survive.
But Bob forged a more cooperative, more cropotkinesque path, and
the people in his care responded with generosity and compassion.
In the end, Barry Way Miller didn't just survive the
economic downturn, they soared. Bob's culture of mutual aid wound
(29:19):
up improving the company's employee retention and its bottom line.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
The company has become a symbol in the world for
what business could be. Some people say it's about getting
the right people on the bus. I say, no, no, no,
It's about building a safe bus, which is your business model,
and then having leaders who know how to drive that bus,
and that anybody you invite to get on it will
(29:43):
be safe.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
But Bob worries that many business leaders today have no
idea how to drive that bus safely. He says that
the CEOs making massive layoffs today are treating their companies
workers not like people but pokerchips.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Nobody talks about the impact on these lives of people
who simply wanted to know that they had a future
with your company when they joined it, and you walked
up and said, sorry, we need to give the investors
what they want.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Bob has now devoted his life to fighting this competitive
culture in business. He and his team travel around the
country preaching the message of people centric leadership to other CEOs.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
And we have helped major organizations move from using people
to care in for people. You know, I had a
senior executive of a major corporation who heard me speak
at a Dallas event and he came up to me afterwards.
He said, I thought my job was to build the
world's biggest organization in our field, and I did that,
(30:41):
But until I heard you talk, it never occurred to
me to care for one hundred and thirty thousand people
in our organization. But I hear that all the time.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
But Bob has seen time and again the developing cultures
of mutual aid can lead to more awards than leaders realize.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
People say, how can you afford to do all these
things to care for your people?
Speaker 2 (31:03):
You know, I get that a.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Question all the time, and I say, let me flip that,
how do you justify and not caring for people?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Let's return to those fishing villages from the top of
this episode. Most of us would prefer a collaborative ocean community,
but feel like we're stuck in a laketown. We assume
that the laws of nature dictate that we are naturally
competitive and need to fight each other to survive, but
the real story is more complicated and more beautiful. Human
(31:35):
nature isn't built for survival of the meanest and most competitive.
In sometimes especially tough times, the kind survive and thrive,
whether you're a monkey sharing shade with a stranger or
a human sharing your furlough with a team member. More
than that, we humans are different. We're not at the
mercy of whichever environment we're dropped into. We can build
(31:58):
our own social worlds that emphasize cooperation over competition, Krypotkeanism
over social Darwinism. If, like Bob Chapman, we create the
condition for a better kinder world, people will adapt. Self
fulfilling prophecies can work against us, but they can also
work for us, bringing the best out of people and cultures.
(32:21):
All we need to do is drop the cynicism and
believe in each other. Thankfully, the evidence is on our side.
To see the best in people. We don't need to
put on rose colored glasses. We just need to take
off the mud colored glasses we usually walk around with it.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
In the next episode in this series, on Finding Hope,
Jimmie and I will explore another topic that many of
us feel cynical about, polarization. These days, it often feels
like we're agreeing less and fighting more. Where has all
this anger come from? And are our cynical minds actually
right about how bad things are?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Well?
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Learn more next time on a Happiness Last with me
Doctor Laurie Santos.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And me Doctor Jamil Zaki.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Wow, you gotta work on your Russian accent.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I will never work on my Russian accent.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
God give me some work for podcast guys whatever anywhere.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
No wow
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Wow mh
Pushkin. In southeastern Brazil, there are two small fishing communities
living just forty miles apart. The two villages are similar
in lots of ways, but they do have one important difference.
One community lives on the ocean, while the other lives
(00:35):
by a lake.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
About a decade ago, a young economist visited the lake
settlement and found it a trash strewn and unwelcoming place.
But traveling downstream to the sea, he was astounded by
the friendly greeting he received in the ocean side community. Intrigued,
he decided to properly study how trusting both sets of
fishermen were at the start of their careers. They all
(00:56):
shared similar outlooks, but those who spent years fishing on
the lake grew less trusting and more selfish, and those
who spent time working on the ocean grew more generous
and trusted. What could explain these different is the sea,
air pollution in the lake, the different nutrients in the
fish they caught. I'm Jamil Zaki, and in my book
(01:16):
Hope for Cynics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, I
wrote about this research. The reason that one fishing village
seemed mean and the other, more kindly, was to do
with the type of fishing its inhabitants undertook.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Fishing out on the high sea requires boats with heavy equipment,
ones that no one can operate alone. Survival on the
ocean requires working with others, But fishermen on a calm
lake use smaller boats, ones that wind up competing for
the best spots. Lake fishing thus becomes a lonelier, more
cutthroat way of life.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Which fishing village would you want to live in? Most
of us would prefer the sea. We find comfort in
trusting others, and joy and meaning in connecting with them.
But sadly a lot of us think we have to
live like the lake fishers, stepping over or on each
other to get ahead. This has long been the dominant
view of human nature, often wrong on Charles Darwin's theory
(02:11):
of natural selection, which argued that life evolves through survival
of the fittest. His work was co opted by so
called social Darwinists, who said that if the animal kingdom
was a never ending war of one against all, human
life must be as well. In this mini season of
the Happiness Lab, GLORI and I are exploring how to
find hope in a cynical world. If modern cynicism was
(02:34):
a building, social Darwinism would be a huge part of
its foundation. We might want to be nicer and more cooperative,
it tells us. But we can't deny our nature and
shouldn't believe anyone who tells us otherwise. But is that
the only way of looking at human nature? Are we
all destined to be stuck in lake towns? It turns
(02:54):
out there's more to human nature, and by tapping into it,
we can build ocean villages where cooperation rules and happiness rises.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to
be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What
if our minds are lying to us, leading us away
from what will really make us happy. The good news
is that understanding the science of the mind can point
us all back in the right direction. You're listening to
the Happiness Lab with me doctor Laurie.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Santos and me doctor Jamil Zaki.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Jamie and I wanted to learn more about the origins
of cooperation, so we called upon one of my favorite experts,
behavioral ecologist and historian of science, Lee Dugatkin.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
My own dissertation work back in the late nineteen eighties
was on the evolution of cooperation, and so, you know,
as a good grad student, I thought, well, I really
need to understand the history of this topic. And you know,
one of the names that kept coming up in the
literature was Peter Kropotkin.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Kropotkin's name got dropped whenever biologists made some claim contradicting
the usual notions of selfishness and survival of the fittest,
but none of the citations explained who actually was. So
Lee headed to the library to research this obscure Russian scientist.
He began reading about Kropotkin's life and his work, and
he was blown away.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
He seemed to be one of the most fascinating people
I had ever learned about.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Lee is now a huge Kropotkin stand. He even wrote
a biography entitled The Prince of Evolution Peter Kropotkin's Adventures
in Science and Politics. And the word adventures is quite
apt because Kropotkin had a very, very eventful life. Peter
Kropotkin was born into Russian aristocracy back in eighteen forty two.
(04:43):
His ancestors had been princes in generals, and Peter's father
served under Czar Nicholas. While many Russians lived in poverty,
the Kropotkins were rich. Here's how Peter described their lifestyle
and his memoir, Oh wait, Jamille, could you be Kropotkin?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I don't know, Laurie. No one wants to hear me
do a Russian accent, and any accent I try, I
swear ends up sounding just like Count Dracula.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
That's fine, just like read it in an aristocratic sounded way.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
We had four coachmen to attend, a dozen horses, three
cooks for the masters and two more for the servants,
a dozen men to wait upon us at dinnertime, and
girls innumerable in the maid servants room.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Peter's father hoped his son would follow in his footsteps
at the royal court, and Krapotkin got his wish. On
the eve of the Czar's twenty fifth anniversary celebration, there
was a grand ball, and little Peter, aged just eight,
attended the ceremony in an eye catching military uniform.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
And Zar Nicholas, for some reason or another, took a
real liking to young Peter Kopotkin, and he told his
father that this is the sort of boy that we need,
and What that meant was that when Kropotkin got old enough,
he would go to this thing called the core of Pages.
And these were basically young men who were the cream
of the crop, who were being trained to be the
(06:00):
leaders of the next generation.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
But the boys' training in the corps wouldn't lead him
to become a loyal czarist. You see, Kropotkin's academic tutor
was a covert revolutionary. That tutor snut his curious student
underground books on topics like socialism and anarchy. Kropotkin was
fascinated by these radical ideas, but he couldn't really share
his budding interest in anarchy with those around him, so
he took on a different topic of study, something hot
(06:23):
and fashionable. Biology. Jamil, can you do Kropotkin again?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
It was a time of scientific revival, and the current
which carried minds towards natural science was irresistible.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
He reads The Origin of species and starts discussing it
with his brother Sasha, and he becomes enamored with Darwin's ideas.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Kropotkin was especially enamored with the idea of natural selection.
The brutal realities of the natural world meant that organisms
faced a struggle for existence. The only way to survive
was to fight your way to the top. It was
a harsh mantra that scholars assumed held not just for animals,
but for humans too.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
The kind of intense competition that was part of Victorian
England was just a human manifestation of natural selection in
the wild. If you want to do well, you have
to out compete everybody else.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Krapakin wanted to witness the Darwinian struggle firsthand, so when
he graduated from the Corps, he set his sights on
becoming a field biologist.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
He's the top student, which means that he gets to
pick any assignment that he wants, and, to the chagrin
of his father and the Tizar and everybody, he asks
for a position in Siberia, which no sane person in
his position would have done, because this was taking you
as far away from possible of the seed of power.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Siberia was pretty much the opposite of the cushy core
experience Peter was used to. But the young scholar had
his reasons for the odd choice.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
He wanted to be as far away from the Czar
as he could, and there were also a lot of
other anarchists that either were in Siberia or who had
been sent to Siberia, and he got a chance to
interact with him.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
So Krapak can headed east Chris, crossing the desolate wilderness
on a trek that lasted over five years and covered
an incredible fifty thousand miles.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
I actually have been lucky enough to spend time in
Siberia in the winter, and it's an extraordinarily difficult environment
to survive in if you're not staying like I was
in a embassy suite hotel.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Siberian winters met enduring blizzards with temperatures of minus sixty degrees.
But Peter forged on, traveling by.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Dogsln there he was being driven around under this layer
of blankets, just moving from city to city, and it
was a very very difficult time, but he seemed to
savor it.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
In this unforgiving place. The butting scientist finally had a
chance to watch animal behavior in the wild, and he
expected to see just what Darwin had.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Whatever has to be done to get more resources and
produce more babies, that's what's going to be done. And
it was thought that that was mostly intense competition. What
Tennyson would later call nature red in tooth and claw,
that it was just a bloodbath out there.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
But a bloodbath is not what Kropotkin saw.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Instead, what he saw is what he began to call
mutual aid.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Everywhere he looked, Kropotkin saw animals cooperating with one another
in the face of tough conditions. Termites collaborated to build hives,
wolves hunted in packs, while horses and deer gathered together
as protection from predators. Kropotkin was particularly impressed by a
species of solitary beetle, which buried food underground to feed
(09:39):
their larvae. But if they found a big dead mouse
or bird, four, six, or even ten, beetles would arrive
to lend a hand.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
There was competition, but the competition was against a harsh
natural world, and that if you could help each other
overcome the difficulties of living in that harsh world, then
everybody would do better then if nobody did that.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
And what Kropotkin saw in Siberia's animals seemed to hold
true for its people too. Kropotkin observed example after example
of Russian peasants helping one another to thrive in harsh conditions,
just like those Brazilian ocean fishermen sailing as one into
dangerous seas.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
And what he hypothesized was that the further away from
the seat of government the village was the more mutual
age you saw in the people when they were freed
of the shackles of government, that's when they cooperated with
each other.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Kropakin returned from his five year Siberian trek convinced about
mutual aid and much more radical in his political views,
which he soon began promoting all over the country. But
zarre Nicholas wasn't such a big fan of anarchists, and
so he sent his former protege to prison. But Kropawkin
wasn't ready to give up. He began conspiring with fellow
(10:55):
revolutionaries on a jail break.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
The first plan was that a woman in a beautiful
Russian dress would be standing outside the prison and she
would have a red balloon, and when she let it
go up to the air, this is when it was
safe for him to try to escape.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
But even though the coast was clear, there was a
hitch in the escape plan.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
This was the one day that outside the prison there
weren't a bunch of people selling these little red balloons
that they had for kids.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Not a single balloon was to be found. One was
discovered at last, in the possession of a child, but
it was too old and would not fly.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So Kroupac can bide it as time until a brief
illness landed him in the prison hospital, where the security
wasn't his tight. It was time for jailbreak.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Plan B.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
My comrade was to walk up and down with the
handkerchief in his hand, which at the approach of the
carts he was to put in his pocket. A violinist
stood with his violin ready to play. When the signal
streak clear reached him.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Jamille, you're getting really good at this whole aristocratic voiceover thing. Anyways,
this time the escape plan worked.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
He escapes, and its big news.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Kropakin had to flee Russia, but he didn't exactly keep
a little.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
He actually starts working for Nature magazine, the magazine today
that's still considered one of the best science magazines in
the world, and this is where he begins to comulgate
his ideas on mutual aid.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Kripawkin presented a new theory of human nature, one based
on cooperation and kindness, not Darwinian competition and strife, and
people flock to these new ideas. Kropakin was soon booked
on a sold out around the world speaking tour, and
this time he traveled without the dog sled.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
These are tours that are being followed by the New
York Times. They love every move he makes. He has
a kind of Santa Claus look by this time that
makes them kind of very lovable. He's talking and everywhere,
from the National Geographic Society to Harvard to everywhere you
can imagine.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Kropoakin became a scientific and political rock star. An OG
influencer Oscar Wilde even christened him the White Christ.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Okay, that's an alright name for him, But I've got
an alternative. You ready for this? So the Buddha was
a prince, just like and just like Krapotkin gave it
all up and found his tradition. So what do you think,
Kropotkin the Russian Buddha.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but I get it.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's fair. Okay, I'm no Oscar Wilde.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Kropotkin and his ideas remained a hot commodity for decades,
that is until the whole anarchy thing fell out of favor.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
There was an anarchist who killed William McKinley, President of
the United States. There was even a rumor that Kropotkin
was involved, which was completely false. But there was a
very strong negative response to this notion of anarchism, and
Krapotagin was so tightly tied to that that his ideas
not only a bad anarchy, but his ideas in general
(13:50):
became much less popular.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Mutual aids soon took a backseat, and social Darwinism became
the dominant economic theory of the day, in part because
the rich and powerful of the early twentieth century kind
of liked the idea that wealth and privilege naturally went
to the fittest of the species. I mean, what a
great justification for the perialists, racists, and robber parents of
the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
So we're obviously not fans of how some people have
framed Darwinism over the years, But do Krapotkin's ideas about
mutual aid stand the test of time? Are humans and
other animals like Darwin's competitive strivers? Or are we more
cooperative than most people assume? Find out when the Happiness
lab returns in a moment.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
It's September nineteenth, twenty seventeen, and Hurricane Maria is barreling
across the Caribbean Sea. The category five storm was the
most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded, and its one hundred
and seventy five milin hour winds would soon hit madeland
Puerto Rico, causing a terrible humanitarian crisis that would kill thousands.
I remember watching the radar that day in horror, terrified
(15:05):
not just for Puerto Rico, but also for a much
tinier island that happened to know very very well. Cayo Santiago,
which sits about a mile off the coast of Puerto Rico,
is known as La Isla de los Monos, the Island
of the Monkeys. Kyo is home not to humans, but
to a population of more than a thousand reesis macaques.
(15:25):
The monkeys were brought to the island for scientific observation
back in nineteen thirty eight. Since then, hundreds of researchers
have traveled there to study the monkey's natural behavior, hundreds
of researchers, including me. Fun fact, before I became a
happiness scientist, I studied monkeys and Kyo was my main
field site. I started working on Cayo when I was
only a college sophomore. I won't do the math for you,
(15:48):
but that means I've known this group of monkeys for
a long time. They're kind of like an extended family.
So when the deadliest hurricane in history was poised for
a direct hit on Cayo at the most powerful point
in its trajectory, I was terrified. There are no structures
to shelter in on Cayo, no place for the monkeys
to hide. A storm that powerful meant the entire column
(16:09):
might perish. For days, we couldn't find out what happened,
either to the people living close to Kyo or to
the monkeys themselves. Eventually, one of my colleagues sent a
helicopter to fly over the island and view the damage.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Oh my gosh, this sounds terrifying, Lorie, I'm kind of
scared to ask. But what happened?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Well, there was good news and bad news. The good
news is amazingly most of the monkeys had survived all right.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Well, that part's a relief for what's the bad news.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Well, most of the island itself was demolished. All but
a few of the island's palm trees were knocked down
or snapped fully in half, and nearly two thirds of
the island's other vegetation was gone. Less vegetation meant less
tree cover, and less tree cover meant less shade for
the monkeys. Without shade, parts of Cayo can heat up
to over one hundred and four degrees. With so many
(16:57):
cooler spots completely gone, how far would the monkeys go
to compete for the little shade that was left?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yikes? What ended up happening?
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Well, Reese's monkeys aren't the nicest of primates. Scientists placed
monkeys on a continent from egalitarian nice to despotic nasty,
and reesis macaques are the most despotic of all monkey species.
They're pretty much jerks to one another on a regular basis.
In the face of scarce shade, I assumed that the
whole island would turn into a blood bath.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
So I guess you had kind of a cynical prediction,
was it right? Well?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Primatologist Lauren Brent and her colleagues returned to the island
to collect data on the monkey's aggression. They expecting the worst,
but what they saw was shocking the monkeys were being
nicer to one another. The team compared the monkey's behavior
post Maria to what they'd observed and the five years
before the hurricane. The changes were striking. After the storm,
the overall number of fights decreased. Rather than a bloodbath,
(17:50):
the monkeys seemed to be working together to coexist peacefully
in the small number of shady spots left. The researchers
also examined the monkey's survival rates. They found that the
monkeys who fought less before the hurricane, those kinder and
more cooperative monkey souls. They lived longer after the storm
than the more despotic, competitive monkeys When the going tough.
It was the nice guys that survived and flourished in
(18:13):
a changing world in which monkeys had to sit in
close proximity to stay cool, there was a cost to
being a jerk. In this environment, cooperation was more successful
than competition, and modern scientists have observed the same pattern
all over the animal kingdom.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Evolution has equipped animals to adapt beautifully to their situations,
but oftentimes survival of the fittest actually means survival of
the kindest. Individuals and groups who work together tend to
win out. A lot of great research suggests the same
might be true of people. There's a stereotype that disasters
(18:48):
reveal our true colors. For cynics, this is a bleak story.
Sure we can be polite and kind when everything's going well,
but when things fall apart, so do we. News coverage
during Hurricane Katrina was a great example of this. Journalists
focused on looting and even reported that a lot of
murders occurred in New Orleans during the flow. The truth
(19:10):
is far different. Research reveals that the hardest times often
bring out our best. Like the friendly macaques on Cayo Santiago,
people come together to help strangers and support one another.
People in war torn towns cooperate more with each other
than during peacetime. After earthquakes, tsunamis, and terrorist attacks, donations
(19:30):
within a community increase. A lot of the salacious reporting
after Hurricane Katrina turned out to be wrong, and although
it didn't make as much news, hundreds of private New
Orleanians formed the Cajun Navy, a boat brigade to help
people stranded by the floodwaters. Of course, we all lived
through a generational disaster not that long ago, giving us
(19:52):
another natural experiment, What do you think the COVID pandemic
did to human kindness? I recently asked a thousand Americans
this question. Most of them thought the pandemic had decreased
kind behavior, a standard Darwinian assumption, But it turns out
the opposite is true. In twenty twenty, twenty twenty one,
(20:13):
and twenty twenty two, donations to charity, volunteering, and helping
strangers all increased. Again, tough times brought out human goodness,
whether the world noticed or not.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
But Jamil, there seems to be at least one thing
that's different about humans. Unlike animals, we have theories about
how people behave during a crisis. How does that affect us?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Here's where things get more complicated and more interesting. Unlike
other animals, we have complex predictions about the future and
even about our own nature. These are the stories we
tell about ourselves. But they don't stay just stories. They
change how we act and become self fulfilling prophecies. So
it turns out that if you believe in social Darwinism,
(20:57):
it might become true for you. One example of this
is so called homo economicus. This is a name created
by economists to describe a hypothetical person focused only on
maximizing his own gain very social Darwinist. As we've seen,
people are nothing like homo economicists. They are way more
helpful and cooperative, even when it means giving up their
(21:19):
own resources. But it turns out that just learning about
this idea can change people. When college students become economics majors,
they learn this selfish view of human nature in many
of their classes. Over the years, they become more selfish,
like fishermen working on the lake. When leaders adopt a
selfish view of people, they don't just change themselves, but
(21:42):
the people around them too. Lots of companies use stack ranking,
where managers have to rank their teams from best to
worst performers, and people towards the bottom would be warned
or laid off. The logic here is that workplaces are
Darwinian contests for survival, and the best way to motivate
people is to tap into that selfishness and competition. In reality,
(22:04):
stack ranking is a disaster for workplaces. It makes people
less happy and more stress no surprise there, But it
also makes them less creative and productive. Why take a
risk on a new idea if the person next to
you would love for you to fail. Why share your
knowledge or skills with the colleague if they're really your enemy.
People in stack ranked environments are treated like their selfish
(22:26):
and they become more selfish. But that doesn't help any
of them succeed. Nonetheless, lots of bosses seem firmly wedded
to these old ways, thinking that a company only profits
when its workers are pitted against the opposition and against
each other. Not all bosses, though, some flourish by using
the philosophy of mutual aid instead.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
All of a sudden, I didn't see people as receptionists
and hourly workers and machinists and accountants. I saw people
as somebody's precious child that was placed in my care.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
We'll hear more when the Happiness Lab returns after this
short break.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
One of the best examples of the power of mutual
aid in our own species comes from a rather unlikely place,
the cutthroat world of manufacturing.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
My name is Bob Chapman. I run a global organization
called Barry Way Miller, and my goal is to use
business as a source for good in the world.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
While became a senior executive at Barry Way Miller back
in the nineteen seventies. The company was founded at eighteen
eighty five making equipment for brewing, but it wasn't in
great financial shape when Bob arrived. But under his leadership,
Barry Waymiller has completely turned around. It's now a thriving
company with sales of over three billion dollars and renowned
clients like Coca Cola and Procter and Gamble. But if
(23:46):
you ask Bob why the company is so successful, you
won't hear any mention of earnings or stock prices or
fancy manufacturing techniques.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
It's about people, purpose and performance, and the first word
is people. Our mission is we measure success by the
way we touch the lives of people. We touch our customers,
we touch our team members, we touch our suppliers, and
thinking about the impact we make on people's lives.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
As he explains in his book Everybody Matters, the extraordinary
power of caring for your people like family. Bob is
evangelical about a practice he calls truly human leadership.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
To be good stewards of people, we've got to have
a good business model, and then the fuel that activates
that business model is the culture of caring. If Ferrari
builds the ultimate high performance engine, and you put eighty
five octane in that engine, it'll start, it'll run, but
it probably won't run to its potential. But if you
put premium ninety one octane in it, it'll run to
(24:42):
its potential. So the premium fuel is our culture of caring.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
But Bob wasn't always such a fan of this people
centered approach to leadership. Like many CEOs, he was trained
in the usual profit focused management practices.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
It's all numbers, okay, it is all organic growth, you know,
share price appreciation, financial stability as well.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
We're taught.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
I was never taught, never heard, never told that the
way I would run Whimler would affect people's health and
people's personal lives. I thought it was about paying people
fairly and giving him benefits.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
I was a nice guy, we had a nice company.
But I saw people as functions for my success, and
that's what I thought business was about.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
But all that changed when Bob had a set of
leadership revelations, as he puts it, insights that helped him
realize just how impactful mutual aid could be in his business.
One of these revelations happened fittingly enough, while at church
with his wife.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
And I said, our rector has only got us for
one hour a week. We have people in our company
for forty hours a week. We are forty times more
powerful to impact people's lives than our church. As I
walked out of the church that day, I said to myself,
business could be the most powerful force for good in
(26:04):
the world if we had leaders who had the skills
and curve reach to care for the people they had
the privilege of leading. So it's a completely different view
of what is the responsibility of leadership.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Bob was excited to put this new vision of leadership
into practice at Barry Wymiller, but many at the company
were skeptical, at least at first.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
One of our team members said to me about a
lot of great companies have great statements on their walls,
they just don't live them. And I took that as
a challenge.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
That challenge came to a head during the economic downturn
of two thousand and.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Eight, the likes of which I had never seen before.
I mean, the world seemed like it was falling apart.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Like other manufacturing companies, Barry Way Miller found itself receiving
fewer and fewer new orders. Ever, the optimist Bob believed
the company would find a way and navigate the storm.
But while traveling internationally, he got an email announcing that
the company's biggest purchaser had pulled out.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
And I sat in my hotel room and I said,
oh my god, it's hit us.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Bob's mind immediately went to the standard advice he'd heard
in business school.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
You got to let people go. It's not fund it's
not easy, but you got to do that. The organization
won't get through this if we don't.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
But extensive layoffs didn't really jive with the new philosophy
he'd been espousing.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Oh my god, if we measure success by the way
we touch the lives of people, and we lay people
off in an environment where there's no jobs, we are
going to hurt people.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Bob had heard over and over that during tough times,
businesses needed to be Darwinian, that only the fittest would survive.
But Bob wanted a different approach. He hadn't read Peter Kropotkin,
but the solution he came up with looked a lot
like mutual aid.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
And I said, what would a caring family do if
a member of the family had a crisis, we'd all
pitch in and take a little pain so that that
family member would not take a great deal of pain.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
He called his board with what, at first glance seemed
like a ridiculous plan, and I.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Said, what if we ask everybody to take a month
off without pay so we don't have to let anybody go.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
The board reluctantly agreed, and Barry Way Miller rolled out
its radical no layoffs approach.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
We had validated that we actually care about our people,
and I have never seen anything like this. The relief,
this comfort, and the feedback we got. They felt safe
all of a sudden, in this world where everybody was
falling apart, they felt safe. And what was astounding to
me is people didn't really feel like they were giving
(28:35):
up a month's paid They really felt like they were
helping their fellow team members keep their job. And we
even had some of the older team members say, look
at I'm fifty five, I can afford to take two
months off, and maybe young Bill or young Mary who's
got a young family who can't afore the month. And
so we actually had people volunteer to take other people's
(28:57):
time off.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
When feast with a sharp downturn, companies assume that aggressive
staffing and pay cuts are the only way to survive.
But Bob forged a more cooperative, more cropotkinesque path, and
the people in his care responded with generosity and compassion.
In the end, Barry Way Miller didn't just survive the
economic downturn, they soared. Bob's culture of mutual aid wound
(29:19):
up improving the company's employee retention and its bottom line.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
The company has become a symbol in the world for
what business could be. Some people say it's about getting
the right people on the bus. I say, no, no, no,
It's about building a safe bus, which is your business model,
and then having leaders who know how to drive that bus,
and that anybody you invite to get on it will
(29:43):
be safe.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
But Bob worries that many business leaders today have no
idea how to drive that bus safely. He says that
the CEOs making massive layoffs today are treating their companies
workers not like people but pokerchips.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Nobody talks about the impact on these lives of people
who simply wanted to know that they had a future
with your company when they joined it, and you walked
up and said, sorry, we need to give the investors
what they want.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Bob has now devoted his life to fighting this competitive
culture in business. He and his team travel around the
country preaching the message of people centric leadership to other CEOs.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
And we have helped major organizations move from using people
to care in for people. You know, I had a
senior executive of a major corporation who heard me speak
at a Dallas event and he came up to me afterwards.
He said, I thought my job was to build the
world's biggest organization in our field, and I did that,
(30:41):
But until I heard you talk, it never occurred to
me to care for one hundred and thirty thousand people
in our organization. But I hear that all the time.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
But Bob has seen time and again the developing cultures
of mutual aid can lead to more awards than leaders realize.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
People say, how can you afford to do all these
things to care for your people?
Speaker 2 (31:03):
You know, I get that a.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Question all the time, and I say, let me flip that,
how do you justify and not caring for people?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Let's return to those fishing villages from the top of
this episode. Most of us would prefer a collaborative ocean community,
but feel like we're stuck in a laketown. We assume
that the laws of nature dictate that we are naturally
competitive and need to fight each other to survive, but
the real story is more complicated and more beautiful. Human
(31:35):
nature isn't built for survival of the meanest and most competitive.
In sometimes especially tough times, the kind survive and thrive,
whether you're a monkey sharing shade with a stranger or
a human sharing your furlough with a team member. More
than that, we humans are different. We're not at the
mercy of whichever environment we're dropped into. We can build
(31:58):
our own social worlds that emphasize cooperation over competition, Krypotkeanism
over social Darwinism. If, like Bob Chapman, we create the
condition for a better kinder world, people will adapt. Self
fulfilling prophecies can work against us, but they can also
work for us, bringing the best out of people and cultures.
(32:21):
All we need to do is drop the cynicism and
believe in each other. Thankfully, the evidence is on our side.
To see the best in people. We don't need to
put on rose colored glasses. We just need to take
off the mud colored glasses we usually walk around with it.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
In the next episode in this series, on Finding Hope,
Jimmie and I will explore another topic that many of
us feel cynical about, polarization. These days, it often feels
like we're agreeing less and fighting more. Where has all
this anger come from? And are our cynical minds actually
right about how bad things are?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Well?
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Learn more next time on a Happiness Last with me
Doctor Laurie Santos.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And me Doctor Jamil Zaki.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Wow, you gotta work on your Russian accent.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I will never work on my Russian accent.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
God give me some work for podcast guys whatever anywhere.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
No wow
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Wow mh
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