STFU #59 - What Astronauts at NASA, Baboons and Prairie Dogs can teach Startups on how to Bond

In 1976, a Soviet space mission was canceled midway suddenly. The crew was experiencing shared delusions and complaining of a strange scent. The team got scared and asked for the mission to be aborted immediately.?

It was later determined to be imaginary. Both the United States and the Soviet Union diagnosed depression among astronauts during space missions and found that this low-spirited behavior and stress would have led to paranoia and defensiveness.

NASA also witnessed a lot of cases where astronauts were unable to ‘hold’ their emotions leading to a lot of arguments and fights amongst the teams, further risking crucial missions.

How do you resolve it? NASA figured out that they should have astronauts who have the ‘emotional strength’ to manage the stressful environment for 6-12 months?in space.?

But how do you recruit such astronauts??A NASA psychiatrist named Terence McGuire was responsible for evaluating their psychological readiness for the stresses of space.

Their regular screening process was not working -?Every applicant seemed to know what they were supposed to say during interviews. They had practiced describing their biggest weaknesses and greatest regrets and had perfected explaining how they managed stress.?

So McGuire went back and checked all the previous recordings of candidate interviews and mapped them to the subsequent career trajectories. He tried to see the pattern in the interviews that was common for those astronauts who did extremely well later on in life.?

McGuire uncovered one particular pattern - these candidates ‘laughed’ differently!?

Interestingly, studies show that people don’t always laugh at good jokes and stories. In fact, <20% of the laughter is usually in response to humor.? People laughed because they wanted to connect with the person they were speaking with.?

Laughter is one way of proving that we hear how someone feels.?We laugh to show someone that we want to connect with them— and our companions laugh back to demonstrate they want to connect with us, as well.?More importantly, the intensity of the laughter had to be the same to reflect bonding.?If you laugh loudly, and I merely smile, it won’t feel like I want to bond. It will feel like I’m uninterested, or patronizing.?A joke might not be funny, but if we both agree to laugh in similar ways, we’re signaling to each other that we want to connect.

In a nutshell, the astronauts who laughed to connect were the ones who were eventually strong enough to sustain tough conditions during space missions.

Animal Grooming to Human Gossip

In a study of animals, scientists found out that animals (baboons) spend up to 20% of their waking time grooming each other. It does help remove parasites from their skin and fur but it’s mainly about relationships, maintaining friendships, and resolving conflicts. It turns out that all social primates practice social grooming, as a way of socially bonding with members of a group. (am sure you can relate to some of these activities at home when we try to oil our dear one’s hair or just offer them a leg massage!)

But apart from grooming, animals have other ways to socially bond as well. They speak to each other.?

Most of us don’t understand their chirps and barks. We feel they are just making noise. But they are actually talking to each other. Apparently, animals with shorter lives speak very quickly, and if you slow their speech down, it sounds very much like humans speaking.?For instance, a prairie dog speaks in chirps, but if you slow down those chirps, they sound like human speech. A chirp might be equivalent to a full sentence in our language. Prairie dogs live for three to five years.?

This set of conversations is usually called ‘gossip’ when they talk about other animals or situations around them.?Anthropologists consider gossip as an evolution of grooming - both having the same intent of social bonding.?

According to scientists, gossip played a vital role in human evolution by allowing individuals to exchange information about who was reliable or not, thus strengthening social networks. Also, the stories that we share about spirits, gods, or evil enabled sapiens to form larger, more cohesive groups, united by common beliefs and narratives.

So as Humans, part of us still use grooming to socially bond at home, gossip is what we usually use to bond socially outside our personal lives (Caveat: In my limited experience, have not seen work environments where ‘Grooming’ is used for social bonding. If you know of cases, please pardon my ignorance!)

Gossip and Laughter in Startups

In startups, we all have a lot on our plate. The pace does not allow you to do ‘idle gossip’. If you have more time to talk about others at the office, it is highly likely that the startup has a short shelf life, maybe shorter than the prairie dog!?However, just like the astronauts, laughing to connect is a big reflection of the emotional strength your team carries.?

It is imperative that the team laughs together and has time to gossip. If they socially bond, you will have a much more resilient team around you.

#storyoftrue?

At True Elements, Gossip is part of DNA. It is almost a ritual in a few cohorts to gossip - to update what’s going on in others’ lives. We thrive on ‘gossip’. And we laugh together.?

We don’t laugh at jokes or stories, we laugh to connect. We laugh to signal to each other that we care.?

This also gives us the strength to give and take the heat during tough conversations. It is this emotional strength that enables us to face tougher situations without taking things personally.

At the same time, we gossip when we can, without compromising on work. We gossip not one on one, but mostly in groups. And in our own ‘baboonic’ way, we ‘remove parasites from the skin’! :)

During Covid, when all of us were working from home, it was a lonely journey for each of us. So every Friday at 5 pm, we all connected to chat - to just catch up and share stories - good and bad. It was also a major tool for information dissemination. But stories that we shared - and we called this session our WG - or weekly gossip!?

This practice has continued even today as we gossip either over lunch or during monthly review meetings!

In summary, if teams gossip, if they share laughter, it means they socially bond.?It is not the other way around, as most of us might feel.

For those of you who consider Gossip as a distraction,

get some oil and combs to the office.?

For those who love gossips and know it keeps you excited at the office,

STFU!

P.S. A few pieces of the #storyoftrue - their smiles, gossip, and laughs!

References:?Astronauts ?,?Animal Gossip?1 ?2 ?3 ?4 ?5 ?|?Images:?Astronauts ,?Monkey Grooming ?|?Book: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg