Taming Animal Spirits

Many of us have lifelong memories that were forged in the early days of COVID. I'll share one of mine.

It was March 2020, just before social distancing became widely mandated, and concerns about food and toilet paper supplies were spreading. I drove to my local grocery store just before it opened and waited in the parking lot. I congratulated myself on being one of a small number of proactive shoppers to do so. I felt smug about the fact that I was calm and collected, not frantic and feverish as I imagined others would be when they showed up after work that day.

Then, as I went about my shopping, there was a palpable energy shift. I saw a steady stream of newcomers spill through the front door. Their faces were tense, and their pace was quickening. I felt a primordial instinct take over. I couldn’t help but mirror the crowd’s incipient panic, and I became increasingly preoccupied with self-preservation. I too began stockpiling supplies with crazed abandon. I remember noticing that I could do almost nothing to stop this chain reaction. It felt as though I was entirely in the thrall of ancient impulses.

At the time I had already understood and accepted the idea that human beings have deeply irrational tendencies, but this experience made it more real. I was prompted to go?deeper into behavioral economics, exploring the subliminal dimensions of our decision-making. Since then I've been keenly attuned to influence levers that dramatically alter the dynamics of professional and political situations.

The COVID era revealed that dizzying technological progress is accentuating, not subduing, our animal spirits. The disorientating pace of change is making us increasingly reliant on our original operating system. We are more jittery and impressionable, and this seems to have clear practical and ethical implications.

The practical implications apply to those who work in sales, business development, or influence more broadly. To be effective in these roles, one needs to be more conscious of the personal, social, and structural factors that shape group behavior patterns. Personal factors are things like KPIs and incentive plans. Social factors are things like modeled behavior and public recognition. Structural factors are things like the office environment (physical) or user interface (virtual). Even small tweaks to one of these variables can have immediate and profound consequences. They are the "nudges" that Richard Thaler and others in the behavioral economics community have written about extensively.

Ethically, we are raising the stakes for leadership as our information ecosystem becomes more hyperconnected, and thus more efficient in the circulation of emotionally-charged messages that can overpower individual rationality. We are becoming more dependent on mature judgment from professional and political leaders. We need leaders with checks and balances on how they consume information. We need leaders who can see the full field, not just local skirmishes. We need leaders who are measured, not impulsive.

In terms of skill and responsibility, today's Change Agents are held to a higher standard than ever before.?