What HR Progressives and Baby Monkeys taught me about Empowerment

Beginning with a study on baby monkeys, psychology found a big connection between caretakers and how we deal with ambiguity. So as business becomes increasingly ambiguous, manager development is a smart place for HR to focus our energy. Ryan Holden and I wanted to hear how Progressives were doing that, so we reached out to Elizabeth Hall and Karen Weeks. Turns out manager development can be way more creative than just training!

~7 min read

Adapt or fall behind. 

That is the world organizations are living in today. Elite consulting firm McKinsey & Co’s research found that many firms have gone through a redesign in the last two or three years, and most were unsuccessful. So, what are successful organizations doing to adapt? One major change has been to replace safe, bureaucratic decision-making with front-line decision making. This means empowering and trusting employees to dabble in radical approaches to new problems.

This kind of empowerment is difficult. You cannot just change a process or two; it has to be part of a more significant cultural shift in decision making. While HR has many tools in its toolbox, this new kind of approach requires a new kind of thinking. So I took to the world of Psychology to understand what creates empowered decision making by looking at environments of disempowerment. My investigation led me to the highly controversial studies of Dr. Harry Harlow in the 1950s. While I hope his methods are never replicated, I cannot deny how enriching they were for understanding decision making in the workplace.

Monkeys without Mothers

In his research of rhesus macaque monkeys, Dr. Harlow found a strong link between a monkey’s caretaker and their social/cognitive development. As it turns out, individual empowerment was hugely impacted by a maternal influence— the less of it they had, the more fearful they were and the fewer risks they took. Below are the experiment’s key points. For a fuller synopsis of Harlow’s work feel free to visit this site.

1. Isolation creates bizarre, antisocial behavior: Infant monkeys separated from their mothers and raised in isolation developed different behaviors (clutching their bodies or rocking compulsively) and had difficulty interacting with other monkeys.
2. Caregiving mostly overrides sustenance: When infant monkeys were given inanimate, replacement mothers (one made of wire and one of soft terrycloth) they showed different attitudes toward each. With the wire surrogate, the baby monkey only spent time with “her” when they were hungry or wanted food. The rest of the time was spent with the cloth mother, even if she was never able to feed the baby.
3. Caregiver presence decreases fear: When confronted with a scary robot, the fearful monkey would run to the cloth mother for comfort. As long as the cloth mother was near, the monkey would even turn around and confront the robot (while clutching mother of course!)
4. Caregiver presence increases openness to experience: When put into an unfamiliar room, the infant monkeys would hide in a corner. Putting the wire mother in the room produced the same effect. Putting the cloth mother in, however, changed things— the monkeys would run right to "her." After some nuzzling, they would begin to explore the room adventurously.

Making the Inferential Leap: Caretaker Approach = Empowered Decision Making

When I read about the Harlow studies, I could not help but draw parallels to themes I see in corporate environments: 

1. Silo mentality contributes to failing culture. Just as isolation hinders monkeys’ social behavior, silo mentality contributes to lower morale, less communication, and an inefficient or failing corporate culture
2. 50% have left jobs to get away from a manager and improve their overall life. Just like the monkeys preferred the mother that empowered them over the mother that fed them, so too are employees influenced by better managers more than better pay.
3. & 4. Teams with higher psychological safety harness the power of diverse ideas. They are considered more effective and even generate more revenue. This is the same principle that empowered the monkeys to confront their fears and explore the unknown.

I am inclined to believe that a more caregiving approach to managing our people is what is needed to promote the radical methods businesses are asking for. In corporate speak, the caregiving approach translates to manager development. This comes as no surprise since manager development programs are being adopted by major players, both big and small. To learn more about what is at the cutting edge, Ryan Holden and I decided to reach out to two progressive VPs of People: Elizabeth Hall and Karen Weeks. Over coffee, they shared with us the shift they are seeing in the management function as well as the initiatives they are instituting in response.

Embedded Manager Support

Elizabeth Hall is the VP of People at Cadre. She is an often requested panelist for her People Insights drawn from her rich experience. With a history of growing strong software companies, Elizabeth has had a first-hand look at managers of all kinds.

"Some leaders have experience being people managers, that's in their DNA, so they think ‘Well of course, I'm a manager. It's what I do.' Then you have people in their career where people management was never a priority." –Elizabeth Hall, Cadre

Elizabeth tried traditional means of manager development to combat the issue but found little success. Her next approach was to transform the HR Business Partner role, or HRBP, into that of "People Partner." These People Partners still act as mini advocates for the teams… just not as HR-y. This modernized HRBP includes duties like conducting team pulse checks, collecting themes of successful managers, and sharing best practices. This has been far more effective.

"Manager training sticks for the people that want it to stick, and a lot of people are just too busy. The People Partners are softly integrated, so all of these manager coaching/soft skills are being fostered in a safe environment." –Elizabeth Hall, Cadre

Employee-Manager Communication

Karen Weeks is the VP of People at OrderGroove. Having a Master’s in Human Resources and multiple leadership certifications, she is a student of management best practices. In her experiences, she has found that successful managers are good with communication— especially in times of change.

“The company you joined might be a different company than it is today. And all changes are hopefully good. But even when it’s good change employees need help through that or they’ll think ‘What’s going on?’ or ‘Am I going to get shut out?” –Karen Weeks, OrderGroove

It is obvious why manager communication is vital to help employees through change. The problem, though, comes from the inevitable struggle of "communicate" or "produce." Managers will choose to produce every time. To solve this dilemma, Karen points out that this is actually an organizational problem, not a manager problem.

"There are some people that are not set up for success because we, as a company, have not figured out ‘Oh, you have way too many people reporting to you,' or ‘You're being pulled into this and to that.' It's not that they don't care about the 1:1, they just have too much on their plate. –Karen Weeks, OrderGroove

To figure out which managers are plagued by these issues, Karen advocates a scientific approach: do some research, ask questions, and take a step back to see what is going on. If you find that a lot of people are having the same problems, there is an issue.

Gains of a Caretaker Approach

Below are 2 of Harlow’s monkeys minutes after entering an unfamiliar room. Can you guess which room the cloth mother was in?

Just like Harlow's monkeys, employees need someone to empower them. When approached with ambiguity, do we want them to cower like the first baby monkey, or explore and adventure like the second baby monkey? To get a more outgoing response, it is imperative that organizations develop their managers. If they are not taking a caretaker approach, empowered decision making is unlikely to follow. And this is not to be confused with coddling. Empowering someone to take risks is very different than coddling them. The former helps employees feel the right kind of uncomfortable, the latter that they never feel uncomfortable. In other words, you should not feel like a helicopter mom.

If you want to pulse check your own company culture, but do not know what to look for, Karen and Liz created a short list of warning signs. If you feel like this is something you have seen, even on a small scale, Ryan and I are here for you. We can grab a coffee, go for lunch, or hop on the phone to talk through some ideas. Whether you are looking for further research, best practices, or customized interventions, we are confident we can provide the manager support you are looking for! 

**All opinions expressed in this post are my own. If you learned something you can show your support with a like or reshare, but you are free to just enjoy!**