Why would he do that?

Have you ever wondered why a department head denies promotion to one of his star employees who is considered brilliant and worthy of promotion even by his peers?

 A range of plausible explanations run through your mind:

 + He must not have delivered his numbers

+ He is not all that worthy after all

+ He might have rubbed his manager the wrong way

+ This year promotion budget was very tight

+ His manager feels unsecured about his own position

There are many such actions and behaviours on daily basis in every organization where your first natural reaction is “it defies logic” or “it doesn’t make sense” or “why would he do that”….you get the point

I have myself struggled to reason out such behaviours for many years. During early parts of my professional career, the typical answer I got from my friends who were little more senior to me was “You are still young. With time you will learn how the organisations work”. Now I am around for 20 some years and still have the same question. Yes, I did learn that people behave this way (irrational) however I still can not figure out the plausible explanation especially when a perfectly smart, intelligent, highly educated and highly experienced professional resorts to something like this.

While reading “Conduct Expected” by William Lareau, I stumbled upon a perfect reasoning. While it may sound dated, I have not come across any better explanation till date. I will be more then happy to hear an alternative explanation by the readers.

The human being of today is the result of over three billion years of evolution. We are here because our ancestors could hunt, eat and breed faster then the others. Our cerebral cortex, which gives us the ability to reason, developed only a few thousand years ago. This ability (to reason) is what differentiates us from other primates such as Monkeys and Chimpanzees. A few thousand years is still a relatively short time to influence millions of years of our deep seated “hard wired” behaviour compulsions. As a result our primate behaviour with millions of years of history is in conflict with demands of modern world our thinking brains expects. It is not difficult to guess who the winner is most of the times.

Let’s explore our primate needs a bit more. We all know that our ancestors, millions of years ago, had to fight for their survival on daily basis. In order for them to make it, they had following needs:

Survive: They had to defend themselves from all kinds of dangers. Only those who could defend themselves successfully could reproduce to give us a birth. As a result we all have a hard wired primate need to defend and survive.

Belong: It wasn’t easy for our ancestors to survive alone. Only those who belonged to a bigger group could defend them successfully over a long run and give us a birth. Hence we have a need to belonghard wired in us as well.

Power: Only those who exhibited more power (more hunting, more breeding etc) could survive to give us a birth. Also those who were driven to make something powerful happen (fire, wheel etc) cold experiment and survive. Now you know where does the need for powerwith in us come from.

Freedom: Even primates had a conflicting interest of belonging to a group but being selfish enough to take care of themselves first. If there was a shortage of meat in the group they belonged to, those who could take care of themselves first could only survive. As a result we all have a need to belong but also maintain out own freedom.

Fun: Primates had a need to have fun as well. This is still visible in the joy we get from seeing cats and dogs having fun.

Our rational mind, which is a relative recent development, is not aware of these needs which are hard wired in us for millions of years. Next time when you are not able to reason out someone’s behaviour, try to find out which primate need is at play.

When a perfectly deserving employees doesn’t get promoted, may be his manager is satisfying his own need to survive in this competitive world.

When you see an employee who can not keep himself from answering rather not urgent e-mails while on holiday, may be he is unconsciously trying to satisfy his need for belongingness. He probably doesn’t have any other outlet and only depends on his place of work to belong.

When you see your boss making a not very smart decision regarding your department without consulting you, he is probably satisfying his need for power. His decision may have a negative impact on the performance of the organization however his primate need for power doesn’t recognise that.

Next time you see that someone who was responsible for office seating has made sure that best offices and desks are provided to employees of his department, you know he is exercising his need for freedom by taking care of himself before others.

 However much we hate going to office every morning, we look forward to the company picnic or the annual family event. We still have the primate need to have fun.

I find myself in a much better position to understand behaviour of people at work (and elsewhere) with the understanding of these five primary needs. Having this understanding doesn’t solve the problem though. I will have to explore in weeks and months to come as to how do I benefit from this understanding. I will be open to hearing your experiences.

Anshum Jain ([email protected])