The Wolf Pack That Won't Go Away

It’s one of those stories that no matter how many times it gets refuted, it keeps popping up. Especially in social media, and in particular on LinkedIn. It’s the story of the wolf pack and how it’s organized. I've written about it before, but the durability of the story never ceases to amaze me.

When obviously fake negative news stories are shared in social media, the people who have shared it sometimes react to the news that they're untrue along the lines of ”I don’t care that it’s a lie, it’s still terrible!” The story about the wolves mirrors this sentiment, even though the context is positive and heart-warming. We so desperately want it to be true, that we continue to share it again and again.

Here’s the story, in case you missed it. It is centered around an image (the one you see in the header, with colors added to highlight the different "parts" of the pack):

“A wolf pack: the first 3 are the old or sick, they give the pace to the entire pack. If it was the other way round, they would be left behind, losing contact with the pack. In case of an ambush they would be sacrificed. Then come 5 strong ones, the front line. In the center are the rest of the pack members, then the 5 strongest following. Last is alone, the alpha. He controls everything from the rear. In that position he can see everything, decide the direction. He sees all of the pack. The pack moves according to the elders pace and help each other, watch each other.”

And here is what the fact-checking site Snopes had to say about this story already four years ago:

The photograph shown was taken by Chadden Hunter and featured in the BBC documentary Frozen Planet in 2011, with its original description explaining that the “alpha female” led the pack and that the rest of the wolves followed in her tracks in order to save energy:

A massive pack of 25 timberwolves hunting bison on the Arctic circle in northern Canada. In mid-winter in Wood Buffalo National Park temperatures hover around -40°C. The wolf pack, led by the alpha female, travel single-file through the deep snow to save energy. The size of the pack is a sign of how rich their prey base is during winter when the bison are more restricted by poor feeding and deep snow. The wolf packs in this National Park are the only wolves in the world that specialize in hunting bison ten times their size. They have grown to be the largest and most powerful wolves on earth.

The greatest story ever told

The biggest reason why storytelling is such a powerful tool of persuasion is that it affects us on a number of levels, and very deeply at that. Stories can make us sad and happy at the same time, they can transport us across continents and centuries in an instant. They can invoke memories and change our future. We have no way to protecting ourselves from a great story, nor would we want to - most of the time.

The story about the wolf pack affects us in many ways. It is in itself a wonderful tale of how a group can transform from individuals into something greater, of a leader that protects its flock, and of finding qualities we associate with the best of humanity present among animals. For generations raised on Disneyesque stories of animals behaving like humans, this one certainly has the ring of truth.

So on an emotional level we react along the lines of ”it speaks to me, therefore it must be true”.

Conquering social networks

According to Snopes the wolf pack story made its debut on Facebook, yet it is on LinkedIn, the ”professional” network that it seems to have had the greatest success - at least as far as I can tell. This may seem surprising, considering the emotional weight of the story, and the traditional perception of logic as a driver of our professional lives.

Yet I would argue that the opposite is true. This is a perfect story for LinkedIn, precisely because it is considered a professional space. For different of different reasons:

First and foremost, sharing the wolf pack story is an easy win. It has all the trappings of a pseudo-professional post. It speaks about leadership, highlighting the difference between being a boss and being a leader. Sharing it provides us with the opportunity to firmly state that we believe in leaders, not bosses. If LinkedIn was Reddit, this post would be karma heaven. 

Secondly, it offers an opportunity to share a moment with our friends and followers - to gather around the ever-warm fire place of great stories. It forms a bond between us, if only for a moment. No matter what else that sets us apart, at least we can all agree that the wolves are wonderful and great leaders looks out for everyone.

And finally, it's the kind of story that very effectively shuts down the part of us that wants to fact check it, while the part of us that wants to be believe that there's an amazing we can learn from wolves is busy liking and sharing it. Aided and abetted by the fact that we are inherently lazy and often avoid critical thinking (remember Kahneman and his systems).

But for all its innocence and merits, the fact remains that the story is fake - and in the last couple of years we seen just how dangerous it can be to share fake stories again and again.

Bye Bye Wolfy?

It can be argued that sharing the story about the wolves is an innocent act, likely based on good intentions. But in my opinion that's beside the point. It's a fake story, and when we share it we add to a growing number of fake stories (often of a much more sinister nature) being shared in social media.

Increasingly, we need to ask ourselves if a story is true before we share it. Take a close look at it before using it to gather likes, build our personal brand or connect with friends or what ever it is that we use social media for. Even on LinkedIn.

It's time to say good bye to the wolves, and stop sharing them.

EDIT: Or is it?

Sara Larsen posted a very thoughtful comment (see below) that offered a great alternative: "Why say goodbye to the wolf pack instead of sharing the true story?

Is it less inspirational with a leader, and a female at that, who grinds a path in the snow for everyone else, making sure the rest of the wolfs can conserve energy to use for everything else they need to do?

She also obviously puts her trust in the rest of the wolfs(her team) to defend the group if needed without micromanage them by looking over their shoulder from behind?

Sounds like an amazing leader to me?"

So rather than discarding the story, we could begin to share the true story - which is just as inspirational.