In my last two posts, I introduced you to Santiago Genovés and the bonkers social experiment he conducted in 1973 with four men and six women aboard a raft in the middle of the Atlantic. And then I rounded up some of my favorite highlights of how it all went totally wrong, mostly because he couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Today, I want to share a few big ideas this whole saga has to teach us about leadership.
First, our default mode is cooperation and cohesion.
The outcome of Genovés’ experiment was nothing like he expected it would be. Quite the opposite. The experiment instead confirmed the idea that at our core, we humans are inclined to get along and play well together (and that that’s far more in our nature than we realize).
In his book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, Seth Godin says that the size of a tribe in which we thrive is around 200 people. (Dunbar’s number confirms this idea, putting the figure at around 150.) We thrive in smaller groups with close connections.
Genovés meant for the raft to be a center of chaos and conflict. But in reality, that boat had a tribal quality. Everyone got to know and trust one another. Each person had an important role. They leaned on one another. They knew who they were and where they were going. They understood the objective. Any tensions that might have built between the participants were less significant than those imposed on them by the Genovés. As a result, they turned on him, not one another.
They got along and played well together. And they had a common enemy. (Or perhaps they got along because they had a common enemy.)
Now that I’ve said that, I want to make one thing clear: the point is not that we need an enemy because we have to hate. I don’t believe that. It’s that we need an enemy in order to burn off an emotion that we otherwise may not fully understand. Like a pressure cooker, if you can’t let it out, the whole thing blows up.
For us, and for the folks on that raft, there’s a unifying quality in being able to say, “yeah, we’re frustrated with the guy. He’s the danger. We have to unite against him. Our squabbles are less significant than this larger problem.”
The second big idea I had after learning about the raft centers on the observer effect, “the fact that observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes it.” In other words, the mere observation of a thing changes the outcome.
For instance, you could be on the African savanna, a full two miles away from a lion, but you’ve made an impact on that environment and that lion, even if you think your presence is not having an impact. You influence the environment. You rustle the grass, and a butterfly alights on the wind, causing a flock of birds to fly which in turn startles a gazelle that catches the eye of the lion.
In the case of the raft, I wonder if Genovés’ mere presence actually prevented the thing he was trying to make happen. In other words, if truly left to their own devices (alone and unobserved on the vast and scary ocean), how would the folks on that raft have behaved? As humans, it’s in our nature to want to solve the biggest problems first. Genovés represented the biggest problem. Unless they threw him overboard, he remained as such. But if he hadn’t been there, what would have been the biggest problem? Would more conflict naturally have developed within and among the group?
Which begs the question: As a human species, do we naturally devolve into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn — regardless?
And here’s my third big idea: I want to believe that what the experiment showed us is that it takes very little for us to unite. We’re not always talking about major foes like the Soviet Union, or Al Qaeda, or Russia. All the little factions and fractures in American politics prove that. And conspiracy theories. And folks who believe the earth is flat.
The raft reminds us that people want to be part of a group where they feel seen, honored, respected, validated, and understood. Where they don’t constantly feel the need to be defensive, prove their worth, stand up for themselves, etc.
Finally, I have to credit my fourth big idea to Genovés’ ego (he blew the experiment because he became the focal point): are you the common enemy?
As leaders, we need to ask ourselves whether we are inadvertently operating like Genovés, giving our people the common enemy they need in us and thereby undermining the very thing we’re trying to do? Have we failed to respect the impact of our observation of them or our influence on them or our desire to try and control them? If so, it should come as no surprise that, like Genovés, we get disappointing outcomes. (Had he not been on that ship, would Genovés have gotten more of the result he wanted?)
In an attempt to “be in control” as leaders, are we instead becoming the common enemy? And if so, what do we need to do next? We can’t be totally hands off or totally hands on; there’s a balance that’s required. We have to be painfully honest with ourselves about the impact and influence of our presence on our team. Only then can our teams unite with us toward common goals instead of against us as their common enemy.
Food for thought, my friends.
If you’re having a hard time seeing the forest for the trees and would like some objective, actionable feedback on how to be a better, more unifying leader, I’d love to talk with you.
Photo by ISKRA Photography on Unsplash
