A colleague
recently introduced me to a fascinating study on primates, which has great
lessons for organizations such as fraternities and sororities.
Dr. Robert Sapolsky is a neurobiologist at Stanford University (smart guy) and
has written many articles and books on animal behavior and how it relates to
stress, socialization, and community. One of his primary subjects has
been wild baboons in Africa, and he even studied the same group (called a
troop) of baboons for 30 years to observe their behavior.
Dr. Sapolsky described why baboons are good animals to study and learn from:
"The reason baboons are such good models is, like us, they don't have real
stressors," he said. "If you live in a baboon troop in the Serengeti,
you only have to work three hours a day for your calories, and predators don't
mess with you much. What that means is you've got nine hours of free time every
day to devote to generating psychological stress toward other animals in your
troop. So the baboon is a wonderful model for living well enough and long
enough to pay the price for all the social-stressor nonsense that they create
for each other. They're just like us: They're not getting done in by predators
and famines, they're getting done in by each other."
Baboon
troops tend to be dominated by highly aggressive alpha males. These males
acquire power like bullies do - by being physically aggressive and
intimidating. Dr. Sapolsky casually describes them as acting like jerks
in order to get what they want. (Sounds kind of like that guy in your
chapter who loves to talk about hazing so much)
The
particular baboon troop that Sapolsky was studying was struck by a tragedy,
which created a very interesting turn of events. Here is how it was
described in a 2004 article from the New York Times:
"...researchers
describe the drastic temperamental and tonal shift that occurred in a troop of
62 baboons when its most belligerent members vanished from the scene. The
victims were all dominant adult males that had been strong and snarly enough to
fight with a neighboring baboon troop over the spoils at a tourist lodge
garbage dump, and were exposed there to meat tainted with bovine tuberculosis,
which soon killed them. Left behind in the troop, designated the Forest Troop,
were the 50 percent of males that had been too subordinate to try dump
brawling, as well as all the females and their young. With that change in
demographics came a cultural swing..."
The cultural
swing was a move away from stress, fear, and loathing, and a move towards
community, peacefulness, and mutual support. In short, with the jerks
gone, the good guys and gals took over. The toxic environment went away with the belligerent baboons.
The troop
thrived with this new culture. But even better - they found a way to
ingrain this culture and protect it against returns to old habits. The young males were raised in the new culture and embraced it. Many outsider baboon males that tried to enter the troop and use the old-school methods of
aggression and nasty behavior to assume control were
thwarted by a culture that wouldn't stand for it. Their choice
was to accept these norms or move on.
Dr. Sapolsky
found that this new behavior was still the norm and culture 20 years after the
tuberculosis incident.
Organizational
culture is a powerful force. Not only does it dominate the scene within
an organization, but it also affects the behavior of current and future
members. The strange irony is that culture - while critically important
and complex - can be influenced so greatly by only a few. Have you ever had a horrible boss that made the whole work environment toxic? In the example
from nature above, the few dominant alpha male baboons behaved in a way that
made the pack tense, stressful, and negative. Their departure changed
that almost immediately.
Don't we all
desire fraternities and sororities that bring out the best in each
member? That are places people come to find refuge from stress and
isolation? That are democratic in how decisions are made and directions
are chosen? That are positive and uplifting?
If your
chapter's culture is the opposite - stressful, tense, and
negative - then take some time to look around. It may be a simple matter
of who is holding the reigns of influence. Too many of our chapters are
held hostage by dominant personalities that are self-serving, mean-spirited,
and aggressive.
Maybe it's
time for them to leave (in a much more pleasant way than the dumpster-diving
baboons).
It isn't always the leaders either. It can be the advisors that create this stressful environment, or perhaps older members who use their age to gain stature. Why should we tolerate anyone who drains life out of our organizations?
There may be other ways to change your organizational culture, but the simplest
and most effective way is to dismiss those that would do it harm. There
may be no greater tool for culture shift than the exit sign.
You might
think that it's too difficult...that it's easier said than done. It requires standing up to power. The baboons in the study never did this at first - they just stumbled into their new culture by accident.
It's a good
thing we're not baboons. We're humans who can summon up the courage to
control the destinies of the organizations we care about. But will we?
