Know Thy Vulnerabilities
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<h1 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Civilized Hunters</h1><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">As hairless upright apes, the human brain evolved to its current capabilities between 100,000 to 30,000 years ago.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Roaming bands of hunter-gatherers eventually settled down into agricultural-based civilizations. This conflict is embedded in the story of Cain killing Abel, or of the evil farmer defeating the blessed nomad.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Independent of the moral lesson, for both nomadic tribes and small villages, there was only so many names and faces that people could remember and place.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar proposed a cognitive limit to the number of stable relationships an individual could maintain. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The Dunbar Number is believed to be a result of the size of the neocortex, which is the part of the brain associated with thinking and language.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The number is estimated to be between 100 and 250, with 150 as a reasonable median.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The theory suggests that this limit has implications on cohesion, collaboration, and the ability for social groups to communicate. The number has real-world applications to business management, organizational design, and industrial culture.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The number is a series of concentric circles, each representing qualitatively different kinds of relationships. It includes extended family as well as friends and colleagues.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Most small businesses in America are less than 200 people.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">An organization with a <a href="https://www.superversive.co/essays/history-of-the-org-chart">networked tree</a> representing, say, more than 1,000 people, it’s already orders of magnitude beyond the scale of evolutionary human psychology.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">How are civilized people supposed to get anything done?</p><h1 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Psycho Graphics</h1><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">A portmanteau of “psychological" and "demographics”, psychographics is a market research methodology that classifies groups according to variables such as attitudes, values, interests, and lifestyles. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Some people consider it a pseudoscience, cataloguing activities, interests, and opinions, as well as values and individual style.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Psychographic data can include a buyer's spending habits, hobbies, thoughts, and other pieces of their psychological makeup.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Sales, marketing, and product development functions have commercial interests in understanding people.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">People also have a deep and persistent desire to understand themselves. </p><h1 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Individual Tendencies</h1><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Meyers-Briggs is one example. </p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">DISC is another.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">These are ways for people to know <em>why</em> they are they way they are.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">For that matter, Zodiac signs and horoscopes are an ancient product designed to explain people to themselves.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">There can be various types:</p><ul data-rte-list="default"><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">opportunistic</p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">disciplinarian</p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">empathic</p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">curious</p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">systems thinker</p></li></ul><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">It’s possible to “over-index” for each characteristic.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">When that happens, the archetype is recognizable:</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Opportunistic ➡️ used car salesman</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Empathetic ➡️ social worker (or designer)</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Disciplinarian ➡️ authoritarian</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Curious ➡️ ADD</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Systems ➡️ hallucinating John Nash from A Beautiful Mind</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The Disciplinarian mindset tends to over-represent in regulated ecosystems (financial services, oil & gas, education, pharmaceuticals, legal, etc).</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Those are industries in which the harms to customers, employees, or shareholders can be severe and enduring.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">So, generations of “branches” and “trunks” self-select for process-oriented, risk-averse, and disciplined thinkers.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">In the U.S., for example, most small businesses are less than 200 headcount. An organization with more than 1,000 is almost incomprehensibly huge on an human scale.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Why? The Dunbar Number.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The networked tree helps visualize who are the 150 individuals that you actually know/interact/support.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">In regulated ecosystems, during the talent management and promotion process, the self-selection for “people like me” attenuates the other psychographic characteristics.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">When I’ve played the metaphor out, some people have a visceral emotional reaction.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">IMHO, I think the reaction betrays a predisposition or likelihood to over-index in disciplinarian characteristics.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">In digital communities or social media, the people clamoring to moderate discussions are ones who crave power and authority. Those are the people you don’t want becoming super users.</p><h1 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Performance-Driven Innovation</h1><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I consulted with a startup trying to “productize” 3 decades of intellectual property around entrepreneurial ecosystems and performance-driven change management.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I have a high conviction in the power and quality of conversations (1:1, 2+ people, small group, etc).</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">All organizations want to innovate. The larger (1,000+ people) the institutional nature of enterprises makes execution aligned with vision and core values much harder.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Vulnerability presents as authentic presents as trustworthy makes people want to collaborate which leads to innovation.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Vulnerability and divulging risks leads to innovation is counterintuitive for a lot of people, but especially authoritarians.</p>
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