Tribes at Work

“Nobody on this hallway would steal anything but those other hallways are a bunch of crooks.”

I thought he must be joking, but the man was serious. Everyone in the building worked for the same organization, all were technical professionals assigned offices almost randomly. Yet he truly thought that some magic had placed only honest people in the hallway where his office lay and landed dishonest people in every other hallway.

My investigation: find out what had happened to a missing portable generator. Multiple people had seen it the previous week in a storeroom. Then it was missing. Was someone legitimately using it or had it been stolen? [Insert NCIS theme song here.] Spoiler: It had been stolen and I recommended that the investigation be turned over to the police.

I never heard if they found the culprit or not. But that investigation and a dozen others taught me something terrible about us humans. Thousands of years after we grew beyond small hunter-gatherer tribes, we are still tribal beings. Now we identify with cultural tribes, trusting our tribe members and distrusting other tribes, convinced that the trust is based on facts.

Every person I interviewed that day expressed similar sentiments, although less bluntly than that first man. Every hallway distrusted every other hallway with a few exceptions for friends sharing other tribal bonds. Subsequent investigations produced similar patterns, a solid belief among interviewees that no one in their tribe would be careless or steal.

We also see the tribal effect in sports, where fans ferociously identify with the Saints, Barcelona, Atlanta, or Team USA even when fans don’t play and don’t personally know anyone on those teams. In politics we label ourselves and others as Democrats, Tories, Conservatives, Pro- and Anti-something, ad infinitum. In the workplace we label “Us” and “Them” by function, discipline, or even by hallway. Once labeled, we vilify the other labeled tribes as not just different, but stupid and dishonest. Sigh.

What advice can I offer in the face of such instinctive behavior? First, recognize tribalism for what it is in yourself and others. Work hard to prevent it from contaminating your work relationships. Go out of your way to cultivate friendships across the labels. Demonstrate a willingness to listen to contrary ideas from “Them.” But be aware that some bosses’ turf protection often hinges on tribalism. I once was caught between my supervisor who refused to defend his own turf and his boss who became furious when we tried cooperation before attacking competitors. Double sigh.