Leaders Eat Last - Amazon S3

Leaders Eat Last

Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't

By Simon Sinek

How do we create happier and healthier organizations?

According to Simon Sinek, we need to understand the biology of trust and cooperation and why they're essential to our success and fulfillment. This is because organizations that create environments where trust and cooperation thrive, vastly out perform their competition. Plus, their employees love working there.

A powerful mix of chemicals produced in our bodies plays a crucial role in human behavior - and it's getting seriously out of balance, says Sinek.

Instead of driving us to act selflessly in the interests of the groups to which we belong, like how they did back in our Paleolithic tribal days, the mix of chemicals is now dominated by those that reward selfish behavior.

Although cooperation was essential in times of hardship and danger, it seems to have less value in times of plenty. The feel-good factor we used to get from helping others has been replaced by getting a bigger kick out of helping ourselves.

Inside business, this creates internal rivalries, mistrust of leaders, and the pursuit of selfish, short term gains at the expense of long-term stability and a happy workplace.

To get back on course, leaders must adjust their priorities more in favor of employees over shareholders and customers.

Simon Sinek, author of the best-selling leadership book Start With Why, is a renowned global speaker and thought leader.

In this book, he argues that an organization's success or failure is based on leadership excellence and not management acumen. Leadership excellence, he says, is what you witness when you watch US Marines gathering to eat: the most junior ranks are served first and the most senior are served last.

"Marine leaders are expected to eat last because the true price of leadership is the willingness to place the needs of others above your own," he writes.

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Leaders Eat Last

So the title of the book is a euphemism for this principle rather than a practical recommendation for leaders' eating habits!

The Circle of Safety

Since the earliest days of human existence, groups and tribes who struggled to survive against a multitude of threats, from famine to ferocious predators, from oppression to war, have recognized the value of sticking together and looking out for each other.

These strong bonds create a foundation for mutual trust that is still seen today in the military forces and a handful of companies, a couple of which we'll meet later. Each is effectively a "Circle of Safety," within which the members flourish.

When these relationships don't exist, external dangers are superseded by internal threats within the group, making it less able to meet the challenges from outside. In these circumstances, we're spooked by rumors and focused on self-preservation.

Our feeling of belonging is lost. Happy, inspired and fulfilled employees have become the exception rather than the rule. According to research, 80 percent of people are dissatisfied with their jobs.

"But the danger inside is controllable and it should be the goal of leadership to set a culture free of danger from each other..." says Sinek.

"By creating a Circle of Safety around the people in the organization, leadership reduces the threats people feel inside the group, which frees them up to focus more time and energy to protect the organization from the constant dangers outside and seize the big opportunities.

Without a Circle of Safety, people are forced to spend too much time and energy protecting themselves from each other."

Chemistry Class

Despite the advances of civilization, the basic genetic coding that gave humans the power to survive and prosper in ancient times is unchanged. It relies on four "feel good" chemicals in our bodies that reward us for our experiences and behaviors, prompting us to seek opportunities for another dose.

Sinek labels the first two "selfish chemicals." They're not totally bad, they're just focused on ourselves rather than others.

Endorphins mask pain in our bodies, giving us the capacity to endure physical stresses.

Dopamine gives us a "high" when we find something we've frantically been searching for or when we complete a difficult task. It encourages us to keep going and work harder. But dopamine is also highly addictive and is produced when doing

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things like gambling or using drugs.

In business, dopamine highs are created by financial rewards - hitting the goal, earning a bonus. It's like gambling, as players become addicted to "making the numbers."

The other two chemicals are "selfless chemicals" because they're released when we interact positively with each other, generating mutual feelings of security, belonging, trust and camaraderie.

Serotonin is the pride chemical. It flows when we earn the approval of others. We get a serotonin surge when we gain followers or earn "likes" on social media or when, as graduates, we walk across the stage to receive our diploma as the audience applauds.

Serotonin is also a powerful reinforcer of effective leadership status - we experience it when we earn the admiration, trust and support of employees.

Humans have always been hierarchical animals and happily support those they believe will protect them.

The author writes: "(W)hen the group faces a threat from the outside, we expect the leader, who really is stronger, better fed and oozing with confidence from all the serotonin in their body, to be the first one to rush toward the danger to protect the rest of us."

Oxytocin creates the warm feeling we get from love, friendship and trust. To be around others with whom we've bonded gives us a sense of belonging and security. Oxytocin surges with physical contact - which is why we use high-fives, fist-bumps and handshakes to validate our relationships. Even people who simply witness affectionate and trusting behaviors get a shot of oxytocin.

There's one additional chemical that plays an important part in our behavior Cortisol. This is the hormone that puts us on danger alert - a "natural early warning system that all social animals have." It's vital in producing adrenalin, which gives us the energy to escape from threats.

But cortisol is also more dangerously at work when we feel threatened in the workplace, for example if we hear layoff rumors. Like a herd of animals, we pass the alert - and the fear - from one member to another. It creates stress, suppresses oxytocin and ultimately can be bad for individual and collective health.

Together, these chemicals largely dictate our behavior.

Sinek explains: "Our motivation is determined by the chemical incentives inside every one of us. Any motivation we have is a function of our desire to repeat behaviors that make us feel good or avoid stress or pain.

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The only thing we can do is create environments in which the right chemicals are released for the right reasons."

This isn't happening much today.

From Selfless to Selfish

In the past, we received our chemical rewards from cooperating and helping others. But now, society and business have become structured in such a way as to incentivize selfish behavior through financial gain. This generates a dopamine hit. And since dopamine is addictive, this type of behavior repeats and multiplies if unfettered.

Why did this happen?

In previous generations, from earliest times to the period of the Great Depression and then World War II, social groups endured extreme scarcity, insecurity and struggles for survival.

There was a natural tendency to help each other. The spirit of endurance, whether on the streets or the factory floor, forged close bonds. It was like everyone was family.

But because every generation embodies a set of values molded by the events, experiences and technology of their time, the subsequent generation - the one we call Boomers - encountered a life of relative ease and plenty.

Suddenly, it didn't seem as necessary to look out for others as it was to assert our individualism, grasp at opportunities, and capture as much wealth and prosperity as we possibly could for ourselves from the abundant bounty.

Boomers rising through the ranks of leadership took this philosophy with them, losing touch with employees to the point where they were regarded as abstract numbers rather than groups of individuals. And when people become mere numbers, it's so much easier to resort to layoffs as soon as business performance dips.

"A new set of values and norms has been established for our business and our society," the author declares, "- a system of dopamine driven performance that rewards us for individual achievement at the expense of the balancing effects of serotonin and oxytocin that reward us for working together and building bonds of trust and loyalty."

Resisting Abstraction

As this attitude takes hold and as corporations grow ever larger, all elements of business activity become distilled into numbers on balance sheets. We rely on these abstractions as a guide to performance, which, in turn, dictates managers' and leaders' behavior.

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When numbers are the only things we can see, we remove ourselves from the personal impacts of the decisions we make. Layoffs and other painful decisions simply become part of a mathematical calculation. Leaders who rule by abstraction feel little or nothing for the individuals on the receiving end of their decisions. It's all about hitting the numbers.

So, how can leaders avoid sliding into the pit of abstraction, of putting metrics before people? Sinek offers five rules to keep our focus on the individuals we work with:

1. Keep it Real - Bring People Together. We're social animals, so look for opportunities for face-to-face encounters and encourage those around you to do the same. Avoid the modern tendency to replace real interactions with virtual ones.

2. Keep it Manageable - Obey Dunbar's Number. Research by anthropologist Robin Dunbar shows that people can't maintain more than about 150 close relationships. Bigger organizations should be structured hierarchically so no individual, including the leader, is directly accountable for more than this many people.

3. Meet the People You Help. Because we're social and visual animals, seeing the positive impact of our decisions enhances our self-worth and inspires us to work harder. For example, showing radiologists photographs of patients whose X-rays they were studying led to a dramatic improvement in diagnoses. Look for opportunities for you and your employees to interact with those who benefit from your activities.

4. Give Them Time, Not Just Money. Numerous studies have shown that a paycheck is not the only motivator, nor even the most important one, for employees. People often place a higher value on the time and energy a leader or manager devotes to them, and returns the sentiment with enhanced loyalty.

5. Be patient. Ours is a world ruled by dopamine-fed instant gratification. Building the trust required to sustain a relationship takes time.

Leadership Lessons

Whenever a group moves from subsistence to surplus, those with the greatest surplus work hardest to mold society to meet their expectations. Mostly, these efforts are directed at affecting changes that are best for their corporate and personal interests rather than for society's.

Sinek calls this behavior "Destructive Abundance" and offers a number of case studies that illustrate how it works and the lessons that flow from it.

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