Hierarchy — a socio-psychological fallacy
Why ranking ourselves against others can get us into trouble, and how to reframe our place in the world.
I’ve just finished reading Steven Pressfield’s succinct and brilliant book — The War of Art . It provides a compelling argument for overcoming what he calls ‘The Resistance’, the often overwhelming force that holds us back from achieving what we should be achieving. Near the end of the book, Pressfield makes a comparison between Territory and Hierarchy. In his words:
In the animal kingdom, individuals define themselves in one of two ways — by their rank within a hierarchy (a hen in a pecking order, a wolf in a pack) or by their connection to territory (a home base, a hunting ground, a turf).
He continues, “This is how individuals achieve psychological security. They know where they stand. The world makes sense.”
We have all encountered this in some form or another and we are generally aware of it from a very young age. It’s how the school playground is organised. It’s how we notice our parents behaving relative to other parents. In societies designed around a class system, such as the British, it’s even stronger and it pervades every part of life.
As we develop our professional lives, hierarchy manifests in other ways. Employees of most corporations are prisoners to the shackles of organisational hierarchy. In the startup world, it presents itself in more subtle but equally powerful ways as founders and co-founders seek to determine where they fit relative to their peers.
Hierarchy’s grip on us is significantly reduced when we realise that it is both relative and fabricated. Hierarchy needs a baseline and an agreed metric. In other words, it can only manifest if there is a means of comparing ourselves to each other that is of importance to everyone being compared. It exists in our minds. If we take a strongly hierarchical situation and remove the thing that was perceived as important or valuable to everyone, the hierarchy disintegrates.
For several years I traveled the world conducting a global social experiment called Wok+Wine. Wok+Wine was a series of events that created the most level of social playing fields to enable the least likely of people to engage in conversation as peers. Their connection occurred at the most fundamental level — that is, as humans. We designed every Wok+Wine in a way that prevented hierarchy the chance of getting a grip on the crowd. There was no means for participants to compare themselves to others. I didn’t realise it at the time but we had created an anti-hierarchy experience.
In The War of Art, Pressfield goes on to describe an alternative to a hierarchical orientation — a territorial one. Rather than comparing ourselves to others and trying to fit in and perform according to a predetermined metric, we should instead claim and own our individual territory. It’s about following our purpose and doing what we know we should be doing, rather than what we think others might want us to be doing.
While this might seem conceptual if you’re working the 9-to-5 grind with your eye on the next promotion, it is a compelling proposition worth considering.
Having lived in multiple countries around the world in the course of my adult life, this concept of creating and claiming my own territory became increasingly powerful and possible. A hierarchical mindset would think “I am in a new place that values different things. Things that I don’t have. I won’t stand a chance”. A territorial mindset on the other hand thinks “I am in a new place where nobody knows me. I can be whatever I want to be. I am whatever I say that I am.” Of course this needs to be backed up with a degree of competency in that thing you say that you are. Or, as Pressfield might say, you still have to do the work.
As we witness the disintegration of many of the systems that have managed the way we live and work for the past century — from education to politics, healthcare to economics — there has never been a better time to claim and own your territory. Many of the hierarchies that provided order in an industrial and information age will not survive this next age of reinvention and collaboration. So what is the territory that you will claim?
This won’t happen overnight. So, in the meantime if you are trying to get the most out of any group, here are a couple of things that I have learned that you might find useful in addressing the negative power that hierarchy can have:
- Remove choice. Whenever there is choice, there is hierarchy. By definition, hierarchy requires a source of comparison. If you can remove choice as much as possible, you limit those potential sources.
- Remove familiar cues. As well as the fact that people like to experience new things occasionally, by taking people out of their familiar environment, you remove any potential for a “home turf” advantage. The home team always has the upper hand.
- Remove themes. As soon as you give an event a theme, you create hierarchy as there will always be someone who knows most about that theme or is most respected in that world.
- Remove competition. Competition requires winners and losers. Winners are better than losers. So often an organisation will take their team out of their work environment (organisational hierarchy) and get them to do a competitive sport or activity (new hierarchy). You’re unwittingly replacing one hierarchy with another. There are enough fun and powerful ways to build teams without them competing against each other.
Let me know how you get on.
