The drive to bond

The drive to bond seems at first blush to be nothing but good. Originally those who bonded together survived. Darwin did not intend that "survival of the fittest" should refer to the strongest, but instead to those who best fit in, those who could adapt, those who could change and those who could bond with each other. Interestingly, Darwin did not use the phrase "survival of the fittest" in any of his works. The expression was coined in 1864, five years after the publication of "On the Origin of the Species", by Herbert Spencer in "Principles of Biology".

From their earliest days children bond with their parents and families. They want to share love, to feel they fit in their first society – their home. This need is profound. It is closely followed by the need to fit in and to gain respect and affection at their second "society" – their schools, and so on to the workplace and their own adult homes. Each of these steps (see Figure 1 opposite) are not just Victorian 'rites of passage', they are key moments when we need support as we grow up.

Nohria and Lawrence see a dark side to the second driver. The psychology of the shift is worth examining. For most people, the emotional warmth, the mutual respect and the shared purpose of bonding with team mates is a straightforward enough satisfaction. Whenever I ask client groups about their most profoundly enjoyable and memorable leadership story, they almost always smile, their voices rise, and they describe a shared, mutually–enriching and positive team experience. Normally it is one where they were very much part of the team. I have never known someone describe a solo exercise, or even a duet.

I have consciously used several words about these joyful experiences: "emotional warmth", "mutual respect", "shared purpose" – these words are all to do with the shared satisfaction, the inward glow of enjoying each other. It is an inclusive experience. However, alas, this is at one end of the spectrum

The Formative Moments in our Lives

Formative moments in our lives

Gradually, the dark side of "bonding" can move from the joys of shared love to the formation of exclusive groups bound by common hatreds, by a need to blame others, to find scapegoats. Clubs are formed that perpetuate and exaggerate a particular type of person at the expense of others. At the extreme this leads to genocide, the most obscene, but alas natural, extension of distinguishing between "us" and "them". The 21st Century still cannot stop genocide. Jared Diamond has compiled a list of twenty-six major episodes of genocide from 1900 to 1990 which does not deal with our most recent Bosnian, Kurdish, Tutsi and Hutu examples, let alone the Sudan.

Genocide is at the most extreme and abhorrent end of the bonding spectrum. For businesses, and indeed most organisations today, we can see pale but also hurtful examples in corporate intolerance, bullying and, in companies where staff have broken into cliques, the "in–crowd". We see it in companies witlessly disparaging their competition. We see it perhaps most clearly in the regimental initiation ceremonies, the rites of passage and the need to bully, that caricature the worst unthinking and self–serving needs of our armed forces (sidebar 3).

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