An interesting similarity between lobsters and humans
By: Leo Saini
Tags: Management, Leadership, Human Behavior, Psychology, Organisational Culture

(FYI: Audio version of this article is available above)

In his book 12 Rules For Life, author Jordan Peterson talks about dominance hierarchy in lobsters. Ummm, I guess hierarchies are everywhere. Following is an excerpt from one of his interviews:

We diverged from lobsters in the evolutionary history about 350 million years ago. And lobsters exist in hierarchies. They have a nervous system attuned to the hierarchy. And that nervous system runs on serotonin just like ours. The nervous system of the lobster and the human being is so similar that anti-depressants work on lobsters. — Jordan Peterson

Well, I wasn’t present 350 million years ago, so I decided to conduct my own independent research to confirm Dr Peterson’s claims. To my surprise, this is what I found at a restaurant:

As you can see, the alpha lobster has pushed the subordinates away to have more control and territory, which is a very common occurrence in our workplaces as well — employees get aggressed upon and are pushed away.

“Okay, now I’m a believer,” I thought when I saw this live at a restaurant. I didn’t eat anything, of course, but I clicked this picture and thanked the waiter.

This confirmed that hierarchies are prevalent in almost every form of animal life — from crustaceans deep in the oceans to us humans.

God! Why me?

If you’re feeling like hierarchy is holding you back from progressing, then I want you to know, not fear, just know, that that’s how nature has created us. And you probably won’t like this one, but whining like a little kid won’t change your situation.

So unless your daddy left you an oil well, suck it up.

And even if your daddy leaves you an oil well, you’d probably get routine lectures from your uncles.

How organisational hierarchies kill productivity

There’s nothing wrong with hierarchies if they’re created with good intentions.

So what are ‘good’ intentions in this case? Well, if an organisation wants to coordinate its daily operations and various short-term and long-term goals efficiently, hierarchies are spot on.

However, if hierarchies are created for some power play and to show the subordinates ‘who the boss is’, then innovation, morale and productivity go downhill.

Power trips can massively slow down the company’s progress and even cause the most brilliant employees to quit. It’s usually the brilliant ones who are subjected to such behaviour, unfortunately.

The tall poppy stands out and looks beautiful, but it’s also the one that’s the most visible and vulnerable to attacks. Eventually, it gets cut — that’s the fate of most tall poppies.

It doesn’t have to be this way

Although it’s in our nature to form hierarchies, we don’t necessarily need to. We’re not lobsters, we’re humans. We have a well-developed pre-frontal cortex in our brains which enables us to make logical decisions instead of following our stone-age, primal instincts.

The only purpose of a hierarchy in an organisation should be coordination — not domination.

Well, there’s always a grey area. For example, you need some domination in the armed forces, but you definitely don’t need a visible hierarchy in an accounting agency or a SaaS company or a….well, you know…all those types of businesses.