Groups & Teams

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17brooks.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

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"You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit." (Harry S. Truman)

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My family told me as I was growing up that we came to America before the American Revolution. We lived on Long Island (NY) which is where I grew up - the north shore of Long Island is considered the "gold coast" to the locals because it's on the sound and commutable to NYC. For those of you familiar with the "turf," I was born in Huntington and grew up in an adjoining suburb Northport, both towns with stunningly beautiful harbors on the sound.

Interestingly, the story of how we survived the American Revolution was a highly pragmatic one: we rendered unto Caesar what was Caesar's and unto God what was God's (an old saying that I like). My family showed me a punch bowl that General Burgoyne gave us for our cooperation with his British forces and at the same time showed me a framed scroll (which is up on the wall in my home) certifying that we are "Sons of the American Revolution." So, we were pragmatic - we did what we had to to survive.

My family later told me that we had a direct lineage that had been traced all the way back to AD 1086 in Sweden (where our name was spelled slightly differently) then moving to England in 1136. For 5 consecutive generations at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century our family had but one child that was a male that carried on our name.

I have often wondered what is it that can cause a lineage like that to survive. Is it really survival of the fittest in the best physical and mental sense?

And, under the heading of "you're never too old to learn something," David Brooks wrote on this subject ("Nice Guys Finish First", 5/16, NY Times) - hopefully linked to this post - yesterday.

In Brooks' review of the recent literature on the subject, there appears to be a more "nuanced" view of how we've survived that deals with sympathy, empathy, cooperation and collaboration. His perspective on a book I want to read, "SuperCooperators" (Nowak and Highfield), highlights the position that "cooperation and competition are forever entwined in a tight embrace." So, "In pursuing our self-interested goals, we often have an incentive to repay kindness with kindness so others will do us favors when we are in need ... We have an incentive to work in teams, even against our short-term self-interest because cohesive groups survive ... Cooperation is as central to evolution as mutation and selection."

So, when my family "cooperated" with both sides during the American Revolution (secretly, they were pro-revolution), that was simple pragmatic survival. Growing up, I thought that was "two-faced." The older I get, the more pragmatic I think they were.

We study organizational behavior at the college level and try to emphasize what makes effective groups and teams. We talk about the ideal numbers of people (5 or 6 in the average situation) and the ideal "mix" (cosmopolitans and locals on an international team). Brooks refers to new data that will come out in a book to be published early next year that emphasizes two survivals of the fittest: "... natural selection takes place not only when individuals compete with other individuals, but also when groups compete with other groups. Both competitions are examples of survival of the fittest, but when groups compete, it's the cohesive, cooperative internally altruistic groups that win and pass on their genes." This is "group selection."

If, as Brooks points out in his brilliant conclusion, cooperation permeates our nature, then so does morality, and there is no escaping ethics, emotion and religion in our "quest" (his word) to understand who we are and how we got this way.

Going back 1,000 years with one family, I find pragmatic "cooperation" a more realistic ticket to survival than superior genes. I know that my grandfather was a rancher in New Mexico and that his father was a ship's captain who was lost at sea going around Cape Horn. Beyond that, I don't know. I would be fascinated to know what brought us here before the American Revolution ...