Hidden by the tall reeds and rushes, the young woman waded along the banks of the Euphrates as it passed by the city of Kish, some 4300 years ago. She carried her baby son in a basket woven from these very same reeds.

As the lowest of servants in a house of priests, she knew enough to hide him from curious eyes.

Found among thousands of cuneiform clay tablets from the ruins of ancient Nineveh, here is the chronicle of these events—in Sargon’s own voice:

My mother was a changeling, my father I knew not,
The brother of my father loved the hills,
My home was in the highlands, where the herbs grow.
My mother conceived me in secret, she gave birth to me in concealment.
She set me in a basket of rushes, she sealed the lid with tar.
She cast me into the river, but it did not rise over me,
The water carried me to Akki, the drawer of water,
He lifted me out as he dipped his jar into the river,
He took me as his son, he raised me,
He made me his gardener.

This is the birth story of Sargon of Akkad, preserved in the ancient Library of Ashurbanipal. He would go on to unify the Sumerian city-states under a single authority, establish one of the world’s first empires, and create enduring models of centralized administration, military organization, and cross-regional governance that shaped Mesopotamian civilization for generations.

Sargon shows how education—in the broadest sense—serves as the final Working Origins marker.

He rose from gardener to court official, to the king’s cupbearer, and ultimately to ruler of Akkad and Sumer. Along the way, he would have been trained—formally or not—in the core systems of surplus that sustained early civilization:

Agricultural practices: irrigation (canals, water control), crop cycles and yields (especially barley), labor coordination for planting and harvest, and estate provisioning for households and temples.

Cultural customs and language: familiarity with cuneiform (even if not a full scribe), fluency in Sumerian (the administrative and prestige language), and Akkadian (the Semitic dialects spoken by the broader population).

Governance and trade: ration systems (grain, beer, oil), standardized weights and measures, tracking of obligations and deliveries, and long-distance trade networks extending to Anatolia and the Indus Valley—moving grain, textiles, metals, and stone.

Military organization: command hierarchy, supply and logistics coordination, infantry organization, weapons and formations, and siege tactics against walled cities.

What Sargon came to understand—first as a laborer, then as an administrator, and finally as a ruler—was not power itself, but the systems that made power possible.

Those systems were new in human history, and they rested on a foundation that would define civilization itself: the ability to create, store, and distribute surplus at scale.

Deep Origins

Systems of surplus are the bedrock of civilization. They allow for the storage of harvested grains, meats, fruits, and durable goods. That stored surplus, in turn, supports standing armies, priests, administrators, craftsmen and trade guilds, laborers, and ruling classes.

Each Working Origins marker aligns with a system of surplus—Oldowan tools, expanding trade networks, Acheulean craftsmanship, shared belief systems, seasonal planning, and early village farming. At every stage, cultural training—education—was required.

Around 5,500 years ago, civilizations began to standardize writing and formalize instruction. Writing accelerated how systems of surplus could spread across regions and persist across generations.

Today, our systems of surplus are changing rapidly, accelerating their impact on our cultures and daily lives. Few of us expect to live as our parents did.

Business and cultural innovations reshape how we live—and concentrate capital at unprecedented scale. For example, as of 2026 Elon Musk’s net worth of roughly $250–300 billion is on par with the annual GDP of whole countries such as Finland, Portugal, New Zealand, and Qatar.

We keep pace with rapid cultural changes through education and writing systems—both formal and informal. These cultural changes reshape how we connect, entertain, shop, learn, travel, eat, live, and work.

Biological Foundations

Our biological adaptations continue to keep pace with cultural changes over the last six thousand years.

Disease resistance: Humans develop resistance to new diseases, many of which emerged through proximity to domesticated animals and commensal species such as mice, flies, and rats.

Self-domestication: Particularly in long-urbanized cultures, humans exhibit traits associated with domestication—often described as neoteny, or the retention of youthful characteristics. These include changes in facial structure, reduced aggression, extended developmental periods, and increased sociability.

Food sources: Our genes and gut biota adapt to new diets, as seen in traits such as lactose tolerance.

Gene editing: We are now intentionally modifying biology. Technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9—derived from bacteria like Streptococcus pyogenes—allow precise editing of genetic material.

Other selection pressures: The idea of human equality often extends to the assumption that we are genetically identical. In reality, there are measurable differences in polygenic traits across populations and generations. This is a complex and sensitive topic, but it is recognized in areas such as public health.

While definitive evidence is limited, researchers observe that complex, urban societies likely favor traits such as abstract thinking, planning, rule-following, delayed gratification, and higher cognitive performance.

Core Behaviors

As civilizations formed, our core cultural behaviors adapted to complex systems that extended beyond immediate relationships and outcomes.

Learning systems. Learning became increasingly mediated through systems—written records, formal roles, and shared procedures. Skills were transferred across distance and time, and enabled people to participate in systems they did not fully witness end to end.

Specialized roles. Individuals were required to perform to specific tasks—farmer, scribe, laborer, soldier, administrator—each with defined responsibilities. Success depended on reliably executing within those roles. This required discipline, consistency, and an understanding of how one’s work contributed to a larger system.

Trusting abstract systems. Civilization introduced a new kind of trust: not just trust in people, but trust in systems—measures, records, transactions, and institutions. Grain recorded on a tablet, a delivery promised across distance, or a command issued through a hierarchy. This shift enabled coordination at scale, but required a willingness to rely on systemic trust.

Law of the harvest (delayed gratification). Participation in surplus systems required individuals to accept delayed returns—planting for future harvest, storing rather than consuming, contributing labor in exchange for future security. This extended time horizon supported planning, stability, and growth, but required behavioral restraint and alignment with collective goals.

These behaviors are part of complex systems that underlay all civilizations today. They shape how we learn, work, and adapt within modern organizations and cultural communities.

Foundation Layers

Successful education (or training) is best ensured when we are mindful of our foundations.

E — Emotions, States, and Drives: Absolutely be motivated by your own needs and wants—for yourself or family. Recognize authentic motivations—jealousy, ambition, desire, or even the need for a simpler life. It is all fair at this personal and emotional level. Most emotions, states, and drives are easily mediated within a good workplace, which gives more meaning to the ideas of delayed gratification and the law of the harvest.
S — Social Learning: A great life lesson is expressed by the phrase, “To go fast, go alone. To go far, go with others.” All our best human adaptations start as a team, even when the adaptation is personal. If you are retraining, look to a class or group. If you are learning a new sport, join a team or club. If you are in a formal school, be part of a study group. That is how humans are built.
T — Trust & Trade: Work and understand the workplace environment. Build trust relationships with customers, suppliers, partners, and competitors. These expand access to your own knowledge and opportunity.
I — Instruction: Seek good training instruction from accredited sources that best aligns with the workplace culture. Seek and follow good advice from that workplace culture.
M — Myth & Mediation: Be deliberate in what you choose to believe. Belief is a very powerful human expression, especially when aligned with others. Balance narratives with evidence and practical needs.
A — Agile Cultures: Express your innate human agility, even for small incremental changes. Human agility is best expressed by those groups that accept new ideas, then envision, plan, and act to change.
T — Till & Tend: Domestication is a powerful pattern for integrating any new resource into the way you work, and exemplifies the law of the harvest. Invest first, reap rewards later.
E — Education: In our rapidly changing world, personal and group agility begins here.

Today’s Workplace

My own experience is that anybody can find a good job today, if they are willing to put in the time and energy. Here I have identified eight industry segments that have recently changed the way we live. Each of these also offer new employment opportunities.

Industry Segment: Platform-Based Local Services
The change: smartphones enabled real-time coordination of local labor.
Roles: ride services, food delivery, home task services.
Why it matters: low training barrier to entry, flexible participation, immediate integration into a system.

Industry Segment: In-Home and Community-Based Care
The change: aging populations + preference to remain at home.
Roles: home health aides, personal care assistants, companionship services.
Why it matters: short certification paths, high demand, stable work, strong human connection component.

Industry Segment: E-Commerce Fulfillment & Logistics
The change: online retail reshaped how goods move.
Roles: Warehouse operations, picking/packing, last-mile delivery.
Why it matters: scalable employment, structured systems (easy to train into), widespread geographic availability.

Industry Segment: Digital Customer Support & Remote Operations
The change: cloud systems + remote work infrastructure.
Roles: customer support (chat/voice), on-boarding specialists, remote operations monitoring.
Why it matters: The required training may be extensive but well structured and available online, the job is accessible from home, great growth across industries, good upside for salary and leadership growth.

Industry Segment: Skilled Trades with Modern Systems Integration
The change: electrification, IOT connectivity, energy systems, smart infrastructure.
Roles: electricians (EV, solar), HVAC technicians, plumbing with modern diagnostics.
Why it matters: strong demand, training via apprenticeships or short programs, combines physical work with system knowledge.

Industry Segment: Food Service Specialization & Cultural Dining
The change: consumer interest in authenticity and specificity.
Roles: regional cuisines (Oaxacan, Tamil, Sichuan), specialty food production, food trucks and small formats.
Why it matters: skill-based entry, ethnic-cultural knowledge valued, wide range of roles.

Industry Segment: Experience-Based Travel & Local Guiding
The change: shift from passive tourism → participatory experiences.
Roles: local guides, experience hosts, activity coordinators.
Why it matters: leverages local knowledge, often part-time or second career, low formal barriers.

Industry Segment: Adult Education, Training, and Certification Delivery
The change: continuous learning became necessary, not optional.
Roles: trainers, certification instructors, curriculum delivery.
Why it matters: meta-layer of all other changes, often filled by experienced workers transitioning roles.

Takeaways

These three takeaways are heartfelt messages to family and friends around the world.

1. In a civilized world, education is how we adapt to rapid cultural change.
   From the first cities to today’s global economy, our own progress depends on how we work with new systems of surplus—new tools, new roles, new expectations. The pace has accelerated, but the mechanism is the same. Those who learn fastest are best positioned to participate and contribute.

2. Education is increasingly accessible and informal.
   Historically, education was expensive and institutional—schools, apprenticeships, formal roles. In many cases it was restricted to just a few. Today access has greatly widened. Training, self-directed learning, and real-time instruction are available to anyone motivated to engage. In many cases, the self-directed paths move faster than formal education. The constraint is no longer access—it is initiative.

3. Use the Working Origins model to manage the risk of change.
   Change always carries risk and uncertainty. The Working Origins model connects you to our human past and to others. You are not alone, and we solve problems together. See the above Foundations Layers.

Education is now key to both personal and business growth in a changing world, and reflects a simple truth at the core of Working Origins:

Working together well is the most human thing we ever do.

For more information on this post, see the Working Origins Library and these recommendations…

The 10,000 Year Explosion (2009) by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending — explores how human biological adaptations continue alongside the rise of agriculture and civilization.

A History of the Ancient World (2007) by Susan Wise Bauer — a broad and accessible narrative of early civilizations, complemented by her lecture-style podcast series on the ancient world.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean (2015) by Barry Cunliffe — examines how geography and movement shaped early human networks and cultural exchange.

Code Breaker (2021) by Walter Isaacson — recounts how Jennifer Doudna and others discovered accurate gene-editing processes and then built machines to do so at scale.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2005) by Charles C. Mann — reframes pre-Columbian societies as complex, populous, and highly organized.

Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World (2006) by Philip Matyszak — highlights lesser-known civilizations and cultures that contributed to the ancient world’s diversity.

Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) by Jared Diamond — investigates how environmental and geographic factors shaped the development of civilizations.

The Story of Human Language (2013) by John McWhorter — an engaging overview of how language evolves and supports cultural transmission.

Each marker represents a set of biological and cultural adaptations that improved how we work together. Today, the biological adaptations remain encoded within us. However, not all teams develop the cultural conditions needed to unlock and express good workplace behaviors.

That is the leadership challenge addressed here in Working Origins.

The ESTIMATE acronym serves as a memory device to recall the eight marker labels.

Emotions, States & Drives

Our pre-human ancestors possessed the emotions, states, and drives that were well fit to the savannah of East Africa, and are the foundation of who we are today.

Australopithecus afarensis is the hominid commonly associated with this period of roughly 3.5 million years ago. A afarensis showed significant intelligence and social group behaviors.

Social Learning

Most experts describe Homo habilis as our first human ancestor, with clear evidence of populations in the East African savannah from 3 to 1.5 million years ago.

Ancestors such as H. habilis established an enduring Oldowan stone-tool culture that could spread from one group to another and from one generation to the next. Associated behaviors include tool craft and use, social learning, and group bonding through care and shame.

Trust & Trade

Homo erectus populations spread widely across Africa, Asia, and Europe from about 1.5 million to 750 thousand years ago.

During this time, human ancestors began transporting and exchanging goods. Associated behaviors included self-identity, empathy, and theory of mind.

Instruct with Language

From 850 to 350 thousand years ago, several populations of interrelated ancestors lived across Africa, Europe, and Asia. Here they are described simply as archaic Homo sapiens.

This period saw the rise of several important behaviors, including the use of iconic language, longer childhood development, improved deliberation and executive control, innovation in toolmaking, and the emergence of shared identity across groups and communities.

Myth & Mediation

A number of human populations existed across Africa and Eurasia from 450 to 100 thousand years ago. In this timeline, they are described as early Homo sapiens.

This period is marked by the controlled use of fire, the emergence of storytelling and myth, and the beginnings of belief systems.

Agile Cultures

From 90,000 to 12,000 years ago, our ancestors spread from Africa to nearly all parts of the world. This marker describes them as diasporic Homo sapiens.

Behavioral expressions during this time included specialized tools and group roles, exploration and creativity, planning and improved episodic memory, and the sharing of abstract ideas across groups—including concepts of future places and times.

Tilling & Tending

From roughly 15,000 to 2,500 years ago, neolithic Homo sapiens domesticated most of the plants and animals that would become the foundation of civilization.

Major changes in lifestyle and behavior included new technologies, village-based (sedentary) living, new diseases, specialized crafts, and expanded trading systems.

Education

Beginning around 5,500 years ago, the first civilizations of modern Homo sapiens emerged in Mesopotamia, the Nile River Valley, the Indus Valley, along the Yellow River, in Mesoamerica, and in the Andean region.

Writing was a common feature across these civilizations—if we broaden the definition to include all durable information systems. These included knotted cords, symbols, bone scripts, glyphs, and icons.

Some level of formalized education became necessary to participate in civilized society—enabling individuals to understand crafts, systems of exchange, labor roles, laws, and religious practices.

“We should draw lots to see who should be killed and eaten first,” whispered the boatswain to the other officers of the Invercauld. The 888-ton sailing vessel now lay dashed to pieces along the cliffs of the northwest Auckland Islands, a miserably cold place in the sub-Antarctic ocean, later described as the “Jaws of Hell.”

It was May of 1864, four days since the wreck. Almost all of the eighteen survivors of the 25-man crew had passed those first days in stunned inactivity, clinging to rock ledges and narrow outcroppings above the surf. Captain George Dalgarno and his officers had brought nothing from the wreck—not even proper boots—leaving the men exposed to cold, hunger, and the pounding sea.

Seaman Robert Holding had not spent those days waiting. The son of an English gamekeeper, and seasoned by years prospecting alone in the Australian outback, he began at once to assess the land for survival. On the first day, he found a way up the cliffs to the grassy heights above, where gentler slopes led down toward inlets that might offer shellfish, fresh water, and shelter.

He climbed back down the cliffs and urged the others to follow. With loud complaints, they did—up to the heights and then down the grassy slopes to a sandy beach. He gathered shellfish, built a fire, and even killed and roasted a young seal, which the officers and crew eagerly devoured.

But as the days passed, he watched the officers withdraw again—silent, inactive, issuing only occasional commands for firewood or water.

It was then, while serving them, that Holding overheard the discussion of drawing lots.

That was enough. Holding now knew he could not depend on the officers for his survival.

At nearly the same time, and by an extraordinary coincidence, another wreck had stranded five men on the southern end of the same island.

On January 3, 1864, the schooner Grafton was driven ashore by a violent storm. Among the crew was François Raynal, the first officer, already weakened by illness when the ship struck. He was thrown ashore with four others onto the same cold, sub-Antarctic island—more than 200 miles south of New Zealand.

Raynal later wrote that he expected to die. But what followed was something very different.

Under the steady leadership of Captain Thomas Musgrave—and with Raynal as his closest partner—the five men organized themselves for survival. They established shelter, hunted and rationed food, and learned through trial how to prevent scurvy using local plants.

They assigned roles and rotated responsibilities to meet the needs of the group.

They also taught one another. In the evenings, they held lessons in mathematics, language, and reading. The crew—French, Swedish, English, and Portuguese—became, in effect, a small society.

Raynal, nursed back to health by the others, became indispensable. Using salvaged materials, he helped design and build a forge, with working bellows made from seal skins. From that forge, he produced the tools—nails, augers, fittings—that made a remarkable rescue possible.

After eighteen months, with no rescue in sight, the five men built a 17-foot decked boat from the wreckage of the Grafton. They then sailed it across 200 nautical miles of open ocean to New Zealand.

They had built and executed their own means of rescue.

In stark contrast, Captain George Dalgarno and the officers of the Invercauld maintained a rigid separation between themselves and the crew. As later described by Holding, there was no effort to plan, assess, or organize the group toward survival.

Returning from one scouting trip, Holding saw officer Mahoney directing the two cabin boys, Liddle and Lansfield, to repeatedly fetch water and dig for roots. Mahoney never left his place by the fire. He ate and drank without sharing.

When Holding returned again, the scene had changed. Mahoney was now wearing the boys’ clothing over his own. The two cabin boys lay dead.

Mahoney ordered Holding to fetch him more roots. Holding refused. Mahoney then opened his jackknife and threatened him. Bending down, Holding picked up a stone and answered, “I’m too old a hand to be cowed by an Irish New York bully.” Mahoney paused, then lay back on his stretcher by the fire.

Meanwhile, Holding continued to range outward in search of seals, birds, eggs, and shellfish. Over the course of several months, he urged the others to move as each food source was exhausted around their camp. During one of these moves, as he coaxed the remaining group toward a new location with fresh supplies, officer Mahoney refused to go. His lifeless body was later found beside the cold remains of the fire.

At night, Holding slept apart from the officers, but returned to guide them when he could.

On May 22, 1865, the Spanish ship Julian rescued just three survivors of the Invercauld: Robert Holding, Captain George Dalgarno, and first officer Andrew Smith. Twenty-two others had died over the twelve months spent on Auckland Island.

These two groups of men had been stranded on the same island, during the same year of 1864. Neither group knew of the other until long after their rescue.

Five men, working together, built structure, sound plans, and a deep care for one another. All five survived by engineering their own escape.

Twenty-five men, divided by hierarchy and neglect, failed to organize as a group. Only three survived—and largely by chance.

Each of us carries the same human biology as these men.

So how do we end up behaving in such different ways?

And what does that mean for the teams we depend on today—especially the workplace teams that provide our livelihood?

The answers come from the start of our human story—nearly 3 million years ago.

Deep Origins

Between roughly 3 and 1.5 million years ago, our earliest human ancestors—such as Homo habilis—survived using Oldowan stone tools in East Africa. To our best understanding, these simple choppers and flakes were used to quickly scavenge meat from large prey animals such as gazelle or wildebeest. H. habilis was slight of build, standing about four feet tall, and no match for the lions and hyenas that brought these animals down. With Oldowan tools, they could dash out to an abandoned kill and quickly hack off chunks of meat, cut sinew, and break bones. Strong, gripping hands then carried this food back to trees or sheltered areas—safely away from returning predators.

These tools became so central to survival that, over roughly 1.5 million years, H. habilis developed what we can describe as an Oldowan culture—marked by social learning, care for one another, shame, and non-verbal communication.

Without any formal language, young or newly accepted group members learned by observing and mimicking more experienced adults. Over time, they acquired the skills to locate raw materials and to make, carry, and use stone tools. This form of social learning allowed Oldowan practices to persist across generations and to spread between groups.

Group cohesion was reinforced through acts of care—nurturing the wounded, protecting the vulnerable, and sharing food. These were not optional behaviors; they were essential to group survival.

Shame emerged as a fast, adaptive mechanism to keep individuals aligned with the group under constant pressure. It is the internal social signal that arises when an individual senses they are out of step with group expectations—and at risk of rejection or loss of standing.

Non-verbal social signals, inherited from earlier primate ancestors, were refined and reinforced during this time—and remain with us today. Open hands and arms signaled a non-threatening approach. The open-mouth grin and vocalizations evolved into our smiles and laughter. Averted gaze and lowered posture signaled submission and helped prevent conflict.

These tightly bonded groups became highly resilient over countless generations, capable of enduring the persistent challenges of territorial conflict, drought, famine, and disease.

Early researchers such as Louis, Mary, and Jonathan Leakey identified Homo habilis and the Oldowan tool tradition. Later researchers, including John Napier and Phillip Tobias, described the hand and cranial features associated with tool use, while more recent work—such as that of Robin Dunbar—has helped frame the relationship between brain development, social behavior, and group size. Dunbar’s number, often cited at around 150 individuals, reflects a rough upper limit on the number of stable social relationships humans can maintain.

Biological Foundations

Through roughly 1.5 million years of Oldowan-era life, early humans underwent meaningful biological changes that shaped how they lived and survived together. These were not sudden transformations, but gradual shifts that improved group coordination, learning, and cohesion.

Brain size increased over this period, but more important than size alone was how the brain was reorganized. Regions associated with attention, social awareness, and decision-making—particularly within the frontal and parietal areas—became more developed. Connectivity within the brain also improved, allowing information to move more efficiently across regions.

These changes supported larger, more stable groups, reduced reactive aggression, and improved social learning and cultural transmission.

Early humans began to moderate their impulses. They increasingly observed, adjusted, and aligned with one another.

There is also evidence that specialized neurons, including von Economo neurons (VENs), became more prominent in regions such as the anterior cingulate and insula. These areas are associated with social awareness, error detection, and an internal sense of self in relation to others. While we should be cautious about projecting modern self-awareness too far back, these developments suggest an emerging capacity to recognize when one is out of step with the group—and to adjust accordingly.

These are the biological foundations of strongly bonded and successful groups.

Core Behaviors

Based on these biological foundations, three key behaviors define a well-bonded group.

The first is alignment to a successful survival strategy. All members of an H. habilis group were aligned around the use of Oldowan tools as essential to survival. The Grafton crew adapted to their new environment and aligned to a clear strategy—building a 17-foot vessel for escape. In sharp contrast, the Invercauld crew and officers were not aligned to any shared survival strategy. The officers maintained a separate and higher status, with no clear plan beyond outlasting the crew. This failed both the environmental challenges of the Auckland Islands and the most basic requirement of a well-bonded group.

The second behavior is social learning. Every member of a well-bonded group must invest in and reinforce the group’s culture. A young H. habilis would observe and mimic the patterns of more experienced adults. The Grafton crew, led by their officers, met each evening to plan, teach, and learn.

The Invercauld officers, by contrast, refused to adapt, align with, or even value the seasoned experience of Robert Holding. After his rescue, Captain Dalgarno pressured Holding to remain silent about what had occurred on the island. His official report offered only a brief and generalized account of “overcoming great challenges,” making no mention of Holding or his life-saving actions.

The third characteristic of well-bonded groups is strong cohesion, reinforced through genuine care and shame. This goes beyond obligation. Group members willingly share food, care for one another, and moderate their own needs in service of the group. They feel a deep sense of shame when they violate group expectations—or even when they sense that others may see them as doing so.

Captain Thomas Musgrave showed this kind of care even after his own rescue. The limitations of the 17-foot vessel prevented all five men from leaving the island at once; two had to remain behind. After reaching New Zealand, Musgrave devoted all of his effort to organizing a return rescue. His health was failing, and he had no financial resources of his own. He went door to door, seeking support from homes and businesses. His persistence paid off. Five weeks later, he returned to the Auckland Islands and rescued the remaining two members of his crew.

Foundation Layers

Looking across the Working Origins timeline, the second marker, “Social Learning and Shame,” reflects a moderation of the behaviors associated with the first marker, “Emotions, States, and Drives.”

The next marker in the Working Origins timeline, “Trust and Trade,” describes further adaptations—as confederated trade networks emerged from well-bonded groups. Each following marker represents cultural and biological adaptations that, at their core, remain firmly rooted on well-bonded groups.

In the Modern Workplace

Two references from modern times offer insight into well-bonded groups.

Jeff Bezos popularized the phrase “two-pizza teams,” referring to small, manageable teams at Amazon that can get meaningful work done quickly. These teams are intentionally kept small—well within the limits of what individuals can comfortably manage and relate to—and are aligned around a clear objective or strategy. Shared meals, daily planning, and learning together naturally reinforce the biological foundations of well-bonded teams. Expressions of care, feelings of shame, and personal commitment emerge as natural outcomes.

The OpenAI board crisis of November 2023 offers a counterexample. Poised for explosive growth, the executive team and board became misaligned. While full details were never publicly disclosed, there were clear tensions between governance and execution, a breakdown in trust, and ambiguity around mission and direction.

Takeaways

Each of us in today’s workplace hopes to be part of a well-bonded and highly successful team.

We can apply a few clear guidelines.

Success strategy. A clear picture of team success should be visible to everyone. It is surprising how often team members cannot describe what success looks like—let alone how it connects to the broader business strategy. Each person should feel a sense of ownership in that outcome.

Social learning. Strong teams share a culture of high expectations and performance. Written policies may exist, but visible patterns matter most. Patterns of work, training, planning, communication, and response should all align to the success strategy. These visible patterns are what build culture.

Shame and care. When a team is unified around a shared strategy and culture, a natural response emerges. People feel a sense of shame when they fall short of expectations, and show a genuine care for others at needful times.

Non-verbal signals. The influence of non-verbal signals can be difficult to measure, but it is always present. Today, many teams are physically distributed, working through video, audio, and shared systems. Even so, non-verbal signals remain essential—just as they have for millions of years. Eye contact, gestures, a smile or laugh, a pause, a handshake, shared time, shared space. The strongest teams make deliberate use of these signals, even when separated by distance.

Good teams are the bedrock on which strong business networks are built. Well-bonded teams reflect a simple truth at the core of Working Origins:

Working together well is the most human thing we ever do.

For more information on this post, see the Working Origins Library and these recommendations…
Island of the Lost by Joan Druett — for the Auckland Island castaways and the role of group cohesion in survival.
Stone Tools and the Evolution of Human Cognition by April Nowell and Iain Davidson — for the relationship between tool use and biological adaptation.
On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson — for the co-evolution of culture and biology.
The Making of Mankind by Richard Leakey — for a grounded account of early Homo, including Homo habilis.
How Many Friends Does One Person Need? by Robin Dunbar — for insight into the social limits and structures that shape human groups.

I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering some years ago. My studies covered historical figures like James Watt, who helped to reshape the modern world. His story is a good introduction to this post on Agile Cultures.

Watt was slight, frequently ill, socially awkward, and prone to depression. In 1772 he inherited the debt of his partner John Roebuck after their steam engine venture collapsed. Years earlier, while repairing a model engine at the University of Glasgow, Watt had recognized a major inefficiency in the Newcomen engine design and developed the separate condenser to solve it. Watt’s great insight was the basis for his venture with Roebuck.

But as many of us painfully learn, good insight is not the same as business success. Watt’s engines were expensive and hard to build. Manufacturing lacked consistency, and investors hesitated.

Matthew Boulton saw something different. He was an accomplished manufacturer at the Soho Manufactory in Birmingham, and Boulton understood organization and scale. He met Watt at a meeting of the Lunar Society, an informal club of scientists, industrialists, and thinkers. Recognizing what the engine could become, he acquired Roebuck’s share of Watt’s patent. Where Watt saw a better machine, Boulton saw a newly powered world.

Under Boulton’s leadership, production stabilized, installations expanded, and financing improved. Steam power shifted to an industrial foundation. Mines drained faster, mills ran more reliably, and power was no longer tied exclusively to rivers or muscle. Within a generation, the improved steam engine spread across Britain and beyond, helping to drive the Industrial Revolution.

Watt’s name remains with us each time we purchase a light bulb measured in watts, a quiet reminder of his work.

Steam engines existed before Watt. Mechanical knowledge was not new. What changed was vision—the ability to imagine a transformed future and reorganize people and effort around it.

But that ability to envision future possibilities did not begin in Birmingham. It began long ago, and is part of a different story.

Deep Origins

Between roughly 90,000 and 12,000 years ago, Homo sapiens expanded from East Africa across the Middle East, into Eurasia, Australia, and eventually the Americas. This movement unfolded across glacial cycles, shifting coastlines, and many ecosystems. Groups encountered new animals and plants, extreme climates, deserts, tundras, jungles, and other hominin populations.

Homo sapiens became more diverse. We encountered and interbred with human cousins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. We acquired new genes, and very likely acquired new cultural tools and languages from these cousin groups.

These other people - like Neanderthals and Denisovans - already possessed fire, tools, language, trade networks, with some evidence of early belief systems. These ingredients of culture were widely present. Yet it was Homo sapiens that emerged out of East Africa, displaced these other people everywhere, and migrated throughout the world.

As of 2026, landmark ancient DNA studies from David Reich and many others have revealed that human migration and genetic admixtures have been continuous, at least from 75,000 years ago.

We see clear evidence of cultural admixture as well. Hunters became fishers along coasts. Stone toolmakers adapted to bone and antler. Artisans used new pigments, ornaments, totems, and visibly expressed beliefs. Clothing was tailored for cold or hot climates. Nets, needles, lamps, and storage pits appeared. Notched bones and symbolic markings preserved memory across seasons.

There is evidence of longer-term planning—anticipating and preparing for winter, spring floods, and animal migrations. Humans adapted to new foods and preparations. They buried their dead with grave goods to prepare for the unseen afterlife.

They imagined opportunities beyond the horizon.

Biological Foundations

Why did the out-of-Africa migrations succeed? Why did homo sapiens displace all other human groups? I do not believe there is any one reason or skill, such as the use of a particular weapon, or language, or fire. I believe there is evidence of a tipping point, or accumulation of adaptations. I believe these adaptations gave us cultural agility.

Our brain systems became more developed and more coordinated to support clear episodic memory, emotional integration, and improved social cognition.

Humans demonstrated stronger recall of past experience and greater ability to project possible futures. Symbolic thought expanded. Childhood lengthened, allowing extended learning and social development. Interestingly, overall brain size declined slightly after about 35,000 years ago while neural efficiency improved. Integration mattered more than sheer volume.

Biology alone did not cause expansion, but it supported flexibility, foresight, and coordination at the level of communities.

Core Behaviors of Agile Cultures

Four behaviors are evidenced by diasporic Homo sapiens during this period of expansion from 90,000 to 12,000 years ago.

First, the roles within a group became more specialized but not fixed. Responsibility changed as conditions changed.

Second, curiosity and abstract thinking drove exploration, and improved episodic memory preserved the lessons of success and failure.

Third, planning now extended well beyond our immediate need, and now represented much longer seasonal cycles, periodic animal migrations, and advance preparation of tools and materials.

Fourth, shared ideas and visions unified group effort. Our human ancestors gathered in the firelight each evening and used language, arts, and symbols to tell stories of the past and envision a better future.

The Foundation Layers

Agile cultures did not arise in isolation. As described by the Working Origins timeline, they were built on earlier layers of emotions and drives, social learning, trust and trade, instruction and iconic language, myth and mediation. By 90,000 years ago, Homo sapiens already had these core foundations.

What emerged was a better integration of biological capacities. As mentioned, improved memory and foresight aligned with cultural practices of exploration, planning, and shared meaning. This allowed flexible and agile communities to cross ecological barriers, carrying human presence across the globe.

These same capacities later supported the domestication of plants and animals in the Neolithic period. Humans shifted from moving through landscapes to reshaping them. Over time, expanding coordination and symbolic systems laid the groundwork for settled societies and eventually civilizations. Agile cultures became the platform for everything that followed.

In the Modern Workplace

Seen in this light, Watt and Boulton were expressing ancient patterns of agile organizations. Watt explored, experimented, and refined solutions through careful planning. He understood his role. Boulton understood his own quite different role, and respected the distinction. He brought manufacturing discipline, financial structure, and networks, but most importantly he contributed a broader vision.

A baseline level of trust, language, and belief helped them share a common vision of success. This helped smooth over points of friction, guide the progress, and scale up to real growth.

Modern organizations often resemble Watt before Boulton. Skilled people, functioning systems, and genuine innovation are present. Curiosity exists. Planning occurs. Experience accumulates. What may be missing is alignment around a credible future.

Agile cultures emerge when exploration, role clarity, and planning are coordinated by a shared vision of a better way.

Takeaways

I feel a personal connection to those who read Working Origins. Some of you are preparing for a career, some are well into one, and some are struggling to find direction. Many people feel that these are uniquely turbulent times. Political division, ecological change, fake news, economic uncertainty, artificial intelligence, gene editing, remote work, and social media can make the future seem uncertain.

My advice is simple. We are built to handle change.

From 90,000 years ago, humans used cultural agility to migrate throughout our world. Today’s disruptions are not very different from those we have overcome.

As leaders, we should cultivate the four core behaviors of an agile culture within our business teams.

First, value the strength of diverse contributions by team members. These may be represented by ethnicity, culture, gender, educational background, or technical skill set. Good research shows that such diversity becomes fertile ground for new business directions and growth.

Second, recognize the power of a compelling vision. Some contributors have a unique ability to envision a better way, which rise to the level of belief. Share the vision within the group and harmonize with their feedback. Many such visions simply won’t be a good fit for the group.

Third, plan for new tools - including processes, roles, materials, or training. New business often means a new business tool culture.

Fourth, team members must act in new roles, as needed. This can represent difficult change management, and is a leadership challenge.

These group behaviors were well expressed by the agile cultures of our human ancestors migrating throughout the world. These adaptations remain with us today.

Agility is not new to us. It is one of our oldest strengths.

Please take comfort - hopefully - in the Working Origins motto: Working together well is the most human thing we ever do.

For more information on this post, see the Working Origins Library and these recommendations…
The Evolution of Paleolithic Technologies by Steven L. Kuhn (2021) — for how shifting tools and techniques reflect adaptable human behavior across changing environments.
Neanderthal Man by Svante Pääbo (2014) — for insight into our interaction with Neanderthals and what genetics reveals about shared histories.
Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich (2018) — for a clear account of human migrations and population mixing revealed through ancient DNA.
Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas by Jennifer Raff (2022) — for the peopling of the Americas and the long arc of migration into new worlds.

This post has great meaning for me. In the 1990s I was was an engineer at Honeywell working on control systems for jet engines. I remember participating in team-based training that quite literally opened my young mind to the challenges and benefits of good teamwork.

We’ll open with a story from Japan in the 1950s. Taiichi Ohno was a mid-level engineer inside a struggling Toyota company. Post-war Japan was economically shattered. Toyota had endured a devastating labor strike, its president had resigned, and production lagged far behind the USA automakers in Detroit.

Ohno visited American factories at the time, and noticed that stopping the assembly line was unthinkable. It required executive authority. It threatened careers and signaled failure. American business was structured so that responsibility for work flowed downward, while authority flowed upward.

Ohno inverted that structure.

He proposed that any frontline worker — even the newest hire — could halt production. All it required was something he called the Andon cord. Pull it, and the line stopped. Machines froze. Supervisors rushed. Problems surfaced.

This Andon cord did not build a car or fix a defect. By itself, it produced nothing. Its power was latent. It worked only if workers were trained, if managers responded without punishment, and if everyone shared the same definition of quality.

The cord redistributed authority for quality. It was no longer inspected for, at the end of the process, because it was owned at the source. That risky, countercultural shift became the foundation of a production system that would spread across Japan, then across the United States, and eventually across the world.

Taiichi Ohno did not defeat Detroit with volume. He out-coordinated it.

But the idea behind the Andon cord did not begin in 1950.

It began roughly 750,000 years ago.

Deep Origins

From roughly 800,000 to 300,000 years ago, ancestral humans expanded across Africa, Europe, and Asia. Multiple hominin groups coexisted and interbred. Morphology shifted. Tool complexity increased.

This period did not produce modern language overnight. There was no bright line that signaled BOOM - we had language.

Specific vocalizations, likely associated with crafts and tools, began to represent actions, objects, and shared meanings. Over many generations, these sounds became iconic words.

Instruction became more deliberate. Human childhood lengthened. Cultural transmission deepened.

The label “archaic Homo sapiens” is used here as a behavioral marker rather than a strict taxonomic boundary. Gene flow and cultural transmission crossed many ancestral populations.

Neural Foundations

Compared to earlier hominins such as Homo erectus, these ancestors show larger brain volume, more rounded cranial vaults, increased integration between frontal and parietal regions, and greater hemispheric specialization.

These adaptations are strongly associated with abstract thinking and culture-based instruction.

Our executive control improved. Our impulse moderation strengthened. We could delay reaction, listen, and coordinate deliberately.

The brain did not simply enlarge. It became more connected. That connectivity allowed symbols — sounds, gestures, tools — to reliably carry meaning across many individuals and groups.

Iconic language and abstract thinking led to a clear adaptive advantage. Tools became more complex and useful. Populations bonded with a shared identity.

These neural foundations remain part of us today. A symbol like the Andon cord carries meaning — but only if we have been trained to understand it.

Core Behaviors

Four behavioral shifts characterize this period, and remain key to transformative change at a group or workplace level.

1. Instruction. Longer childhood meant longer dependency and group investment. Symbols require training.

2. Deliberation. Improved executive control allowed individuals and groups to pause before acting. Instruction only works when people can hear, interpret, and respond intentionally.

3. Innovation. Toolmaking became more refined. Planning horizons extended. Mental representation expanded.

4. Shared Identity. Shared words created a shared identity across groups and communities. Cultural boundaries and alliances expanded.

Each of these behaviors was present in Taiichi Ohno’s leadership and throughout the Toyota manufacturing floor.

In the Modern Workplace

The Andon cord is an iconic device.

It works because workers are trained, language is shared, authority structures are clear, and identity aligns with quality. Under traditional manufacturing models, stopping the line was insubordination. At Toyota, it became responsibility. That shift required a shared symbolic understanding.

The same workforce that struggled under American auto management later became high-performing under Toyota’s system at NUMMI in California. The difference was not machinery or automation. It was instruction and identity.

Toyota’s vocabulary — kaizen, gemba, kanban, andon — spread globally. These were not slogans. They were cognitive tools that encoded behaviors and shaped perception. As the language traveled, so did the system. Factories across continents could reproduce the same coordination because they shared the same symbolic framework.

As the language traveled, so did the system and a shared symbolic framework. This was cultural transmission at scale.

Modern organizations function the same way. Training builds internal cultural depth. Shared language builds alignment. Narrative clarity shapes external perception. Products succeed not only because they function, but because they are understood. Instruction activates symbols, and symbols scale systems.

The Foundation Layer

Instruction and iconic language matured gradually across hundreds of thousands of years. There was no sudden breakthrough, no singular invention. But once instruction strengthened, cultural change accelerated. Knowledge moved across generations more reliably, skills could be transmitted without direct imitation, and innovation began to compound.

As described by the Working Origins timeline, this marker builds upon earlier layers in the ESTIMATE sequence: emotions and drives, social learning, and trust and trade. Without trust, instruction collapses; without instruction, trust remains local. The two reinforce one another.

The Andon cord embodies both layers. It is a signal — a shared understanding encoded in material form. By itself, it has no intrinsic value. Its power is unlocked only through training, identity, and collective agreement.

So it was with Acheulean tools used by Homo erectus. So it was with early vocal symbols.

Instruction transforms objects into systems.

Takeaways

The use of instruction and iconic language must be a priority for successful teams and organizations. Strong cultures strengthen and spread across groups and across generations.

Instruction and iconic language will bond our employee teams, customers, suppliers, and partners together with a common understanding and identity. Great brands like Apple, Nike, Mercedes-Benz, Google, and FedEx are built this way.

Training is not optional. Building cultural depth requires time and investment. Organizations that prioritize training and instruction consistently outperform those that rely solely on experience.

Modern tools may accelerate or diffuse cultural transmission. Digital platforms, remote collaboration, and AI systems magnify the reach of language, but without identity and clarity, their impact dissipates into noise.

The takeaway points are simple. Instruction and shared language allowed culture to accelerate. Organizations grow when they invest in training depth and narrative clarity.

In the next post, we’ll jump forward to agile cultures — the adaptations that powered the great out-of-Africa expansions.

Until then, remember the Working Origins motto:

Working together well is the most human thing we ever do.

For more information on this post, see the Working Origins Library and these recommendations:

The Language Puzzle (2024) by Steven Mithen, a careful and engaging account of how language emerged across deep human time
The Language Instinct (1997) by Steven Pinker, a foundational work on the biological basis of language
The Selfish Gene (1976) by Richard Dawkins, which frames how traits and behaviors persist across generations.

Additional perspectives help round out the modern view.
The Singing Neanderthals (2005), also by Steven Mithen, proposes a “musilanguage” stage preceding fully symbolic speech
From Hand to Mouth (2006) by Michael C. Corballis argues for gestural origins of language.
The Prehistory of the Mind (1996), also by Steven Mithen, remains influential in framing the emergence of cognitive fluidity.
The Symbolic Species (1997) by Terrence Deacon links brain evolution to symbolic capacity
Language Evolution (2010) by W. Tecumseh Fitch offers a comprehensive synthesis across disciplines.

The widely cited paper The Faculty of Language (2002) by Noam Chomsky, Marc Hauser, and Fitch distinguishes core language capacity from broader cognitive systems.

Finally, genetic work on FOXP2, associated with Svante Pääbo, provides important evidence linking both Neanderthals and modern humans to shared speech-related capabilities.

Workplace advice rarely begins with the brutal murder of innocent children.

Perhaps it should.

By the year 602 CE, the western Roman Empire had largely collapsed. But the eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium was thriving in Egypt and North Africa, Anatolia and the Levant, Greece & the Balkans.

In the winter of that year, the Emperor Maurice of Byzantium made a financial decision that would cost him everything. His army was exhausted after years of fighting Avars and Slavic tribes north of the Danube. Supplies were thin and the winter was brutal. Byzantine tradition dictated that the troops should return home to their families and farms.

But Maurice ordered them to stay. The treasury was depleted by the lengthy and ongoing wars to the north and with the Persians to the east. To cut costs, he halted supply shipments and delayed payments. He remained in Constantinople, far from the frozen camps.

A low-ranking officer named Phocas rallied the starving troops from their winter camps. His mutiny turned to revolution as they marched south to Constantinople. Maurice was completely unprepared, because his attention and remaining army were focused on Persian threats to the east. Maurice was easily captured and then paraded around to the jeers of onlookers. He was then forced to watch the execution of his five sons, one by one, before he himself was killed.

Maurice had been one of the greatest of emperors in the 1000-year history of Byzantium. He reformed military law. He stabilized borders. He wrote the Strategikon, a manual that would influence generals for many centuries.

But he violated something older than empire, laws, or tradition. He violated trust.

And that mistake did not begin in 602. It began more than one million years ago.

The Deep Origin of Trust

Between 1.5 million and 800,000 years ago, our ancestor Homo erectus began forming long-distance trade networks. Tools, pigments, and crafts moved across landscapes. Groups encountered one another not only in conflict, but in exchange.

Trade requires something dangerous: delayed reciprocity. You give now and trust they will give later. That shift changed everything.

Neural Foundations

To sustain exchange, new neural capacities emerged. The prefrontal cortex supported planning and self-regulation. Temporal and parietal regions supported perspective-taking. Limbic systems integrated emotion with valuation and memory. Together, these systems enabled self-awareness, self-identity, empathy, and a theory of mind.

We should remember that trust behaviors emerged well before true iconic language. For H erectus, learning happened by observation and patterns of repetition. Physical presence of a well-known individual could signal safety. Repeated and good exchanges built a trust & trade network. Bad exchanges signaled an enemy.

Over time, trade cultures would out-compete the smash-and-grab cultures that did not, or could not, participate in exchange networks. Trust & trade became an adaptive advantage, as strong exchange networks could better survive droughts, conflicts, and other threats.

The Four Trust Behaviors

From these deep origins we can extract the four foundational behaviors of trust & trade.

First, know your role. Exchange requires identity and presence. Your partner must recognize who you are and what you contribute.

Second, show authentic empathy. Observe needs. Respond clearly and visibly.

Third, anticipate reactions. Theory of mind allows you to imagine how your exchange will be valued as beneficial.

Fourth, repeat and respect transaction patterns. How, when, and what. Trust is built by consistency and tradition.

These are not soft skills. They are evolved tendencies refined over hundreds of thousands of years. Every soldier in Maurice’s army carried the neural adaptions that could express trust - or distrust.

Maurice Through an Evolutionary Lens

At the critical moment of 602 along the northern banks of the Danube, Maurice failed to show trustful behaviors in the eyes of cold and starving troops.

He was absent, a distant authority rather than a visible partner. He ignored the suffering of his troops and misjudged their likely reaction. He broke longstanding cultural expectations of payment and winter return.

To the army’s evolved social brain, Maurice shifted categories. He moved from trusted partner to villain. Once that reclassification occurs, outcomes change quickly.

The mutiny was political, but the trigger was biological.

Trust in the Modern Workplace

Modern collapses follow similar patterns. When leaders break implicit exchange agreements, show indifference to team stress, disappear from shared experience, or violate established norms, trust erodes rapidly.

Teams fragment. Startups implode. Customers withdraw.

By contrast, organizations that scale trust through transparency, empathy, and consistent exchange expand faster and endure longer. Trust reduces transaction costs. It increases coordination speed. It multiplies creative exchange.

The Foundation Layer

“Trust your gut” is a common expression of business leaders, especially with people-based decisions.

At General Electric, Jack Welch made final hiring decisions, after considering all other available metrics, based on ‘gut feel.’

Warren Buffet describes getting a ‘feel of integrity’ from a manager.

Sheryl Sandberg said, “Your gut tells you something in an interview - don’t ignore it.”

The Working Origins timeline shows why words like gut and feel are synonymous with trust.

Trust behaviors emerged long before we had language, and long before belief systems, agile cultures, agriculture, education, or written laws.

The trust behaviors of Homo erectus remain within us today, but have been modified by many following adaptations. Gut or trust feelings have little value by themselves.

Phocas, the man who killed emperor Maurice, is a good example of the limitations of gut instincts. He was named emperor after Maurice. But Phocas had none of Maurice’s broad leadership skills. He was willful, capricious, harsh with others, and could not maintain lawful order. He quickly alienated court officials, his provincial governors, and potential allies like Khosrow II of Persia. Within two years he had met the same fate as Maurice.

Takeaways

There are four key lessons for our Workplace today.

First is for business leaders. They should ask the questions that Maurice did not. Recognize any durable patterns of trust in the business network of partners, suppliers, customers, and teams. These should be valued and protected. Then ask where trust may be eroding from the friction of broken promises or one-sided exchange.

The second lesson is for each of us. Trust is not just a leadership concern. We build our careers through trust. Promotions, sales, alliances, partnerships, and even hire-fire decisions are shaped by visible patterns of identity, reliability, and mutual gain.

The third lesson is that modern business tools amplify both trust and its absence. Video calls, short-form text, chat, AI agents, and labor-saving automation reduce physical presence — one of the oldest trust signals we possess. We must compensate intentionally.

The fourth lesson is that every scam or con exploits the deep origins of trust. They hijack identity, empathy, patterns, and beneficial exchange — instincts that evolved long before contracts or cybersecurity.

That’s it - the Working Origins of Trust & Trade.

In the next post, we’ll move forward along the ESTIMATE timeline to the rise of instruction and iconic language — the adaptation that allowed trust to scale beyond sight and repetition.

Until then, remember the Working Origins motto:

Working together well is the most human thing we ever do.

Underlying Science

As a supplement to this Trust & Trade post, here is an overview of underlying science. As mentioned earlier, Working Origins builds insights using three primary fields.

First is biological science. Paleoanthropology, DNA molecular analysis, the new and emerging paleoproteomics, and other fields give insight to ancient hominins generally, including Homo erectus of 1.5 million to 750 thousand years ago. Additionally, endocasts and reconstructions of fossilized cranial cavities give evidence of H erectus brain growth and neural region development.

Second is archeology. Paleolithic archaeology describes the Oldowan and Acheulean tool industries and Homo erectus cultures. Lithic analysis gives insight to tool techniques, associated skills, and source materials. Cognitive archaeology then infers mental capacities, planning, symmetry, and abstract thinking.

Third are the behavioral sciences. These act as an interdisciplinary bridge—linking material cultures of tools, symbols, and skills to inferred brain function and structure. These include cognitive archaeology, paleoneurology and developmental neurology. Such research guides our understanding of the Homo erectus cultures and behaviors over these long periods of time.

Hello. This is Chris Gray. At the time of this writing, I live in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. My product development career has included work at Honeywell, Microtest, EMC, KVH, and Cogneti.

Alongside the technical work, I’ve kept a steady focus on a basic question of teamwork: Why do people work the way we do?

Working Origins answers that question using modern science to propose a big idea—supported by a clear purpose, approach, and audience.

The Big Idea

Working Origins lists eight times in our past when a valuable workplace behavior emerged from a particular culture. Emotion & drive, social learning, trust and trade, instruction and language, myth & mediation, agility, tilling & tending, and education.

Each of these behaviors came from a series of both genetic and cultural adaptations.

The BIG IDEA is that these past cultures now act as templates for how powerful team behaviors may emerge in our own workplace. Each of these eight cultures suggest a pattern of excellent leadership.

Working Origins identifies eight such culture–behavior pairings, organized as timeline markers.

Purpose

Working Origins has two objectives.

First, to make our human past easier to understand and remember.

Second, to translate that understanding into practical leadership insights for modern teams.

Approach

My approach relies on easy-to-remember models of our human past.

The first is the Working Origins timeline—eight markers that provide the high-level view of our shared past.

Together, these markers form the acronym ESTIMATE:

• E — Emotions, states, and drives (~3 million years ago)

• S — Social learning (~2 million years ago)

• T — Trust and trade (~1 million years ago)

• I — Instruction and language (~750 thousand years ago)

• M — Myth and mediation (~350 thousand years ago)

• A — Agile cultures (~70 thousand years ago)

• T — Tilling and tending (~12 thousand years ago)

• E — Education and writing (~5 thousand years ago)

Each marker represents a cultural pattern that supports a specific kind of behavior still visible in today’s teams.

The second model is the matryoshka, or Russian nesting doll. It illustrates how earlier capabilities remain embedded within later ones. Each layer of our past still operates within us today.

The third model is the Taijitu, often called the yin–yang symbol. It represents the dynamic relationship between culture and behavior—how behavior generates culture, and culture in turn shapes behavior.

Together, these models offer a practical way to understand how the modern workplace came to be.

Audience

Working Origins is written for working people—across roles, industries, and levels of experience. This includes church groups, sports teams, gardening clubs, or businesses.

While there is a focus on the business workplace, the leadership lessons apply broadly.

The way we work together presents real challenges. There is real conflict, distrust, resistance to change, status friction, abuse, burnout, and more.

Working Origins offers a grounded framework for understanding and improving how teams function under those conditions.

Working Origins Motto

Each post ends with the Working Origins motto: Working together well is the most human thing we ever do.

This reminds us that our humanity literally began with the first workplace. Roughly 3 million years ago, early humans used tools to make a better living. They passed the key skills to their children.

That is the beginning of culture, and in a very real sense, it is the beginning of the workplace.

Every point on the Working Origins timeline builds from that foundation.

Science

Working Origins draws from three primary fields of study.

Human biology, including genetics, cranial development, and paleoneurology, helps explain how our bodies and brains evolved over time.

Archaeology and related disciplines reveal how people lived—through tools, art, and material culture across time and place.

Behavioral sciences act as an interdisciplinary bridge—linking material culture (tools, symbols, skills) to inferred brain function and structure. These include cognitive archaeology, paleoneurology and developmental psychology. These researchers help us understand how culture shapes behavior—how we think, feel, and act.