Working Origins: A Leadership Manifesto
My name is Chris Gray. At the time of this writing I live in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, USA. Throughout my product development career (Honeywell, Microtest, EMC, KVH, Cogneti) I’ve kept a steady focus on one complex question: How did we come to be - and to do what we do? My interest has always been focused on teams - people working together.
Like a citizen scientist of the 1800s I looked to the best available understanding. Forty years ago, anthropology, archeology, and socio-biology were top sources. Today, the best sources include genetics, genomics, neuroscience, and molecular anthropology. The exciting new fields of paleoproteomics look even deeper into our genetic past using very durable protein remnants - from as long ago as two million years. Amazing.
Working Origins is a very heartfelt undertaking, focused on a specific purpose, approach, and audience.
Purpose
First, Working Origins intends to make our human past easy to understand and remember. This is done - in part - with simple models.
Secondly, insights from our human past are marked as lessons in practical leadership for workplace teams.
A significant challenge is the sheer volume of daily news items. These are endlessly vectored from academic journals into a screed of clickable bits. It is overwhelming to most working people. Even significant news is lost as noise.
Working Origins counters this feeling of disorientation with a high-level overview of our past, allowing readers to parse news items more confidently. More importantly, readers better understand how we came to be - and gain valuable insights for workplace teams.
Approach
My approach is to simplify the complex with easy-to-remember models.
This is not very different than how product teams build a user interface - a UX. My whole career has been spent on technical product teams, and I now use my best experience in creating the Working Origins models.
One such model is the timeline shown below. Eight markers orient readers to a high-level understanding of our human past.
Below is a more complete Working Origins timeline. The labels for each marker yield the ESTIMATE acronym used throughout the posts.
Each ESTIMATE timeline marker represents a foundational layer of cultural and biological adaptations.
A second Working Origins model is that of foundational layers. Like a Russian nesting doll (matryoshka doll) each of these foundational layers remain within us today. Each layer modifies and builds on the earlier ones.
For example, the emotions, states, and drives of the first marker are foundational to the social learning of the second.
Other models will be introduced, including how culture and biology always combine together when we adapt to any new situation.
A Note on Models
Models simplify and compress complexity so that patterns become visible and memorable. They are sometimes incomplete or even wrong in the details — and yet directionally true in a larger view.
For many in today’s workplace - pressed for time and attention - the models of Working Origins provide easy orientation: a clear vantage point across our shared human journey.
Working Origins intends to be based on, and aligned with, the latest available and reputable science. It is an introductory guide, not a primary academic source. Other resources, recommendations, and citations are provided on the Working Origins site.
Audience
Bluntly put, Working Origins is for anyone struggling to work and live with others.
The modern workplace is full of problems that feel urgent or even unbearable. We may each encounter conflict, distrust, resistance to change, sexual misconduct, status friction, innovation fatigue, threats of violence, or simply burnout.
Working Origins provides a useful framework for managing those problems and improving team performance.
It is intended for every person that I’ve ever worked with, and for future friends and acquaintances as well.
I consider myself as a primary audience member, recognizing that insights are best applied to our own selves first.
Working Origins Motto
Each post ends by reminding the reader of the Working Origins motto: Working together well is the most human thing we ever do.
This motto reminds us that our humanity literally began with the first workplace. Roughly 3 million years ago, figures very much like Homo habilis first used tools to make a better living - and they reliably passed the key skills to their children.
This sounds like a workplace to me. And every point on the Working Origins timeline marks a better way to work together well.