Premise
I know that becoming and being a leader worth following is not simple. It is a complex endeavor, which requires us to sense the situation we are in and change our mindset accordingly.
It also requires us to bring in skills from different fields if we really want to make the best of the situation we find ourselves in – making the most of the “RIGHT NOW” moment.
So, I want to look at different roles that we end up playing when we are being a leader worth following and also explore what we can learn from the real professionals and the knowledge that the field has accumulated from their collective history.
Today, lets explore – Anthropology and Anthropologists.
What is Anthropology?
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Anthropology is defined as the science of human beings – especially the study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture.
Simply put, Anthropology is the study of how people come together, stay together, work together and evolve together, which is exactly what teams do. So, there is a lot that we can learn as leaders from the field of anthropology and specifically around the socio-cultural aspects of people coming together.
So, let’s look at how the concepts in anthropology and the skills of an anthropologists gives you, as leaders, a toolkit for shaping culture deliberately — through stories, rituals, and symbols — rather than letting culture form by accident.
By understanding how humans make meaning together, leaders can intentionally design belonging and purpose in your teams.
Lessons from Anthropology
There are four layers that we need to understand and decode, if we really want to learn how to make cultures work for us rather than against us:
Origin Stories
Every culture in the world has an origin story – one that explains where they come from, how the world that they inhabit was created and help them make sense of their environment.
Leaders who define their team’s origin story — why they exist and how they began — anchor everyone’s sense of purpose. This anchors purpose and contextualizes the team’s environment.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos mastered the art of the origin story. He talks about how Amazon was created in this interview here.
Mythology
As part of the origin story and ongoing evolution, every culture develops some sort of mythology.
Typically, the myths are created as metaphors to help the tribe to survive and to differentiate between what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. All mythology is about separating what the tribe considers as good and what it considers as evil or bad.
Leaders who intentionally define the mythology of their teams benefit from their teams knowing exactly what behaviour is acceptable and what is not..
It helps the teams differentiate between what is good for the team and what is not. This North star fosters ownership, accountability, and high performance — autonomy even without leader input.
This creates a culture of ownership, accountability with a bias to action – all of which leads to high performance.
Again Jeff Bezos created mythology about the importance of customer focus and being thrifty, at the same time. Hear him talk about this here. His desk is made of a 10$ door rather than an expensive desk.
Rituals
The mythology then dictates the formation of rituals, that are their own, and unique. These rituals are designed for different situations – some to commemorate, some to celebrate and some to mourn.
Most cultures have rituals for universal phenomena like coming of age (transition from a kid to an adult) or victory over an enemy or natural phenomenon (solstices, etc) or to celebrate the birth of a new member or a marriage or to mourn the death of someone in the tribe or to commemorate someone who sacrificed for the benefit of the tribe.
The key point here is that for every key milestone, there are rituals to mark them.
Leaders who intentionally create rituals make life simpler for all the members of the team and create a platform of stability, specially when everything around them is shifting all the time.
They can create a ritual for team meetings, for how they celebrate success or mourn failure. They can create a ritual for when new members join the team or when someone on the team leaves or to commemorate or celebrate when someone on the team does something that was beyond what the team expected them to do (irrespective of the results).
Rituals can be small acts and don’t need to be elaborate or expensive. The key here is that once you initiate a ritual, it is important to do the ritual every opportunity that the ritual is expected. Consistency is the key here.
Here is a great ritual idea, again from Jeff Bezos. He is famous for having an empty chair in every one of his meetings, metaphorically representing the customers who will be impacted by what is being discussed in the meeting. You can find more info about this in this Inc article by John Koetsier.
Here is Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot talk about how they use this very concept of an empty chair in their organisation to make decisions.
Symbolisms
As part of the rituals, every culture builds its own symbolisms. These are simple (or sometimes elaborate) physical objects that symbolise something important.
They serve two purposes – they distinguish between who is part of the tribe and who is not and creates insider knowledge like hierarchy within the tribe, mark someone as special or anything else.
Symbols are attached meaning and when done well, they can play a pivotal role in keeping the tribe together.
Leaders who intentionally create symbols that reinforce norms through social cues, like Bezos’s door desk signalling thrift or Southwest Airline’s heart embodying care.
Leaders can expect the team to behave in expected ways and create social pressure to ensure that everyone behaves and those who dont are outed by the team. This also serves creating an insider knowledge that only your team knows about.
These could be badges, uniforms or a room with a view, etc. Symbols can be any kind of physical attribute that people can assign meaning to. It can also define temporary hierarchy (this week’s team captain is the one wearing the team bracelet, etc).
The table of Jeff Bezos that I mentioned is a great symbol of what he expected from everyone in his organisation. This is more powerful than asking or mandating people to be thrifty and focused on customer needs first.
Another example is the symbolism of Southwest Airlines – their Heart. Their stock ticker is LUV. Every one of their planes has the heart. It serves as a constant reminder for the employees to be kind and loving to each other. This care for each other is one of the many reasons for South West’s immense success (profitable) in an industry plagued by loss making enterprises and constant ridicule.
Here is Herb Kelleher sharing how they built their culture with a focus on employees.
Meaning Making, Together
All of the above serve one purpose and one purpose only – help the team make meaning together as a tribe.
As the first thing that I learnt from Anthropology is that we are creatures who are constantly seeking to make meaning from our experiences. All of us are constantly doing this without consciously being aware of the same.
Our minds have evolved to anticipate what to expect in any given situation we find ourselves in and then scan for anomalies in what we expected to see and then only pay attention to anything that doesnt fit in our model of the world. This very act is also an act of meaning making, about where we are and how we fit in this environment.
So, as a leader, it becomes super important for us to help the people we lead find meaning in what we do together as a team.
And when done well and with good intentions, the origin story gives purpose, the mythology differentiates between what is acceptable behaviour and what is not, rituals bring people together and mark (celebrate or mourn) milestones in our journey and symbols in a way binds the tribe by remarking who is part of the tribe and who is not and also the hierarchy within the tribe.
All of these come together and help in the meaning making process and when done together with others within the team, you are creating a culture that is strong and will help you deliver what you lay out as part of your mythology.
A Word of Caution
There is one thing to be cautious about – the meaning making through origin stories, mythology, rituals and symbols works irrespective of whether it is being done in the best interest of the tribe or of the leader of the tribe (to keep power to themselves).
So, if you see these things being done within your team that reinforces the power of the existing power structures and not necessarily for the benefit of the whole tribe, you need to rebel or question them. This is like any tool. It can be used to do good or to do things that are not good to things that are downright evil.
Leaders worth following shape meaning with care, keeping both their team’s needs and the overall well-being of the group in mind.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, each one of us as leader need to answer this one question – “Are we intentionally designing our culture or allowing it to emerge in unpredictable ways?”.
Culture is like the operating system of a computer, in the sense that it establishes the boundary conditions of what is possible.
Anthropology offers us tools that can help us design the culture that we need to achieve our goals. So, let’s use them to our advantage.
PS: Here is a song version of the blog post.
