Exposing Hardware Bugs

Finally, let’s look at some low-level bugs in the system—hardware bugs, if you will.

Your brain was not created all in one shot; it’s been built on and built up over time. The neocortex, which is what we’ve largely been talking about so far, is a relatively recent addition to humankind. There are older areas of the brain that underlie these more advanced areas. And they ain’t pretty.

These older areas of the brain are hardwired for more primitive, survival instinct behaviors. These areas supply the “fight or flight” response—or just a plain old emergency shutdown when the going gets really tough. This is where you’ll find the roots of territorial behavior and one-upsmanship.

Underneath our surprisingly thin veneer of culture and civilization, we are in fact wired very similarly to the aggressive alpha dog who marks his territory with urine. You can readily observe this behavior on the urban street corner, at the corporate boardroom, at the suburban party, and at the corporate team meeting. It’s just how we are.

If you don’t believe me, consider a recent report in the journal Nature^[91] about a very modern problem—road rage. In this study, the leading predictor of a tendency for road rage was the amount of personalization on a vehicle: custom paint job, decals, bumper stickers, and so on. Even more amazing, the content of bumper stickers didn’t seem to matter, just the quantity. Five “Save the Whales” stickers could actually prove more dangerous than one “Right to Bear Arms” sticker, for example. Why? We’re marking our territory.

In 1989, Dr. Albert Bernstein originally published Dinosaur Brains: Dealing with All Those Impossible People at Work [Ber96], a popular, accessible exposé of the low-level wiring in our brains. He called this level of processing lizard logic in honor of its more primeval nature. Let’s take a closer look at this level that still influences our behavior.

Lizard Logic

Dr. Bernstein describes the following aspects of the reptilian approach to dealing with life’s challenges. Here’s how to act like a lizard:

Fight, flight, or fright

Whether it’s a real attack, or just a perceived one, become fully aroused immediately. Be ready to start swinging or run like hell. If the situation is really bad, just freeze with fear. Maybe the bad thing will go away. This works really well when you’re giving a presentation and someone asks a pointed question about your work.

Get it now

Everything is immediate and automatic. Don’t think or plan; just follow your impulses and focus on what’s most exciting rather than what’s most important. Use sports metaphors a lot. Answer email and IM or surf the Web; that’s always more exciting than real work.

Be dominant

You’re the alpha dog. Claw and scratch your way to be the leader of the pack so you can abuse everyone below you. The rules apply to everyone else—but not to you. Urine marking is optional.

Defend the territory

Sharing is for insects. Never share information, tips, tricks, or office space. Mark your territory just like a puppy, and protect your interests, no matter how trivial. If someone does something without you, cry foul and demand to know why you weren’t included.

If it hurts, hiss

Don’t bother to fix the problem, but spend all your energy fixing the blame on someone instead. Cry foul, as often as you can. Let everyone know that it’s just not fair.

Like me == good; not like me == bad

Everything can be categorized into one of two buckets: good and evil. Your side is always good. Any other side is inherently evil. Explain this to your teammates often, preferably in lengthy sermons.

See anyone you know in these behaviors? A pointy-headed boss, perhaps, or arrogant co-worker?

Or worse, yourself?

Monkey See, Monkey Do

As I mentioned earlier when discussing the Dreyfus model, we are natural mimics. Most of the time, that’s a positive benefit, especially when learning from a mentor or other exemplar who’s already proficient in that skill. But there’s a downside to our natural tendency for mimicry. Emotions are contagious, just like a biological pathogen such as measles, or the flu.^[92]

If you are around happy, upbeat people, it will tend to lift your mood. If you’re hanging out with depressed, pessimistic people who feel like losers, you will start to feel like a depressed, pessimistic loser as well. Attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, emotions—they are all contagious.

The mob really does rule.

Acting Evolved

These lizardlike behaviors are inherent in the wiring, not in the higher-level cognitive thought processes. Thinking takes time; these actions and reactions work more quickly than that, and with less effort.

That’s yet another reason why email is so pernicious.

In the old days of letter writing, the time it took to write longhand and the built-in delay before sending (awaiting the postal carrier) both allowed the cooler neocortex to intervene and remind you that perhaps this wasn’t such a great idea.

But Internet time short-circuits the neocortex and exposes our reptilian responses. It allows you to fully vent your initial visceral reaction, whether it’s in an email, a blog comment, or an IM. Although that fast, violent reaction might be a fine thing when faced with a predator in the jungle, it’s less helpful when trying to collaborate on a project with co-workers, users, or vendors (well, it might help with predatory vendors…).

You know what it feels like to have that rush of intense feeling come up—when the boss sends you a snippy email or that rude driver cuts you off to exit without signaling.

Breathe out, deeply, and get rid of the stale air. Breathe in, deeply. Count to ten. Remember that you’re the evolved one. Let the lizard reaction pass, and allow the neocortex to process the event.

Next Actions

• Notice how long it takes you to get over your initial reaction to a perceived threat. How does your reaction change once you “think about it”?

• Act on that impulse but not immediately. Plan for it; schedule it. Does it still make sense later?

• Write a new movie. If you’re troubled by a given film that keeps replaying in your head, sit down and craft a new one—this time with a happy ending.

• Smile. There’s some evidence that simply smiling can be as effective as antidepressant medications.^[93]