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September 23, 2005

My Coworkers Are Monkeys: I Knew It!

I've always known my coworkers were monkeys. Perhaps that's why the CareerBuilder.com superbowl commericals always cracked me up. Now there's a new book out called The Ape in the Corner Office : Understanding the Workplace Beast in All of Us by Richard Conniff.

Conniff draws some interesting parallels between the way chimps and humans act in their relative social hierarchies. He comes to some surprising conclusions about what behaviors make an effective and successful leader by studying how primates (including humans) climb and fall the social ladder, trying to maintain a balance between cooperation and intimidation and conflict.

"Conflict and aggression are normal primate behaviors, and that's not a bad thing. But most people's perception of the animal world is that they think it's only [full of] conflict."

Conniff believes conflict plays an important but more limited social role in the wild than cooperation.

"Even chimps, who have a reputation for being brutal, only spend 5 percent of the day in antagonistic behaviors and 15 to 20 percent of the day grooming one another.

More at: National Geographic: Office "Jungle" Mirrors Primate Behavior

You can pick up a copy of Conniff's book at Amazon.com.

Posted by sorsha at September 23, 2005 1:02 PM