Photo by Marcin Jozwiak.
We fell down a rabbit hole this week learning about who the US Supreme Court laughs at. And it’s not so funny.
We are social little monkeys. We pay attention to relationships and hierarchy, and ridicule is a powerful signal about where you sit. The research is multi-faceted and worth digging in to, but two trends stand out. The two groups who get laughed at the most are:
- inexperienced advocates, and
- advocates on the losing side of a case
What’s interesting is that these are two groups who least need the ridicule. Advocates who are losing rarely need their face rubbed in it. And first-time advocates (who are more likely to be representing disadvantaged or minority clients/cases) are already at such a deficit. Why are SCOTUS justices being such assholes?
You don’t need to be a lawyer to figure this one out. They’re assholes because they are social little monkeys just like the rest of us. They’re preserving a hierarchy that puts them on top. Maybe as a considered legal maneuver, and maybe purely for a hit of social endorphins. Even if you don’t plan to visit The Supremes any time soon, your workplace might have the exact same microaggressive shit.
Sometimes it’s ridicule. Sometimes it’s interrupting. Or desk assignments. Bob Sutton has a chapter in one of his books about how bosses who sometimes look displeased in meetings get rated as “more effective”. These things light up some ancient part of us that pays attention to who is gaining status in a community and who is losing it. A part that tries to pick winners and to be one. We sense what’s happening even when we can’t articulate why.
But your company is not a tribe of tarsiers or a community of capuchins. It takes effort to remember that, and to be better than that. We’re all liable to slip into hierarchy games if we don’t check ourselves regularly. Why do you not want that person on your team? Why is it funny that he messed up the presentation? Why does no one eat lunch with her? In-group status games don’t do inclusion very well, that’s the whole point.
We can do better when we’re thoughtful about it. We should do better. And so should SCOTUS. We are social little monkeys, but that shouldn’t be all that we are.
— Melissa & Johnathan
What Melissa may have invented
10/60/90 – A simple tool for getting and giving better feedback on creative work
A friend asked about how to get better feedback on creative work and I ran her through a model I’ve used for at least a decade. I’m pretty sure I made it up but if you read this and tell me it originated someplace else, I’d believe you.
I spent many years working in PR agencies and then many more years managing them. One of my ongoing struggles was trying to get and give useful feedback while developing creative work. Somewhere along the way, I found (or developed) this framework and have been using it ever since.
If you work with or manage creative folks, this one is for you:
10/60/90 is a handy way to get agreement around when stakeholders want to see things and what level of feedback is appropriate at each phase.
If I bring it to you at 10%, you can’t ask me about polish details. We’re just at early concept stage. Am I heading in the right direction? Are there angles I’m missing? Elements you want me to be sure to keep in mind?
At 60%, I’ve got more meat and if our conversation went well at 10, this should be a pit stop, not an overhaul. But if we didn’t have the same thing in mind at 10, I’d rather know now than find out later…so this one tends to be either “keep going” or “omg slow down.”
At 90, this is a final check. The work should be basically ready to go live. And in terms of feedback, I should never get concept/direction feedback at 90% completion. That should have been covered long ago.
The issue many managers face is that they will tell folks to keep going. And then they try to give structural feedback when someone feels like they have a finish line in sight. That’s incredibly demoralizing. 10/60/90 tends to be a good way to get folks to think explicitly about the mile markers for creative work.
I’ve used it with designers, product marketers, and pr people around the globe but I suspect it works pretty well in other disciplines. If you try it out (either with your boss or your direct reports), write to let me know how it goes, ok?
What Johnathan’s reading
Well I’ll be honest, this isn’t great (full credit to Melissa for finding these):
Impaired Decision Making in Conference Rooms
and also, Allen et al on Cognitive Function in Offices
This research from 2016 studies what happens in typical corporate environments when we have long meetings. Specifically, what happens to the air in the room.
Here’s what we know. Baseline for a typical corporate space is around 600 parts per million (ppm) of CO2. That’s higher than the outside air (~400ppm), but still fine. In a space with a lot of plants, or green tech to cycle the air more, your baseline might be lower, though probably never below the atmospheric level. Fine.
The reason you care is that too much CO2 impairs thinking. There isn’t a hard line, but generally below 1000ppm you’re okay. As you pass that level, the effects get progressively worse. By 1400ppm, Allen et al say there’s an average drop of 50% in cognitive performance.
I’m going to say that again. 1400ppm of CO2 means a 50% drop in your ability to think clearly and make good decisions.
We all know where this is going, don’t we? In their studies, 3 people sitting quietly in a mid-sized conference room produced CO2 levels of 1400ppm after an hour, and 1600ppm after two. AND it took 2 hours after they left for the room to get back down to 1000ppm.
Say it with me: AAAAAAAAA!!! This is terrible, horrible, no good, very bad news.
Ever been in a meeting with a dozen people crammed in? For hours? Ever felt headachy and barfy afterwards? Did you notice those meetings had more impatience? More tangents and lack of focus? More fighting?
I feel like this research should be unsurprising, but also that having numbers for it hits me in the gut. It makes me want to carry an air quality monitor with me everywhere now, and possibly also a large fern. I hope I’ve succeeded in making you feel the same way.
Get some plants. Be thoughtful about the volume of air when you’re gathering a group of people. Leave the door open when you leave. And, if possible, open a window.
