I was waiting for my flight out of JFK airport after closing a major contract with a fashion label in New York City. It was evening, storming like crazy, and my flight was delayed for six hours. Sitting by the kiosk full of “I <3 NYC” keychains, I noticed a young boy, perhaps four or five years old, standing by himself near the tram station. Having a son around the same age at the time, I kept my eye on the boy and waited for his parents to collect him. Twenty minutes went by and he had not left the spot. Another fifteen minutes passed, and that's when I decided to walk over and see if he needed help. He looked up at me and began to speak farsi.
I don’t speak farsi.
I look like I would but I don’t.
I watched my scheduled plane depart with my luggage and began the search for airport security. Seven hours later, myself, and the kiosk manager (who spoke farsi) saw the boy reunited with his parents. The father of the boy hugged me harder than I ever had been hugged, then promptly offered a thousand dollars cash as a thank you for helping his five year old son. I refused the offer, smiled, then ran to my gate, preparing for another three hour wait for my luggage in Houston.
Why did I refuse the money? It wasn’t necessary. I had made a choice to uphold my obligations as one human being helping another human being find their way home. For most of us, helping this child is not up for debate. It is required. An unspoken social pact of human nature powered by empathy and delivered by free will. A social pact of human kindness.
Social pacts are the core foundation of our survival. They are the reason why humankind still exists. Social pacts define expectations, are often unspoken, and play major roles in every aspect of our lives. In terms of business, social pacts take the form of Core Values. These are the clearly defined priorities in which a brand must abide to keep their brand promise, and ensure everyone goes home happy.
We begin our exploration with a universal and foundational quality that helps define our humanity from an individual to all of society: empathy. It is a powerful and necessary component to the human experience, providing us with the ability to not only understand another individual but to place ourselves within the circumstance of that individual to elicit a deeper emotional, cognitive, and physical understanding from their perspective.
For example, a physical therapist sits down with a patient, listens to their symptoms, then stands and mimics the action that creates the pain response in their patient. The physical therapist’s face grimaces as they place themselves inside the mind and body of the patient, imagining the degree of pain their patient experiences. The patient watches, observes the mutual grimace, and feels understood. The physical therapist nods, and sits back down, pain free. No actual pain was experienced in the physical sense, but if we were to watch the physical therapist’s brain activity, we would see specific areas become highly active in the brain as it interprets reality. Humans do this instinctively.
Recall a movie that made you weep with the character on screen or remember a TikTok post that made you recoil when the person in the video got hit with a football. The empathetic response had already been activated as you placed yourself in the other person’s mind, body, and experience. The more we actively engage with an individual, the stronger the empathetic response becomes allowing us to contextualize the other person’s experience. It is a feature of our human brain that’s ensured survival since our humble beginning as a species.
The neurological origins of empathy are found in the Mirror Neuron System (MNS) (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). The MNS resides in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the lower part of the precentral gyrus, the rostral part of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and the temporal, occipital and parietal visual areas. These parts of your brain serve your somatic nervous system and are responsible for your ability to understand another human is in pain when they wince or is happy when they smile.
The MNS developed as humans evolved in social settings. It allowed us to relate to one another before language arrived to contextualize those feelings before we could speak. This is an incredibly important evolutionary step for humans. It is the MNS that helped us realize the very angry primordial stranger running towards us with a club might not be interested in a hug but more interested in beating us to death. The MNS kicked in, remembered how we felt when we made that angry face while gripping a club, and led us to the decisive conclusion: run away and survive.
The MNS also works for the benefit of human connection by identifying positive behaviors among strangers. A young woman happens to have left her handbag on the chair at a cafe. A young man recovers her handbag, smiles and hands it to her. She smiles back. She thanks him. He adjusts the rolled up sleeves of his button-up, displaying his forearms and clean fingernails. She pushes her hair back behind her ear, exposing her neckline, then toys with her necklace directing his eyes to her collarbone. The MNS goes active, identifying engagement behaviors, signals that tell the brain this stranger is not a threat. He leans forward and asks, “What’s your name?”
Anthropologically, empathy has helped us stick around as a species for more than 300,000 years. Each year was filled with evolutionary and sociological lessons that shaped our brain’s Mirror Neuron System, refining each of the following generations to adjust their behaviors to survive a bit longer than their predecessors. Every generation that survived longer meant more people coexisting in the same space. Slowly, early versions of societies emerged from mutually beneficial behaviors in a group.
Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers solidified a sociological theory for mutually beneficial social constructs that led to human survival. Beyond the human familial relationship, the notion of doing good for others seemed counterintuitive. Strictly speaking in a biological sense, what incentive does one human have to consider the survival of a stranger that might be a threat? If the stranger dies, that’s one less threat for the family unit. Trivers theory explains the genetic origins of humankind’s good nature.
Non-related humans living in a social world had begun to realize that killing one another for resources might not be the best way to live long enough to raise a family. Provoking non-related humans may end up being a bad choice on the part of an individual, as that non-related human might have more friends than the individual and may pose a viable threat to their well-being. Thus, a mutually beneficial agreement with non-related neighbors meant finding oneself in a safe group that would look out for one another, helping create a safe environment to raise their families (Trivers, 1971). This basis of exchange served as the backbone of community social behaviors for thousands of years.
Another factor that plays a major role in the development of empathy is found at the intersection of anthropological development and evolutionary genetics. An individual that lives in a mutually beneficial society has greater odds of living longer. Longer life means a higher shot at meeting that special someone and starting a family, possibly with more than two kids. If the children are raised in a safe, mutually beneficial society, they can grow into adults that will then carry on the genetics of their parents, and so on.
Aside from the inherited perks of finding love, having kids, and resting easy knowing their genes were going to be around for another generation, the human brain began to develop another set of biochemical factors as an additional existential insurance policy. Every time an individual’s Mirror Neuron System goes active, empathy is triggered for another living being. That empathy leads to a mutual understanding from that individual’s perspective, helping two individuals feel better understood. That mutual understanding reduces anxiety, reducing the threat-instinct response in the amygdala of the brain. This bonding process is fueled by two chemicals, dopamine and oxytocin, that flood the brain and help the two individuals feel safe (Zak, 2012). Dopamine and oxytocin are responsible for that warm feeling you get when someone else relates to how you feel.
At that moment of connection with someone else, you’re not aware of the Mirror Neuron System activating. You don’t notice your eyes reading micro movements in the other person’s face or your facial muscles positioning your expression in a non-threatening manner. Instead, you simply feel closer to your friend. They nod, you nod, and everyone wins.
Three-hundred thousand years after modern Homo sapiens decided to hangout in groups, modern society has changed a bit since our hunter-gatherer days. Modern society has attempted to redefine what it means to enter into a social contract, oftentimes bringing in teams of lawyers, ridiculous fees, and courts in the process. Legal fees aside, it remains simple at the core: we not only need one another to survive, we actively enjoy helping each other benefit from the skills we have obtained in our individual lives. Yet, none of this process would have occurred without a major tool modern society takes for granted on a daily basis. A tool that requires biochemistry, the human experience, and a mutually beneficial society pact to exist.
For some readers that topic heading might sound offensive but it is unequivocally true. As humans explored the nature of meaning, we created fields of study like philosophy, etymology, psychology, etc. to help explain what we were thinking about. Prolific Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure founded the field of Linguistic Semiology and posited a system of communication that is made of two simple assertions that defines how language works.
The first assertion states that a word, a combination of letters, has no inherent meaning. Saussure refers to a single word as the Signifier (Saussure, 1959). For example, the term, or signifier, commitment, is made up of a combination of letters that are simply squiggles on a page (or screen in this case):
C-o-m-m-i-t-m-e-n-t
We can take apart the word and rearrange the letters in random order, o-m-i-m-t-m-e-c-n-t, and the meaning is entirely lost. Due to the socially agreed upon consensus of English speakers, these particular squiggles must exist in a specific order to deliver the word commitment in our language. This is the founding basis of all languages in all societies.
Saussure’s second assertion states a signifier’s definition is a mutually agreed upon state of meaning from a social group that uses that word. Saussure called the definition of a term’s meaning the Signified.
Let's explore this process that defines the word commitment, or in Saussurean terminology, let's explore the signified of commitment. The term commitment will mean a variety of things for a variety of readers. Everyone has their own personal definition they apply to the term, and thus, each person has their own set of meanings they position with this specific combination of letters. There is no single, naturally occurring definition that this combination of letters imparts; there is only a community defined set of associations that an individual must call up from their memory in order to reach their own interpretation of the signifier, commitment.
Every word an individual reads must pass a socially agreed upon meaning before the reader can move onto the next word. This social contract of signification is one of the key elements of our ability to navigate society. Each word (signifier), read or spoken, must go through this analysis we define as a cognitive filter.
Think of every associated image, experience, and word your mind pulls up when reading the term commitment. The first association your mind goes to may be the voice of a parent explaining why you have to finish the spring season of pee-wee baseball because that’s part of committing to a decision. The second association may be an image of a diploma. The third association is a memory of you sweating all over the place during that summer you signed up for a 10K race sponsored by your partner’s workplace. You hated every step of that run but you stuck with it because you had made a commitment to your spouse. All of these associated memories and sensory experiences flash across your mind, and then, you read the next word of the sentence to help contextualize the signifier, commitment, in the sentence. Each social interaction you related to the term commitment was filed away to expand on the meaning of the term.
However, everyone in the world has their own definition to every word they’ve come to know in every language they’ve learned. So how can anyone be sure they know the definition of a word? Beyond looking it up on Google, how do we truly know our understanding of the words coming out of our mouths?
The more associations an individual has with a given term (signifier) the faster they can clarify its definition (signified). Clearly defined terms empower individuals with a clearly defined context of that term in a given situation. Clearly defined situational context means an individual can decide what action they should take next to uphold that term's meaning.
Let's return to our example of commitment. You’re a business owner and your brand lists the term commitment as one of its Core Values in business. It’s Thursday, mid-afternoon and you have to make a decision on an ad campaign about a new product your brand is rolling out next quarter. The creative team is excited about how it looks and marketing is pushing for a date to launch so they can update their calendars for social before the weekend hits. However, you notice the ad campaign is slightly misleading in nature. Technically, you can approve the ad campaign and your brand will have a greater chance of hitting your targets but the trade-off comes in jeopardizing the integrity of the brand’s messaging. You think of the Core Value commitment and decide to have the ad campaign redone for more clarity. The creative team moans but knows it was the right call to make. You might lose additional profits but you know the brand can stand behind its commitment to social integrity. The decision takes all of 20 seconds in your mind. There’s no reason to call into question what commitment means to you or your brand.
Life moves fast and rarely do we have the luxury of taking our time to analyze the nature of meaning for every word in front of us. Instead, we rely on a given set of associations forged from our social world, then act accordingly. The efficiency of our cognitive filter saves our brain time and energy while reinforcing our decisions on how to act within, and upon, our social worlds. These decisions also reside in our professional worlds and can be the difference between upholding social contracts, annoying the creative team at your business, or redefining what it means to fail in the eyes of your brand’s community.
Leadership requires making these decisions; it also requires ensuring your team follows through on making those decisions happen. When it’s a tough decision for the leader, how does the leader inspire action in their team? This requires a deeper understanding of what truly motivates human behavior, moving beyond simple obligation into the realm of intrinsic choice.
No one likes to be told what to do. That’s the difference between work and play. When you choose to replant your elderly neighbor's garden on a Saturday morning in June, it's a lot of fun and extremely rewarding. When you’re told to replant a customer’s garden Monday morning for a paycheck, it's boring. What’s the difference? The autonomy of personal choice was removed for an external incentive. The key signifier here is choice.
For humans, we are a societal species that works to balance the need for social cohesion and mutual benefit with the need of individual autonomy. We long to choose to help the group but when it becomes obligatory, we would rather do anything other than oblige. There is a balance that can be found within these two seemingly opposite tendencies. Cultivating such a balance secures a group’s longevity while protecting each individual's sovereignty. To find this balance, we start with something we all have in common, human behavior.
Human behavior is driven by motivation. As explored by socio-political and economic author Daniel H. Pink in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Humans are driven by two types of motivations: external and internal. These two forms of motivation vary based on the context of the social group but for our purposes we will keep the context within a brand and business setting.
An external motivation, in the context of business, is anything that exists outside of the individual that can directly impact their state of being. These external motivational factors take the forms of paychecks, bonuses, write-ups, audits, behavioral corrections, and a load of other reports that seek to impose a shift in an individual’s decision to behave in a specific way. They can be cumbersome, time draining, ineffective, and a total drag on morale.
Internal motivations reside within an individual and often outweigh external factors in most decisions, even in business. Internal motivation, or intrinsic motivation, is entirely dependent upon the individual but is composed of three innate psychological needs that have been identified by the professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Rochester Edward Deci and professor of psychology at Australian Catholic University, Richard Ryan in their Self Determination Theory. These three factors are Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Autonomy - an individual’s freedom to choose how they will contribute to a collective group.
Autonomy is the desire in every human to be the primary causal agent in their own life. We see this realization manifest when an individual refuses to carry out a command but will happily complete the same action as a request. Any person would rather choose to send a report to a gentle request rather than be told to send a report.
Competence - an individual’s sense of mastery of a skill that contributes to a social group.
This is a major factor when it comes to seeing participation and engagement in the workplace. Individuals that feel properly supported with a strong sense of competence do not hesitate to add to a group discussion or take on additional responsibilities they feel they can deliver upon. Of course, an individual's sense of competence and their actual competence is a topic for a different article.
Relatedness - the profound sense of connection that comes from contributing to the well-being of the larger society as an act of one's own volition.
If that concept of Relatedness sounds familiar, it is a direct relation to the social benefits contract our human brains have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. On a genetic level, we understand the importance of contribution to the group and regard this act with an inherent sense of purpose. It is that feeling you get when the team is truly grateful for your efforts in securing a new client, or when your client tells you they cannot thank you enough for how you helped them. That rush of satisfaction, that deep sense of pride for what you’ve contributed, that’s Self Determination Theory in action and also part of human nature.
These three factors of Self Determination Theory influence an individual’s intrinsic motivation to act on behalf of a brand’s Core Values. It is the place in which an individual feels the conviction to uphold a brand’s purpose and decide to act for the benefit of the group. For leaders, it is the best way to inspire a team to deliver on a brand’s promise.
A business requires a social pact between itself and its community. A social pact that requires consistent behaviors made on behalf of team members that truly feel compelled to uphold a promise as old as humanity itself. The innate understanding that an individual's contribution for the wellbeing of their society ensures a mutually beneficial, better world.
Are there transactional businesses in the world? Of course, there always has been. However, beneath the simple exchange we find our ancient traditions have survived. And survival itself is a promise made in empathy that transcends words, derives from free will, and is upheld by human nature’s most powerful trait: kindness.
Pink, D. H. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. Riverhead Books.
Rizzolatti, G., & Craighero, L. (2004). The mirror-neuron system. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 27, 169–192.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.
Saussure, F. de. (1959). Course in general linguistics (W. Baskin, Trans.). Philosophical Library. (Original work published 1916).
Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46(1), 35–57.
Zak, P. J. (2012). The moral molecule: The source of love and prosperity. Dutton.
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