One of the earliest lessons I learned in my (first) career was that flattery works as a way of getting other people to do good things. Or more specifically, “group flattery” works.
Group flattery is when you praise a whole group for a certain good thing. It’s usually done in the first person plural… as in, by saying “we”.
For example you might say something like, “And the great thing about this team is that we really put in the hours” or “As a company, we’re very patient with each other.”
It doesn’t have to be true! It doesn’t matter. It’s flattery.
Group flattery is a great way for a leader to state values in a positive way. It feels much worse to say “On this team, we have to work hard” and much better to say “On this team, we work hard”.
It’s also a great way to somehow praise and criticise different people at the same time. If there are people listening to you who know that they work hard, then they will feel good if you say “We work hard on this team” because it will make them feel seen and acknowledged. Like “hell yeah we DO work hard!”
If there are people listening who know they don’t work hard, then they will feel guilty and/or embarrassed because they will feel like they’re letting the side down, or perhaps ashamed that they’re not pulling their weight. Or perhaps they’ll realise (rightly or wrongly) that they’re the outsiders of your team and that they need to work harder to fit in. Or perhaps they’ll leave if they don’t want to do that.
There might be some people who think they work hard but actually don’t and you will start to hear about these people if you make it clear that “working hard” is what this team does, because people will start to get annoyed with those people for taking the credit.
For the record, I don’t think that “working hard” is a good thing to value.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you call your team “patient” then they will become more patient. If you call your team “hard working” then they will work harder. Listen, I don’t make the rules, but you can steer a group’s values by stating what it’s good at. It attracts more people who also value those things, and it means that people hold themselves to high standards in that standard.
This phenomenon has been used time and time again to steer scenes, such as the London coding scene. It’s a “fake it til you make it” kind of thing. You need someone to state what a scene is and what a scene is good at. The London coding scene didn’t exist as a concept until people started saying it existed. Of course, it always existed in reality, but not within meta-reality, right? You’re following, right? Are you still with me?
It’s why Matt Webb describes the London scenius as being a conspiracy: An open secret. And he tells me that the same thing happened with Silicon Roundabout. The phenomenon can be used for both evil and good, of course. So we better start using it for good.
So when I say “The London scene is one of the most inclusive scenes out there” or “Pastagang is massively welcoming to newcomers” … Can you hear what I wish for?
At the end of the day, it comes down to belief. I believe that those scenes are those things but it’s not something that I know. And if my beliefs are wrong, then it’s trouble for myself and other people.
I think that’s part of leadership: Taking risks that are worth the wish.
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