Surviving in the Civilized Jungle--review

Given the nature of the human beast, or perhaps the often beastly nature of humans, it is not surprising that philosophers have often cast commentaries and advice into bestiaries and fables. In the tradition of Aesop and La Fontaine, the latest on the scene is French consultant Bernard Nadoulek’s  Survivre Dans La Jungle Civilisée - Essai de stratégie à usage personnel  [Survive in the Civilized Jungle: A Guide for Personal Use].

This delightfully well written book casts the denizens of the organizational workplace with telling animal names for the roles they play. There are CEOs like Twisted Crocodile and Grumpy Bear, marketing directors like Ferocious Rhino, and other characters we are all likely to know from experience such as Irritable Baboon, White Goose, Golden Gorilla, Single-minded Ram, Putrid Hyena, Presumptuous Coyote and the like. I admit to a feeble French zoological vocabulary, so these names are literally my rendering aided by a friendly Larousse. They could no doubt be heard and translated more vividly by a native speaker.

The book in fact deals with common workplace situations, binds that we are thrust into by bosses and colleagues and our attempts to deliver ourselves safely from them without too much loss of honor, fur or plumage.  Our guide is the Eternal Owl, who has been invited to lecture at the HEC (acronym of the Grande Ecole de Commerce in Paris, but in our fable, the “Toads Institute of Higher Studies”). Owl (May we view her as a consultant guest lecturer?) rivals Allah in having close to 99 names each touting her insight and wisdom delivered incisively as the pages continue.

The situations could occur anywhere, but they are cast in a French organizational jungle for the most part where hierarchical relationships have their rules, practices and protocols. In later pages, in a more explicit analysis of strategy, Nadoulek will treat interactions from the perspective of their cultural context, with comparative Latin vs. Anglo-Saxon scenarios. It is here that the author, who is also a martial arts master, treats cultural values much as if they were the flow of energies in combat. It is a metaphor that I am quite attached to having spent some years as a student of Aikido.

Survivre Dans La Jungle Civilisée is, despite its scant 185 pages, far too rich to be captured in a two page review. My preference is to highlight a few of its insights of value for the intercultural field. Nadolek’s survival advice consists of five strategic principles:

1. Think in terms of the opposite. In a jam, examine the strategies that run contrary to your knee jerk inclination.
   
2. Put yourself in the other person’s head. What are they after, what do they want to protect, what do they expect or fear will happen?
   
3. If you can’t solve a problem, deal with it. Many problems in organizations cannot be solved, but most can be treated or dealt with appropriate steps to avoid or eliminate their damaging consequences.
   
4. Take local culture into account. What values dominate and need to be served if you are to succeed in your influence attempt?
   
5. Cooperative strategies pay off better than conflictual ones. Be ready to cooperate when the other party is ready. What is proven in game theory is also proven in life.
   

While these principles are offered as advice for surviving in the “civilized jungle,” they are in fact tools of cultural competence, since we might recall that culture can well be defined as a group’s strategic lore for survival and success in a given environment. While our ethnocentrism may insist that a certain value is at stake in a given conflict, say truth, for example, this will not help us in a conflict that is set in a context where, say, relationship is the prime value, or order, etc. Framing one’s influence attempts on “the truth” or on rationality in one of these other contexts may result in the glories of martyrdom as seen from another vantage point, but will hardly ever yield the desired results in the current scene. Cultures, Nadoulek reminds us, are not based on rationality, but on history, traditions, beliefs, religions, and the like. The foundations of rational thought themselves are not rational but contextual. If you must engage, pick your battles but know full well the terrain on which they will be played out.

Influencing requires a clear picture of one’s objective—not always obvious, and there are choices here. You must decide how to pursue the objective both directly and indirectly with full awareness of the outcome you expect, all of this within the cultural context. An effective strategy also depends on ones having performed beforehand the same analysis on the potential objectives, strategies and expectations of the other(s) you will be engaging. Depending on the ambient culture, the satisfactory resolution of a dispute may occur by sharing the prize or the pain, following the letter of the law, or a shootout at OK Corral. For a strategy to succeed it needs to be based on full knowledge of the fundamental values that shape the collective identity of the culture in which you are immersed. Beliefs must be dealt with as facts upon which to base your strategy. 

The book ends with the parable of a King in search of invincibility with the lesson being that it is not found in force or terror, which lead to self destruction on a grand scale, but in simply not being where the adversary expects you to be. Want to know more…? An appendix defines and summarizes the critical matters of strategy.  It is a very good read.