"Financial Planning ... it's not always about money."

Why Cynics Are Less Likely to Succeed

David M. Brenner profile photo

David M. Brenner, ChFC®, CLU®

D. M. Brenner, Inc.
Phone : (858) 345-1001
Schedule a Meeting

Summary. New research in behavioral science has revealed that cynical thinking stands in the way of success in the workplace. Cynics, it turns out, earn less money, report lower job satisfaction, and are less likely to be elevated to leadership positions. That’s because success is not the winner-take-all battle that cynics believe it to be. Cynicism, in fact, can bleed workplaces of creativity, openness, and morale, and the bottom line — whereas the people who succeed at work tend to so by building trusting connections and alliances. As a research psychologist, the author has worked with organizations and leaders to help them fight cynicism and bring the cooperative advantage to their teams, and in this article he lays out some effective approaches for doing so.


iStock-691617228

iStock-691617228


Five hundred years ago, writing in The Prince, Nicolo Machiavelli offered advice to leaders trying to grow their power. “It would serve [the Prince] to appear pious, faithful, humane, true, religious, and even to be so,” he wrote, “but only if he is willing, should it become necessary, to act in the opposite manner.”

In other words, don’t hold on tightly to your values, because no one else will either.

Centuries later, that passage still perfectly encapsulates a cynical world view. Cynics believe that human beings are fundamentally self-interested. This also means that interactions between people are at their core a ruthless, Darwinian struggle for survival, where the path to success requires stepping past, over, or on the people around you.

Many of us follow this bleak logic. More than half of parents believe that to succeed, their children should think of the world as harsh and dangerous. According to the legendary management professor Sumantra Goshal, MBA students are taught that “companies must compete not only with their competitors but also with their suppliers, employees, and regulators.” In Silicon Valley, where I work, brilliant but toxic leaders such as Steve Jobs are celebrated and — too often — emulated.

Following Machiavelli’s advice, cynics sacrifice relationships and principle to win. Instead, research demonstrates they lose. A wave of new behavioral science has found that, over the course of one’s career, cynical thinking stands in the way of success. Parents might think their kids will thrive if they see the world as competitive, but people with that mindset earn less money and report lower satisfaction at work.

Other research follows people over time, testing their cynicism at one point and following up years later to measure professional outcomes. The news here is clearer, and even worse for cynics. Over a decade-long span, their salary grows at barely a third the rate of non-cynics, and they are less likely to be elevated to leadership positions.

Why? Compared to their more trusting counterparts, cynics report a greater hunger for power and pursue it in different ways. Confident that others will take advantage of them if given the chance, they go on the offensive, manipulating others first. Machiavelli would be proud. He urges leaders to dominate others, preferring to be feared than loved. Research does find that dominant actions, such as intimidating coworkers and kissing up to higher-ups, tend to build people’s power in the workplace. But so do communal actions, such as sharing generously with colleagues. Research on disagreeable people who share cynics’ competitive streak finds that they use only dominant strategies to get ahead. This leaves them isolated and eventually puts a ceiling on their success.

Put simply, cynics are playing the wrong game. Success is not a winner-take-all battle royale. People most often win by building trusting connections and alliances. And even if an individual manages to shove their way to the top, their team often pays the price. Psychologists recently analyzed levels of narcissism in NBA players’ tweets and found that teams with higher levels of narcissism won fewer games. Why? To compete at the highest level, teammates must first stop trying to outdo each other. If they hog the ball, narcissistic players cost their teams a cooperative advantage. As the NBA champion Bill Bradley put it, “the success of the group assures the success of the individual, but not the other way around.”

Cynicism can bleed workplaces of creativity, openness, and morale, and the bottom line. The good news is that cynicism is not a life sentence. Research suggests that barely a quarter of it is genetic, meaning that the social environment significantly shapes our willingness to give and earn trust. Through the right habits, cynics can build new mindsets and lean into connection.

As a research psychologist and author, I’ve studied the science of cynicism for years. I also work with organizations and leaders to help them fight cynicism and bring the cooperative advantage to their teams. Here are a few places to begin.

Make trust the default.

About 10 years ago, economists studied two fishing villages in Southeastern Brazil. One sat by the ocean, where fishing requires large boats, heavy equipment, and teamwork. The other bordered a lake, where fishermen set out on small boats and vie against one another for the best spots. Researchers tested levels of cooperation, trust, and generosity in both communities.

Fishermen who worked on the sea and the lake started out with similar social profiles. But the longer someone fished on the lake, the more suspicious and selfish they became, even outside of work.

Too many workplaces operate like lake towns. Especially in “cultures of genius,” personal achievement is prized above all else, even if talented people are a nightmare to work with. Research finds that this mentality erodes trust and locks people into a competitive struggle that can hurt many of them in the long run.

But leaders can create ocean villages instead, which tap people into communal forms of power. The design firm IDEO exemplified this in building their “culture of helping.” Leaders there encourage their teams to expect that everyone will both ask for and give support to others, and rewarded not just for individual performance, but how they showed up for their colleagues. These structures and practices, over time, turn trust and collaboration into a default setting.

Fight phantom norms.

When companies bring me in to help them build empathy and trust, I usually begin with an anonymous survey of all employees. How much, I ask, do you want a workplace defined by collaboration rather than competition? And how do you think your average colleague would respond to this same question? In every one of those organizations, people give radically different answers. Most employees deeply want a culture of collaboration but think their colleagues are fine with competition. These communities are lake towns where each member thinks they’re the only one who would prefer an ocean view.

Psychologists call this “pluralistic ignorance,” and it’s everywhere. Loud, extreme, and toxic voices dominate public conversations. Even if they don’t represent most people, they take up so much attention that others start to imagine everyone else must agree and then conform to this false consensus until it takes over. Pluralistic ignorance is a devious social bias, but it’s also easy to puncture. In study after study, showing people what the actual majority wants quickly guides them to pursue their shared goals.

Leaders can take advantage of this, by showing employees the truth. Companies survey their people all the time. If they ask about their values, they’ll likely find that a supermajority believe in supporting one another. If leaders ask what people want, most will say they yearn for a more connected culture. In an all-hands, a leader can reveal these data and show employees to themselves. People can see each other in a new light, realize how popular cooperative values really are, and feel safer pursuing collective success.

Be the first to trust.

In a 2022 piece for this magazine, I wrote about how leaders’ cynicism can easily spread across organizations. One salve against this, I argued, is for managers to turn up their own trust, leading by example to emphasize an “anti-cynical” culture. Newer data provide yet another reason that’s a wise move. Cynicism decreases morale, psychological safety, and loyalty among teams. But it also stands directly in the way of individuals. This also means that when leaders encourage a communal mindset, they give each person a greater chance of achieving their goals.

+++

Cynicism has increased steadily over the past 50 years, ensnaring many of us in an ironic mental trap. When people believe they must fight their way to the top, they are less likely to get there. But leaders have a powerful opportunity to push back against this trend, by creating conditions in which people can express their desire for a more collaborative, positive culture, and see that desire in others. They can bring the cooperative advantage to their communities, and help people win the way most of us want to — together.

———

Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the author of Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.

c.2024 Harvard Business Review. Distributed by The New York Times Licensing Group.

This HBR article was legally licensed through AdvisorStream.

David M. Brenner profile photo

David M. Brenner, ChFC®, CLU®

D. M. Brenner, Inc.
Phone : (858) 345-1001
Schedule a Meeting