Sharing Beliefs, Building Trust

Humans have built large global networks on shared beliefs. Money—and our entire economic system—is based on a shared belief in intangible assets that float around in the ether. It works because humans share the same belief that money serves as an abstract indicator of value. Over 90% of money in the world exists only in our imagination. This figure is from Yuval Harari’s book, Sapiens, and it shows just how powerful shared beliefs can be!

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Harari’s book is a fantastic overview of human history, showing a clear timeline of human actions and consequences. I love how this book explains the history of how decisions were gradually made over time. If you have even the slightest interest in human behavior, especially at the macro level, you should give this book a try. Now, I’ll be honest, it’s a doozy. Not only is it on the longer side, but it also dives into some dense content. It took me a few weeks to read, but it has helped me expand on some ideas circling in my head.

I won’t give you a full breakdown, as I don’t think I can do it justice in one newsletter. We’ll probably revisit this book for other lessons in the future. For this week, though, I want to focus on one idea: shared beliefs.

Here’s a quick rundown of shared beliefs from Sapiens:

• Shared beliefs have been around since the dawn of humans, but they have grown over time from small village legends to organized religion and, eventually, organized global commerce.

• Humans need shared beliefs to function together. Laws help us regulate acceptable behaviors in society, and money indicates the value of different goods and services. Shared beliefs allow humans to interact with one another more effectively due to the bond shared beliefs create.

• Shared beliefs in the form of abstract ideas—not visible to us—are one of the main factors that puts us at the top of the animal kingdom.

Leaders can just as effectively use this shared belief approach on a small scale. They can build a shared belief within their team to unite everyone behind a common mission.

Leadership Lesson

Motivating people is hard. Leadership involves motivating people to achieve shared goals. Shared beliefs have a powerful influence. Think about the young soldier who signed up to fight for his country. Why does he do it—nine times out of ten, you’ll hear about a belief in something bigger. A belief in freedom, justice, and human rights has motivated people to donate billions and spend hours of time volunteering.

Leaders need to create a shared belief in the team's impact. This could be the impact on the customer or the overall impact on the company's goals. Leaders need to customize their team’s beliefs. The shared belief has to be rooted in the team’s identity. Being the best, most productive software development team may be a shared belief system, and so could the team that wants to get the best customer review marks. The team identity and observable behaviors must reflect the shared belief for it to drive motivation.

Reflection

How often do you discuss your team's shared beliefs, the core ideas guiding its behaviors and actions, or the bonding ideas everyone holds true? Regular conversations about the team’s shared beliefs are the best way to strengthen the bond and generate alignment and motivation toward the ultimate goal.

Sapiens has a lot to unpack, and I’m still reflecting on everything I learned. We’ll definitely revisit some lessons from this wonderful book in the future. Until then, I challenge you to explore your team's shared beliefs. You’d be surprised what you might uncover!

See you next week, 

Rick