Predicting Balance
Homeostasis and Allostasis in teams
I’ve arrived at the age where my algorithms no longer point me towards optimum performance. Instead I’ve noticed my feeds full of podcasts and shorts about maximising longevity, reducing age-related muscle loss and preventing and treating back pain. Apparently 35 is when a man should start to focus on his end of life and make sure it’s as comfortable as possible.
C’est la vie - I realise I am actually writing this with an active (minor) back injury so I shouldn’t be too bitter. In general I’ll settle for a life in which my body roughly works, I reduce my likelihood of picking up preventable diseases and can give my attention on other worth pursuits, like increasing my substack subscriber base….
One of the podcasts I indulged in recently slammed together two of my favourite man-Youtube characters; author and optimiser Tim Ferris, and physiotherapist evangelist Kelly Starrett. If you’ve ever considered setting up a 4 hour work week, tried to optimise your daily routine or pondered the healing properties of psychedelics you’ve probably been influenced by Tim. If you’ve purchased a lacrosse ball to inflict mobility-enhancing agony on yourself in the gym you live in the Kelly-sphere.
In their conversation on The Tim Ferriss Show they discuss how Dr Kelly trains balance with his patients. One of his prescriptions is 20 seconds of SOLEC - Standing On One Leg Eyes Closed. The body has a vestibular system, which keeps us balanced and oriented. Kelly explains that people can become overly reliant on the visual system for balance, and this can lead to falls when they try to move around at night time.
Falls are a significant contributor to old age decline - you fall, break a hip, stop being active, and before you know it age gets the better of you. Training your balance through SOLEC bolsters the vestibular system and helps people keep their ability to balance for longer. He recommends standing on one foot on a zoom call or when brushing your teeth to keep the vestibular system in good nick.
I’ve been trying this, and (especially with your eyes closed) it’s hard work! It requires constant micro-adjustments from the ankle, leg and hips. Constant backs and forths, wibbling and wobbling to keep me standing. I’d encourage you to give it a go.
Pondering this type of balance, I realised that it’s not what I automatically think of as balance. Intuitively I think of balance as static, like these incredible rock sculptures. I’ll call this static balance. Where everything is held in equilibrium, with no movement either side.
Standing on one foot on the other hand is dynamic balance. The constant tiny adjustments keep us in overall balance, but it requires input and variability. As you wobble out in one direction, you can keep balance provided you can wobble in the other direction.
Many of our biological systems make use of dynamic balance. Our bloody pH should be between 7.35 and 7.45. Our blood carbon dioxide should be between 20 and 29 mmol/L. I could go on. I won’t.
When you learnt about this in school they probably called it homeostasis - keeping biological balance through feedback loops. Picture your thermostat. When the thermostat detects the temperature dipping below a desired level, it switches on the heating until the temperature is in an acceptable range.
There is however a problem with this as a model for how our bodies stay with the required ranges. As neuroscientist peter sterling writes
Regulatory mechanisms need to be efficient, but homeostasis (error-correction by feedback) is inherently inefficient. Thus, although feedbacks are certainly ubiquitous, they could not possibly serve as the primary regulatory mechanism. A newer model, “allostasis”, proposes that efficient regulation requires anticipating needs and preparing to satisfy them before they arise. `
… This regulatory strategy requires a dedicated organ, the brain. The brain tracks multitudinous variables and integrates their values with prior knowledge to predict needs and set priorities. The brain coordinates effectors to mobilize resources from modest bodily stores and enforces a system of flexible trade-offs: from each organ according to its ability, to each organ according to its need. The brain also helps regulate the internal milieu by governing anticipatory behavior. Thus, an animal conserves energy by moving to a warmer place - before it cools, and it conserves salt and water by moving to a cooler one before it sweats.
The lesson here is that the body modifies its behaviour globally to anticipate changes and therefore keep the body in homeostatic balance. In fact much of human cognition serves this allostatic purpose.
The reason why humans are such socially attuned creatures is that our survival tends to depend on our ability to coexist in groups. As a crude example - our early human ancestors knew that if they are ostracised by their tribe, they would struggle to access support and resources. Being cast out meant a much harder life, which in turn threatened their ability to meet their biological needs.
Humans learn incredibly sophisticated ways to predict others’ moods and behaviours in order to stay as a part of the group. These are actually ancient and elaborate ways of keeping our blood sugar and body temperature within healthy ranges. Even if my chances of actually starving to death in 21st Century Britain are very low today; my allostatic biological machinery hasn’t changed much since the early stone-age. We’ve just worked out how to wield more complex rocks.
Interestingly this gives us a model of stress. I get stressed when my body anticipates allostatically a future risk to my biological needs. Stress is how the body processes future threat. So it’s stressful when I get a huge unexpected tax bill, even though my belly is full from lunch, I’m the right temperature and my blood pH is perfect. Stress physiology is the body’s currency for predicting future problems. Tax bill means less money, means risk to my home, means food and safety instability. Means a threat to my homeostatic integrity.
What does this mechanism look like for teams?
I work with many teams who struggle to keep any element of balance. Work requests swoop in and knock them off kilter. Managers muscle in with competing priorities leaving everyone with maxed-out cognitive load and no room to collaborate or improve. When they are behind on work, they can’t get themselves organised enough to tell anyone about it and bad news comes late. These teams are unbalanced.
Sometimes you meet a team who can respond to feedback loops. They carry out health-checks and when they go red, someone senior gets involved and tries to help. These teams are good at retrospectives and can reflect and inspect and adapt after things go wrong. They wrestle themselves back into balance, but are vulnerable to the next storm. When they get overloaded they can eventually voice it and agree ways to prioritise. If another team commits them to a deadline they can reprioritise well and achieve it, or if they are behind they are able to tell people about it, even if it’s bad news. I’d call them homeostatically balanced.
If you’re lucky, you’ll have a met a team who is plugged into the environment around them such that they are able to anticipate surges in demand. They troubleshoot problems early, relying on their well atuned weak signal detectors. They probably have strong relationships with management who know where to bring them in. Even better they are well networked on the ground with other teams who can give them the head’s up. Their peers involve them proactively in planning decisions so they rarely get surprised with urgent work that they find out about too late. They think responsibly, pragmatically and proactively about how to get their work done and navigate trade-offs with intention and clarity. These teams are allostatically balanced.
I think this is a rich exploration, and I’d be interested to hear from you about your different teams, whether they are unbalanced, or which kind of balance they have.
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