My experience guiding teams in every sector (private, public, non-profit) has lead me to conclude that the titles we give others actually create more harm than good. As a counter-argument I’ve had several senior leaders in every sector challenge this notion with vigor and passion.

They argue that titles and their implied structure provide clarity of thought and ideas for others. That they ensure a common vision and accountability for the business, government, or community of practice. As well, titles ensure people know to whom they are accountable and how in turn they will work with members on various teams.

While I agree with this idea in principle, I can’t shake the fact that such an argument assumes many things to be true about people with specific titles, including:

1. They are considered by their team to be excellent leaders.
2. They have the capacity to listen without bias to new ideas.
3. They have the ability to say “I don’t know” in front of the team.
4. They believe that their staff are the foundation of their future success.
5. They are able to recognize skills of their staff beyond their job description.

To illustrate the dangers of titles and how much they can actually hinder innovation and team building, I’m going to review two classic social psychology experiments, the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment.

In the summer of 1971 volunteers answered an ad in the newspaper requesting people to participate in an experiment at Stanford University.

Those selected for the study were arrested on a Sunday afternoon by actual police officers in front of neighbors, put into a squad car handcuffed, and driven to a “prison” (offices at Stanford University) where they were treated just like any other prisoner with other volunteers who were given the role and title of “prison guard”.

But by the start of just the second day, things took a turn for the worse:

Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress.

Quickly adopting the roles of the characters they were portraying, guards and prisoners assimilated to these personas and began behaving as either authoritative (guards) or rebellious (prisoners). Little to no guidelines were given to Guards in their treatment of prisoners to better understand how they interpreted their roles.

The guards were given no specific training on how to be guards. Instead they were free, within limits, to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain law and order in the prison and to command the respect of the prisoners. The guards made up their own set of rules, which they then carried into effect under the supervision of Warden David Jaffe, an undergraduate from Stanford University. They were warned, however, of the potential seriousness of their mission and of the possible dangers in the situation they were about to enter, as, of course, are real guards who voluntarily take such a dangerous job.

This particular study illustrates an extreme example of human behavior under specific, isolated conditions. However, it also shows how strongly we cling to titles when asked to take on a specific role, within a specific context.

In another famous study The Milgram Experiment the experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the latter believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confidant.

The subject believes that for each wrong answer, the learner receives actual electric shocks, though in reality none are given. Being separated from the subject, the experimenter sets up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which plays pre-recorded sounds for each shock level.

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Although these two studies reveal some frightening aspects of human behavior I think they provide important lessons for us in the information age:

1. We assume far too much without truly understanding the experiences and capacities of others.
2. We assume our title gives us the authority to command and control others.
3. We assume an individuals’ capacity within seconds of learning about their chosen career (based on their title).
4. We assume that if the community at large agrees an individual in a given field to be an “expert” that we shouldn’t challenge such ideas.

Whenever I’ve been given a title such as “Project Manager” or “Director” my number one priority is to meet with staff and have them paint a clear picture of all projects and their specific goals.

I then move quickly to ensure the team understands the value of everyone in the room and the subsequent success of each initiative. (In several instances traditional responsibilities were swapped because others were stronger in specific areas resulting in people taking on work of value to them and the ultimate success of the project.)

In short, the team defines their own value and decides how, when, where, and what will be done in order for both the individuals and the team to succeed. I work very hard to remove any preconceived ideas of someone with a specific title as: having the best ideas, as being unapproachable or unavailable, etc.

I have had far too many experiences with people who, based on their title, somehow didn’t see the need to be approachable or available to their team, and believed they should be able to do whatever they wanted because – after all – the end product was all that mattered!

By removing, or at the very least putting less emphasis on the importance of titles, we remove the psychological barriers that prevent us from learning from the most unlikely sources of inspiration.