Development of Group Attitude
Start with a cage containing five monkeys.
…all of the other monkeys attack him…
Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string, and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result, all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, put away the cold water.
Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm!
Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, and then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here.
And that, my dear friends, is how company policy begins.
Oldie but a goodie - Author unknown.
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It is an oldie but a goodie.
I love this one.
I wonder though if this might explain my aversion to bananas?
Colleague: “Why do we have work on Saturdays when we do nothing but chat and surf?”
Me, munching on a banana and shrugging: “Dunno.”
ohhh what a lovely reminder as to why I left the world of everyday and crawled under a rock.
prying1 - I think it explains a lot
Watson - that was very funny… I laughed out loud. It’s funny because it’s true!
Jayne - It’s still just as bad as you remember…
This is new to me, but I’ve been working with the Behavioral approach to therapy in autism and this applies to Applied Behavior Analysis, too.
As long as we get the desired behavior, nothing else seems to matter.
Tammi - It runs across all fields, professions and industries… [sigh]