It’s company policy
This has been around for a very long time, but it still amuses me, so I’m posting it. I didn’t write, and I have no idea who did. It’s one of those things that has been around as long as I can remember, that I see every couple of years, and that still makes me chuckle. I hope you enjoy it, too.
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. 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, 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 are not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey every 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 friends, is how a company policy begins.
This sounds like the same reason that religions, like Christianity, persist. I’m only mentioning that in memory of your recent blog post on that topic.
For some (many?) people, that observation is probably accurate.
Others have found deep meaning in their lives through religion, so I would not wish to denigrate or diminish that.
What I dislike is people who do something without knowing why, without an understanding of the foundation for the activity. That would make a clear connection between this an the other post. I wasn’t thinking about that when I wrote this post, so thanks for pointing it out!
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One thing: the new monkey would most likely _not_ beat up anybody. It has no reason to. Instead, as you have more new monkeys, the remaining previous monkeys would no longer be able to stop all the new ones, and one of them would soon get the banana. Now, that may lead to a fight over the banana of course, but that’s a different matter.
So, nice parable, but ultimately false.
Great post!! I will apply this in my job, I believe it will work
If you replace the banana on a string with a pull-cord that opens a door to a cage filled with enraged venom-bats, the object lesson changes rather dramatically.
That is an excellent observation!
now that sounds just like the thing that the Mythbusters need to test in detail.
Oh, no doubt! That would be a great episode.
“beerfan Says:
This sounds like the same reason that religions, like Christianity, persist.”
The Atheists have their own cage of monkeys. They spend their day throwing feces at each other, stopping only long enough to make ridiculously simple and ignorant statements.