«-Demoralization-»
«-Destabilization-»
«-Crisis & Chaos-»
«-Normalization-»
Have you ever heard the story of the 5 Monkeys Experiment? It may sound familiar when you think of the "organizational" culture in your workplace. It goes like this:
5 monkeys were placed in a cage as part of an experiment. In the middle of the cage was a ladder with bananas on the top rung. Every time a monkey tried to climb the ladder, the experimenter sprayed all of the monkeys with icy water. Eventually, each time a monkey started to climb the ladder, the other ones pulled him off and beat him up so they could avoid the icy spray. Soon, no monkey dared go up the ladder.
The experimenter then substituted one of the monkeys in the cage with a new monkey. The first thing the new monkey did. Obviously following his primal instincts. Was try to climb the ladder to reach the bananas. After several beatings, the new monkey learned the social norm. He never knew “why” the other monkeys wouldn’t let him go for the bananas because he had never been sprayed with ice water. But he quickly learned that this behaviour would not be tolerated by the other monkeys.
One by one, each of the monkeys in the cage was substituted for a new monkey until none of the original group remained. Every time a new monkey went up the ladder, the rest of the group pulled him off and beated him up, even those who had never been sprayed with the icy water.
By the end of the experiment, the 5 monkeys in the cage had learned to follow the rule (don’t go for the bananas), without any of them knowing the reason ¿why? (we’ll all get sprayed by icy water). If we could have asked the monkeys for their rationale behind not letting their cage mates climb the ladder, their answer would probably be: “I don’t know, that’s just how its always been done here.”
This story, whether real or a fable, captures a pervasive theme in many organizational cultures: We tend to do things the way we’re told they’ve always been done without questioning or revisiting the reason behind it, even long after that reason ceases to exist.
¿Do you feel like a caged monkey in your current work environment? Here’s some advice as it relates to organizational culture: Next time someone tells you ¡that’s not how we do things here! then ask them ¿Why?. And if they can’t tell you, then tell them about the story of the 5 monkeys followed by a gentle but firm request to fuckoff!
Alright, I think this will be all for today. In a next installment I will try to delve more into some of those strange concepts written at the beginning of this post. Since without a decent and workable internet service, the so erratic and unstable behavior of the electrical service where I am and with the extremely slow, expensive and useless internet that the data plan of my Telco offers me, really not much more can be done to try to be a little more coherent and eloquent to make you think.
And on the other hand, I suppose that apart from trying to make you think a little bit today, I suspect I also published this post this weekend just to let you know that I am still alive and I am also still vigilant of what each one of you are doing in our workplace everyday. So, behave well folks, because I'm watching you. And yeah, until next post!
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