A Monkey Tale

Some cultural anthropologists did an experiment with ten monkeys. They were all in a big observation room a with pole in the middle and a stash of ten bananas at the top. When a monkey would climb the pole after the bananas, they would get blasted with a stream of water strong enough to knock them down. The monkeys quickly learned that the bananas weren’t worth the cold shower and stopped climbing the pole. One at a time, the scientists replaced the monkeys in the room. The new monkey would be thrilled to see the bananas and immediately climb the pole. To protect the new monkey (and themselves) from the cold blast, the other nine would pull the newcomer down over and over – preventing him from snagging the banana prize. That new monkey would soon learn that for whatever reason, the bananas were off limits…even though he never got wet. The monkeys repeated this behavior nearly exactly for each of the subsequent nine new animals until none of the ten monkeys were part of the original band of wet pets. None of them had ever felt the water, but they were all afraid of getting wet.

So the bananas rotted at the top of the pole and the monkeys settled for a daily, boring ration of food.

This is the power of culture.

What kind of culture are you cultivating?

What fears are you transferring to your fresh team members that are preventing them from the prize they have their sights on?

Are you limited by old threats that may or may not be present currently?

What parts of your organization are stagnant and boring because you are unwilling to take risks?

Are you, though well-intentioned, holding others back because you are afraid of something another told you MAY happen?

Every conversation defines culture.

Every interaction.

Every consequence.

Every lunch date.

Every ignored phone call.

Every review.

Every smile.

Every word of encouragement.

Every monkey.

Be intentional about the culture you are defining. 

Lean Forward, 

Bekka