The Monkey Experiment
This illustrates the changes involved in an organizational development, company policy, group behavior, group beliefs and assumptions.
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. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with a cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempts with the same result— all the 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, turn off 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.
Again, replace the third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well.
Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the nwest monkey. After replacing the fourth and fith original monkeys, all the monkeys that have been sprayed with cold water have been repalced.
Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs.
Because as far as they know, that’s the way it has always been around there.
Really good one! I’ve read it before but thank you for refreshing my memory. I got here through your post on g4m! Nice blog!
Yes. It is a good one. It is a good reminder about those silly practices that we get to encounter not only in our workplaces, but in other setting as well, which we dare not to question about.