How Policies are Established
*Consider eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder,
leading to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling.***
*Each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed
with ice water, which makes them miserable.***
*Soon enough, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the
other monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed, set upon him and beat him up.
Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder.***
*One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in
the room. Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the
other monkeys are doing the obvious. But undaunted, he immediately begins
to climb the ladder.***
*All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly. He has no idea
why. However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder.***
*A second original monkey is removed and replaced. The newcomer again
attempts to climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys hammer the crap out
of him. This includes the previous new monkey, who, grateful that he's not
on the receiving end this time, participates in the beating because all the
other monkeys are doing it. However, he has no idea why he's attacking the
new monkey.***
*One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Eight new monkeys are
now in the room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of
them attempt to climb the ladder. All of them will enthusiastically beat up
any new monkey who tries, without having any idea why.***
*This is how any company's policies get Established.
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Washer-Man and Donkey
Old Story :
There was once a Washer-Man who had a donkey and a dog. One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the Washer-Man was fast asleep but the donkey and the dog were awake. The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson. The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn't bark, the donkey will have to do something himself.
The dog did not change his mind and the donkey started braying loudly. Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason.
Moral of the story " One must not engage in duties other than his own"
Now take a new look at the same story...
The Washer-Man ( Jr ) was a well educated man from a premier management institute. He had the fundas of looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night. He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it. Looking at the donkey's extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and donkey became his favorite pet.
The dog's life didn't change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dogs duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed a " meets requirement" . Soon the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around.
The donkey was rated as " star performer". The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards. Soon he was over burdened with the work day & night and always under pressure and now is looking for a job rotation...
Disclaimer:
All characters in the story are not at all imaginary. Any resemblance to person living or dying of work is purely intentional.
