Quote:
Originally Posted by Buff
How does that hang around from generation to generation? It truly is frustrating.
|
Have you heard of the gorilla experiment? It's a story that's used to explain how difficult change is for established organizations.
It goes something like this...
Put five gorillas in the cage. In the centre of the cage is a banana, hanging just out of the gorilla's reach. Below the banana is a ladder. If a gorilla goes for the banana, all five are sprayed with water by the scientists outside the cage, which teaches them to associate the banana with pain or discomfort. As soon as they retreat, the water stops spraying.
The next time a gorilla goes for the banana, the others stop him/her because they don't want to collectively be punished.
End stage one. For stage two, replace a gorilla with a new one. The new gorilla, having not been conditioned, goes for the banana. The original four attack the new gorilla and although this gorilla has no idea why, he/she learns not to attempt to get the banana. Now continue until all the gorillas have been replaced and eventually there are five new gorillas, none of whom experienced the original water spraying punishment. Nobody goes for the banana, nobody gets punished. Why? That's just the way things are done here.
The point is that organizational change is hard. People fall into complex social patterns without fully understanding why. Teams that experience success as the norm expect that and so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Meanwhile teams that don't know how to win end up with bad habits they need to unlearn. IMO this is what Sutter talks about when he talks about lack of playoff experience and when he says the team needs to learn how to win.