LEADERSHIP AND STORYTELLING

Once upon a time there were 5 wise monks who lived in a monastery. They were together in everything they did and the fame of their monastery grew with time. That brought them enemies too and one of their enemies planted a fruit tree in the monastery orchard. When it grew and bore fruit, one of the monks went up to the tree and plucked a fruit to eat. After he ate it he fell ill. After a few days, another of the monks ate one of the fruits and fell ill. The illness spread to the others too and all of them were taken ill. They realised that the illness was caused by the poisonous fruits on the tree and stopped eating its fruits. After some time, one of the monks was transferred to another monastery and a new monk came in his place. He saw the beautiful fruits on the tree and wanted to eat one. The other wise monks stopped him and saved him from eating the poisonous fruit. Over time every new monk who joined the monastery never fell for the lure of the poisonous fruits from the tree planted by their enemies and by passing on their learnings to the newer members, the monastery saved itself. The first monks who ate the fruit and endured the illness, passed on the learning to everyone after them. The knowledge about the poisonous fruit was thus transferred across generations of monks.

This story shows how people and organisations are learning systems that codify knowledge gained at one point in time and by effectively disseminating the knowledge can save future generations from the same mistakes.

However it is strikingly similar to the now oft repeated parable about the experiment with the 5 monkeys, the ladder and the bananas. In the experiment, 5 monkeys are kept in a cage with a ladder in the middle that leads to a bunch of bananas, every time a monkey tried to go up and get a banana, all the 5 monkeys were sprayed with ice cold water. It made it miserable for them. So after a while, the monkeys stop trying to get to the bananas. Now, one of the monkeys is replaced with a new monkey. The new monkey tries immediately to get to the bananas but the other monkeys stop him and beat him up to avoid being sprayed with ice cold water. When a second new monkey is introduced the same happens and the earlier monkey who got stopped and beaten up also joins in stopping the new one. The story ends by saying how when all the 5 monkeys are different from the first ones who got sprayed with water, they still don't go for the bananas and stop any new member from going for it either. Most of the time, this second story is presented as how we are all monkeys and follow practices without understanding the reasons behind it and whether it is applicable today etc.

But both these stories are the same, the first one with wise monks seems to tell you that we learn and transmit knowledge and intelligence and how the wise monks outwitted their enemies who thought that they could finish off the monastery using the poisonous fruits. In the second one, by using the imagery of monkeys the same story is told to tell us how little thought goes into actions of people when they blindly follow a system. Thus by choosing the characters involved and the biases in our minds about those characters (wise monks vs monkeys) these stories change our thought process on the same situation.

To me the difference is in the concept of rationality. The first story shows a rational thought being met with a rational response. The enemies plant a tree with their rationale being that the monks would eat the fruits, fall ill and die. The monks act rationally too by figuring out that its the fruits that cause the problem and ensuring that by passing on that knowledge even the next generations benefit.

In the second story, there is little rationale behind spraying monkeys going after the bananas with water than it being an experiment. We do not know whether the scientists plan to continue to spray water even after the 5 monkeys have been changed or not. But we somehow expect a rational response from the monkeys to an arbitrary situation and leads us to believe that the monkeys are doing things without understanding.

As leaders we tell a lot of stories, lots of parables of monks and monkeys. Many of the stories are the same, its just a question of what you want to convey. Agree?