Every day we hear stories passed around, without a clue where they originate or who started them. I guess it’s all part of our country’s rich storytelling heritage. It's certainly a by-product of the rush to social media and constant conversation. Many of these stories aren’t worth reading, much less repeating. But sometimes one of those stories makes a light go on in your head and you say, “A-ha! Now that makes sense!”
That’s how I felt after reading the following story sent to me on email. I have no idea where it originated or how it got started. My apologies if you’ve read it before or if you’re the original author! If you have a clue where it came from, let me know so I can give the proper credit.
After awhile, another ape makes an attempt with the same result -- all the apes are sprayed with cold water. This continues through several more attempts. Pretty soon, when another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes will all try to prevent it.
Now, completely shut off the cold water and don’t use it anymore. Remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a brand new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and an attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be attacked.
Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer obediently takes part in the punishment, as well. Keep repeating this until all of the original apes have been removed and replaced with new apes.
After replacing the fifth original ape, all the apes originally sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs.
Why not? Because that's the way they've always done it, and that's the way it's always been around here.
How many times have you heard that refrain around your office? “I don’t know. That’s the way it’s always been around here.” Nothing can sap the life out of your business than the attitude that regardless of how things are done, you are powerless to change anything. It robs your company of the entrepreneurial spirit necessary to respond quickly to changing business conditions and contributes to an apathetic workforce.
Instead, what you want is an environment that is conducive to new ideas and innovation. An environment that is always thinking and coming up with ideas and suggestions for doing things in a new and different way. You want your employees – regardless of their position on the org chart – acting like owners of the company and constantly thinking about ways to improve the business and enhancing the long-term value of the company.
There’s no real mystery in how you get to this kind of innovative environment.
- Genuinely ask for and listen to employee feedback. Who better to tell you how to improve a process than the person who performs the job everyday?
- Constantly and consistently communicate company goals and objectives and your progress toward meeting them. You can’t win the game if your players don’t know the score and what they need to do to win.
- Reward innovation publicly. If someone makes a break-through process improvement or initiates something totally new and different, reward that employee in front of his or her coworkers and peers, whether or not the idea is a roaring success. It’s the innovative spirit you’re rewarding, not necessarily the results.
If you follow these three suggestions, you can create an innovative environment where new ideas are proposed with amazing frequency. Best of all, they come from your employees, a group that genuinely wants a more rewarding relationship with you and your company anyway.
Do everything you can to avoid throwing cold water on your best source of innovation – your employees. Keep it up, though, and pretty soon no one will approach the stairs, no matter how big the banana is.
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