You’re at work on a project that you’re passionate about and you have some challenges. One of those challenge is politically motivated by a group who’s been around for awhile. They tell you, “we can’t change X because that’s the way we’ve always done it.” You listen and think about what was said, and more importantly how you’re going to inspire change so that you can move on with your project. And the status quo are in the way- the current state of social and political climate is comfortable after all.
After some research for new MBA basics, I came across articles about the status quo via the experiment of Paplov’s monkeys.
“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 towards the banana.
As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result — all the other 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, put away 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.
Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
The monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water.
Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know, “that’s the way it’s always been done around here.”
The cage represents a team working on a project. You can isolate team members one at a time by making them team lead. Tell the team as the leader/manager what is not to be done and only have the team members punished when the “not to be done” occurs. Replacing team members over time to incorporate culture change for a section of an organization is not enough.
So how can the status quo be changed? Some relief can be had through change management. Mark Murphy with Forbes discusses two solutions possible when employing change management and facing the status quo:
Solution 1: Stay away from anything that will scare the status quo. The thought is to avoid scaring away the best help.
Solution 2: Explain the risks of doing nothing. Not changing could jeopardize efforts. Motivate others to change and explain how skills and talent available will help effect change.
Providing the “why” for change assists buy in from others. Explaining the consequences of doing nothing, continuing the status quo, helps show the seriousness of the change needed.
References
(Photos courtesy of frugalintrovert.blogspot.com)
