Elephant in the Room

First published on Medium.

It is often a surprising situation when you notice the elephant in the room. It is almost as if it has popped out of thin air. There are no windows wide enough for it to sneak in, doors not high enough for it to be sneaked in. The pressing issue remains that you and your team are quite uncomfortable with its presence. The elephant needs to go.

Killing is Easy

Once the elephant has been identified and its presence acknowledged, killing it can be a swift procedure. However, clearing the mess is a task. Lugging the mess out is a task. Yet you’ll never know how it came and why it stood there in the corner. You never attempted to understand why it stood there. There was no effort made towards identifying the people responsible for its presence. You saw it and you killed it. Thus paving a way for bulls, dragons and more elephants to appear in your room overnight. Will you kill them all without a second thought? Does it help?

Know the Elephant

1. It will respond to the people responsible for its presence and origin. Discuss this matter with your team, have them approach the beast and check for signs. The elephant is alive, it would prefer staying so. People who can create it have the capability to empathize and walk it out. Find the right ones.
2. There needs to be a system to walk the elephant out. Since the existing door frames and windows are not enough, you will need to break something down and create an exit. Might seem like damage and wasteful expenses, but think about the more sunlight and grander doorways. It is always worth showing an elephant out, no matter what you need to break down.
3. If your room is too small for the elephant, having it out should be the highest of all priorities. Focus your resources and work towards towards an cleaner, healthier work space.

What if the elephant is not a problem? Oh, it might be.

Of course, there is a chance that the elephant is supposed to be there. It might be your product but is pretty helpless because you don’t know what to do with it. Are you trying to make it dance? Are you trying to make it look prettier than it is? Do you want it to race foxes in the woods? That might be a tough task, considering the fact that you have a fully grown elephant standing in the corner of your room.

Stay Conscious

We need to be sure of what we want and what we intend to build. If we want our elephant to dance, we might as well trade it for a few dogs who might do it for us. It is never too late to learn. It is never too late to trade, understand, discuss and walk the beasts out to where they belong. It is never too late to have a cleaner work space.