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Can’t remem­ber where I found this little anec­dote, but it is funny and instructive:

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. Most of 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.

And that, ladies and gen­tle­men, is how com­pany policy begins.The Man Who Wasn’t There psp

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