Merry Christmas - Monkey wants Banana

I received this email when I was in India working for an international organisation and thought it only happened in India, but I was wrong. The story goes like this

Put 7 monkeys (not more not less) in a room. This room has a ladder in the centre and 7 bananas (one for each monkey) on top of the ladder. There are other fruits like mangoes, apples, grapes etc on the ground in abundance. Intelligent Monkeys (oops Humans) are watching what the monkeys are doing from a silver glazed glass window which allows humans to watch monkeys but monkeys can’t see humans.

The rules are:

1. To get the bananas, monkey has to climb up the ladder and grab it.
2. As soon as one monkey tries to climb up the ladder, other 6 monkeys get sprayed with ice water. The water is so freezing that the 6 monkeys start screaming and running around
3. Monkeys can eat any fruit that is lying on the ground but as soon as one tries to get the bananas, others are sprayed with ice water.

After some time monkeys figured out that as soon as some one tries to grab the banana others are sprayed. Instead of thinking of “How to get the bananas”, monkeys make a deal in which who so ever tries to climb up the ladder, others will beat him.

This goes on for some time and, as one monkey tries to climb up the ladder (as the temptation of banana is too big), others fearing that they will be sprayed, they start beating the one trying to climb the ladder.

Now remove 1 monkey from the group of 7 and put a new monkey in.

This new monkey not knowing any rules and deals sees the bananas and tries to get up the ladder, others seeing that the new one is getting up the ladder start beating him (even though they are not sprayed with cold water). The new monkey thinks that it might be a custom to beat someone who tries to go up the ladder.

Now remove another old monkey and put a new one, so there are 2 new and 5 old monkeys.

When the second new monkey tries to go up the ladder, other 6 including the one that was replaced first starts beating the new one. As it is a custom now, slowly and slowly everyone forgets the deal.

Now, slowly and slowly, one by one, remove all the old monkeys and put new monkeys in.

What happens NOW is that whenever any of the monkeys climb up the ladder (because of the temptation) others beat him thinking that it’s a custom of the room not knowing the real deal behind the beating.

In life the story is not different, especially in the corporate world.

Merry Christmas