“Company Policy”

In case you’re wondering where some of these “Dilbert-type” company policies come from,
here’s a pretty good explanation:

Special Guest Blog Post by Rip Stauffer

Scientists studying behavior in monkeys, put ten monkeys into a cage and let them get used to living there. One day, they opened a small trapdoor in the ceiling of the cage, and hung a banana where the monkeys could climb to get it. Shortly, one monkey spotted it, and climbed up to retrieve it.

As his finger brushed the skin of the banana, BAM! The door next to the cage flew open, and a scientist armed with a fire hose jumped out and sprayed the monkeys down, splattering them all up against the wall. The scientist shut the hose off and ducked back into the next room.

The monkeys picked themselves up off the ground, shook the water out of their fur and looked around, bewildered. After an hour or so, they and the cage were dry again, and the monkeys continued to play, groom, etc. Once they had settled down into their regular routine, the scientists hung another banana from the trap door. Again, a monkey spotted it and went after it. The result was the same as he touched the banana, BAM! Whoosh! They were driven up against the wall again.

This cycle was repeated another time or two, until as a monkey reached for the banana, the other monkeys grabbed him and beat him up. They knew that if he touched that banana, you see, they would all be hosed. Once this behavior was ingrained, the scientists pulled one of the monkeys from the cage, took it to another room, got a fresh monkey, and threw it into the cage with the nine original experimental monkeys.

Once the new monkey was socialized, they again hung the banana. The original nine ignored it, but the new monkey climbed up to get it. As soon as he reached for it, the other nine jumped him and beat him up. It didn’t take many tries before the new monkey stopped trying to get the banana. Once the new monkey had learned, the scientists removed another original monkey, and replaced it with another fresh monkey. This time, when the new monkey reached for the banana, the other nine beat him up (including the monkey that had never been hosed).

They repeated this until there was only one original monkey left. They replaced the last original monkey with a fresh monkey, hung the banana, and sure enough, when the rest of the monkeys saw him climbing up to get the banana, they jumped him and beat him up. None of them had ever been hosed, but there they were, punishing a newcomer for doing something that is inherent in monkey nature. Why? They didn’t know. It’s just the way they do things in that cage!

That is where, unfortunately, company policy often comes from rules that were put in place to deal with different circumstances, emergencies, different technology or levels of understanding; now kept in place because “that’s the way we do things here” or “it’s just our culture.”

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