Boiling Frogs
You’ve heard about the boiled frog experiment right?
It goes like this: If you stick a frog in a pot of boiling water it will jump out or at least try to.
However,
If you stick the frog in cool water and gradually begin to turn up the heat, the frog won’t move. Allow the water to boil and the frog still won’t try and jump out. In many cases the frog will die before it tries to escape. Why? Because the frog’s internal apparatus for sensing threats is based on sudden changes in its environment not gradual ones.
Sometimes it’s hard for us to see the gradual erosion in things as a real problem mostly because we tend to respond to immediate problems. Our internal apparatus, like the frog, typically responds to sudden changes like departmental blow ups, major decreases in attendance, broken pipes with water gushing out of them and stuff like that. The shifts in culture and subtle changes in technology for example, can go unnoticed for some time before organizations realize they’re in hot water. But let’s be honest, no one likes to be the guy in the meeting to talk about a little symptom they see as an issue of concern. Even if you have the courage to be that guy the response is never all that satisfying. It’s either a blank stare, a courtesy nod or if you’re lucky an item “that gets added to next week’s agenda.” As difficult as it can be to try and identify the gradual changes in our organizations, we must try. It’s the gradual erosion of things that ends killing the frog.
