OK, I’m in a philosophical mood.
Researchers caged 4 monkeys in a cage.
This cage had an opening at the top with a ladder that led to a bunch of bananas.
The monkeys obviously decided that this was really great, easy access to food.
So they started to climb the ladder.
Whereupon the researchers inundated the monkeys with ice cold water.
This happened whenever the monkeys tried to climb the ladder to access the bananas.
Several weeks passed.
The researchers removed one of the monkeys and replaced it with another.
The new monkey saw the ladder, open top and the bananas and started to climb the ladder.
The original monkeys left beat the new monkey so that they could avoid being deluged with ice cold water.
Over time all the original monkeys were replaced.
But the beatings continued for any monkey that tried to access the bananas through the ladder/open top hatch.
What is the lesson here?
Any, and all, traditions, this is the way we do things, need to be questioned. What is the source? Why is it done this way? Is there potentially a better way?
Kaizen is the means by which we can incrementally improve ourselves and the systems/processes we use. Question the past habits. Develop new ones that are better but achieve the same results for less work/cost/etc.
Enough for now. I do hope you enjoyed the parable.