Where's the banana?

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put 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 monkeys with cold water. After awhile, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result. Pretty soon, when any monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, turn off 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 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. Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat 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 the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because that's the way it's always been around here. And that's how company policy begins...

The real life

Since I been working I have seen the power struggle of people always trying to get on top of the world. You have two kinds of people, ones that do not care and ones that want to climb the ladder.

It seems that certain people want to climb the ladder to fast, they think they should be on the next rung within days after they start. I sit there and wonder what did these people accomplish? What do they have to show you?

Then you have the company that sits there and watches with wonderful promises and never seem to react on them. They seem to forget the people that are working hard and find new people to move up into their places?

Now I have no degree in business, but I can see the mistakes made by these companies. They think they can hire the upper people in the company from other sources instead of using the crew they already have. Does this make the lower rung employees happy to see their opportunity filled by a person from outside?

To me companies are looking for the fast lane to making money. They forget that they have a turn signal and a rearview mirror. They forget to look back at their employees and turn blindly into the left lane. They are in the position that they are in with the employees they have on their back. It might be better to look into the mirror than risk moving into the fast lane and causing an accident. If the accident happens they are going to have to start all over again and your insurance goes through the roof.