http://johnmaxwellonleadership.com/
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"Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born." (Dale Turner/John C. Maxwell)
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There's an official holiday coming up (1/17 MLK Day) named for a man who had a dream. We can still hear his words and feel the emotion they inspired.
John C. Maxwell's post on January 3 asks us if we have any dreams for 2011. Not all of us dare to dream about what could be. Some of us, as Maxwell points out, had dreams that were actively discouraged: "The world is filled with dream crushers and idea killers. Why? Some people without dreams of their own hate to see others pursuing theirs ... Others think they're being helpful: keeping us from risk or hurt."
In an absolutely brilliant description, Maxwell relates how Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad wrote about an experiment conducted with a group of monkeys. Four monkeys were placed in a room with a tall pole in the center. Suspended from the top of that pole was a bunch of bananas.
One of the hungry monkeys started climbing the pole to get something to eat, but just as he reached out to grab a banana, he was doused with a torrent of cold water. Each monkey made a similar attempt, and each one was drenched with cold water. After making several attempts, they finally gave up.
Then researchers removed one of the monkeys from the room and replaced him with a new monkey. As the new monkey began to climb the pole, the other three grabbed him and pulled him down to the ground. After trying to climb the pole several times and being dragged down by the others, he finally gave up and never attempted to climb the pole again.
The experiment continued into a very fascinating area with a surprising conclusion (hopefully, you'll read Maxwell's post to find out what that was.). For our purpose, the point here is clear: don't be discouraged by what others tell you about your dream. As Maxwell says, it's never too late to start dreaming.
We'd like to put a small caveat on Maxwell's thought: your dreams have to be realistic - not everybody can be a rocket scientist.
Becoming the best that you can be (and potentially the best) at what you CAN do is noble goal. This works especially well if it is something that you are interested in.
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Love the story, and it's a fascinating conclusion. Yes, Maxwell uses it in the context of chasing your dreams, but there are implications in the corporate world.
ReplyDeleteMost companies are self-serving. You have the people who are there who have tried things that failed. Theoretically a company would continuously bring in new talent with new ways of thinking. What really happens though is that people are told "We've tried that before, it didn't work." I'm probably told that at least once a week with my new ideas.
The thing is - we don't know why they failed.
A successful company needs to overcome that cycle, and give new ideas the opportunity to bubble up to the top. Ideas don't all fail because they're bad, they usually fail on execution.
This blog post inspired me to write my own :)
ReplyDeletehttp://behindcompanies.com/post/2597734118/monkeys-climbing-a-pole
Marcelo: thank you. Several other people have told me they liked this post. The monkeys climbing a pole thing is culture and CEOs don't pay enough attention to that!
ReplyDelete