The Importance of "WHY"

[gre7g]

There's an old story of the railroad employee who was asked why he was tapping the wheels of each freight car. "I don't know," he replied. "They just told me to tap them." It seems silly, but cases like that can be found in many everyday dealings with people. Workers are told what to do but not why

Comments

[flexor]

I'm reminded of an experiment involving monkeys. They'd lock them in a cage, and hang a banana from the ceiling with a ladder underneath. Soon, one of the monkeys would climb the ladder, but then, all the monkeys would get hosed with ice cold water. Soon, they learnt. Nobody goes up the ladder. Any monkey who tried got attacked by the rest who wanted to stay dry thankyouverymuch. So then, phase two started. One of the monkeys was switched for a naive monkey who'd never been sprayed. It, of course, went straight up the ladder only to be attacked furiously by the rest of the monkeys. Then, yet another "wet" monkey was swapped for a "naive" one. It went straight up the ladder, to be attacked by the rest of the monkeys, including the "dry naive" one. One by one, they switched all the "wet" monkeys for "dry" one, never hosing them down at all. Then, at one point, all the "wet" monkeys had been swapped for "dry" ones, but still any monkey going for the ladder would be attacked

[gre7g]

I've heard of that experiment before. Good example!