Monkey See, Monkey Do? That’s How WADITW Kills Company Culture
I’ve heard that phrase in every language, and it’s not the way to do business
I’m not a big language buff, though I’ve certainly had the opportunity to learn many of them. I’ve traveled all over the world. (Actually, I’ve been around the world several times.) I’ve spent significant time outside the U.S.A. — not just quick trips — in other countries. But I’m ashamed to say I never learned the languages of the countries I’ve visited.
But I did learn the most important words and phrases: hello, more, food, bathroom, please and thank you, and, most important, beer. That was the extent of my foreign vocabulary (and, frankly, those worked fine — well, those and a few choice curse words I always seemed to pick up; how does that happen?).
I know what you’re thinking. I’m the epitome of this old joke:
What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Tri-lingual!
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual!
And what do you call someone who speaks ONE language? AMERICAN!
LOL.
So why didn’t I go to the trouble of actually learning the language? First, I never thought I’d stay that long in one particular country or visit it so often. Second, I was older (yeah, lame excuse, but I’m claiming it). Third, I would have had to learn a LOT of languages, and if you don’t use ’em, you lose ’em, as they say. Anyway, the point is, I didn’t learn them.
But I did learn this. Regardless of where I went in my travels, one “international word in business” seems to come up over and over, in every country, and nearly in every work situation. That word is WADITW! Yikes, I hear you say, what’s that mean?
Well, it’s not actually a word. It’s an acronym for “We’ve Always Done It That Way,” and there’s no worse word — or phrase — that I know of for any business enterprise.
WADITW is an anti-progress statement. If you’re trying to get a company to make changes and get WADITW as a response, you can know that it means something like this: “No, we don’t want to hear your incredibly efficient new idea about how to <run our business, change our policies, fix our problems, etc.>. That would mean we would have to change, and we abhor change! Things are mostly OK as they are.”
(Aren’t you glad I didn’t put all of that into an acronym?)
People say WADITW when they fear change, when they are complacent, when they don’t want to work, and they are satisfied with “good enough.” That’s part of WADITW culture, reflected in universal messages (in every language): “What we do is good enough”; “Well, that procedure has been good enough for us over the years”; “I think what we do now is good enough for our company”; and so on.
Don’t go bananas (or forego bananas)
It reminds me of the story about the 10 monkeys, a ladder, a bunch of bananas, cold water and some scientists. The scientists put 10 monkeys in a room with a bunch of bananas on the top of an 8 foot tall ladder. Every single time a monkey tried to climb up the ladder to get the bananas, the scientists would press a button and WHOOSH — all the monkeys got doused with ice-cold water.
Yikes! Pretty soon, after a few “reinforcement training episodes,” the monkeys not only quit trying to climb the ladder themselves, but if any other monkey decided to “give it one more try,” the remaining monkeys pulled that monkey off the ladder and beat that monkey! No cold water for us, buddy, so give it a rest with the banana thing!
Of course, scientists being scientists (they can never leave “good enough” alone, can they?), they took the experiment further. They took one “experienced” monkey out, and put in a brand new, fresh monkey! And what’s the first thing that new monkey did? Why, tried to climb the ladder to get bananas, of course!
And IMMEDIATELY the remaining monkeys yanked that monkey off the ladder and pounded that monkey! Eventually, that monkey gave up and never tried to climb the ladder again. The scientists then changed out another monkey, and another monkey, and another, and the monkeys repeated the process of ganging up on the poor new monkey that decided to try to climb the ladder for the bananas.
The end result, after several changeovers, was a brand-new group of monkeys who had NEVER been sprayed with cold water, yet they wouldn’t dare to climb the ladder (or let anyone else climb the ladder!). The scientists postulated that if the monkeys could talk, and if you could ask them, “Hey, why don’t you climb up there and get those nice, ripe bananas?” the monkeys would reply, “Well, anyone who does that gets beat to a pulp!”
If you continued the conversation and asked why, the monkeys would respond, “We don’t really know, but WADITW!!!”
HA! The moral of the story — well, it’s really a lesson — is to examine WHY you’ve “always done it that way.” Please. Ask probing questions, propose alternatives (well, what if we did it THIS way? Or THAT way?), gather facts, and determine what might result if you did something different.
Don’t be a prisoner to tradition! Explore your creativity, propose scenarios, and, most of all, calculate potential results/improvements (or is there an improvement? Make sure!). You may find your company has value, certainly, in WADITW. You may have refined that process over and over until it works perfectly for you and your company.
But, as someone once said (Let’s say Henry Ford — although a lot of people take credit for this one!), “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” Who wants that? Especially if it means, “Yes, we have no bananas,” today? (That’s an obscure musical reference.)
Now, I’m not recommending you “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” (That’s an odd, early saying, some say, that references when large families, to conserve water, filled a tub with water and each, from the oldest to the youngest, bathed in the same water. By the time you got around to bathing the baby, err, the water was pretty murky, and it was possible to toss the baby when tossing the water.)
Sometimes doing things the way you’ve done them in the past has a lot of value. What we are intimating here is this: Don’t refuse to look at new possibilities! We have access to a tremendous amount of knowledge, virtually at our fingertips, thanks to the invention of the internet (thanks, Al Gore!). We have the ability to search millions of datasets on the web.
As my grandmother always said, “Don’t talk to me about the ‘good ol’ days.’ I remember when bread was a nickel a loaf, and I didn’t have a nickel. Now bread is $2 a loaf, and I can afford to buy as many loaves as I want!”
She had a point. The relative “good ol’ days” are dependent on a particular viewpoint and setting. While we may long for a “simpler time” (wow — what did we do with our time and ourselves before cellular phones? How did I waste so much time before?), we now enjoy the convenience and engagement of today’s technology (especially in emergencies!). The internet DOES seem to come in handy, sometimes, doesn’t it?
Erase WADITW from your business culture
So WADITW should disappear from your vocabulary — or the phrase behind it, if you haven’t been using that acronym. It doesn’t hurt to say, “We’ve always done it this way” if you add, “…but perhaps we should consider other possibilities.”
One of my good friends always said, “Change is good — embrace change!” — and then he would follow it up with “as if you have a choice, anyway!”
It’s true! Change IS going to happen and often happen regardless of our personal efforts. Therefore, making a conscious decision to accept change is a step forward. But we have to act on the decision to accept and incorporate change.
As the old story goes (are you getting the concept that I’m old, yet?), five frogs were sitting on a log and one of them decided to jump. So how many frogs were left sitting on the log?
The answer is STILL FIVE — because DECIDING to jump and actually jumping are two different things!
Make solid decisions to at least evaluate change (not to avoid it or ignore it), to adopt positive change, and to consider new directions in your life. After all, sameness can lead to boredom, and boredom is dangerous (more on that in a another tome).
Be safe by moving ahead with quality change and by evaluating potential positive directions for your business and your life!
The alternative may be getting cold water thrown on you — and who wants that? That’s a punishment in any language!
Mark S Long has long experienced the intricacies of business incubation, acceleration, coworking spaces, makerspaces and other entrepreneurial assistance venues. UF Innovate supports an innovation ecosystem that moves research discoveries from the lab to the market, making the world a better place.
Originally published at http://incubatorblogger.wordpress.com on May 25, 2021.
