Four Monkeys (The Importance of Asking Why)

A story I know…which, by the way, is completely fabricated…but still true.

There was once a research scientist who was performing an experiment to better understand culture. The scientist was using four monkeys in his experiment (which I’m not endorsing here, but still) who were living in an enclosure. The scientist placed a 6-foot ladder in the middle of the enclosure and then a banana on the top step. The monkeys, seeing the banana, jostled for a moment over who would climb the ladder to claim it before one of them started up the steps. Immediately, the scientist and his assistant sprayed all four monkeys with water from a large hose, sending them scattering to the far side of the cage.

A little time passed, and the monkeys emerged from the corners. One of the monkeys, remembering the banana on top of the ladder, made her way over and began to climb. Again, the scientist and his assistant sprayed all four monkeys with the hose, scattering the monkeys to the far corners of the cage. This scene repeated itself several times until the monkeys became skittish of the ladder and banana. None of them attempted to retrieve it.

The scientist then removed one of the monkeys and replaced her with a new monkey from a different cage. Soon, the new monkey noticed the banana and began to climb. Immediately, the other three monkeys set upon the new member of the group and pulled her from the ladder. When she resisted and again attempted to climb the others became more violent until finally she gave up and retreated, leaving the banana at the top, untouched.

This process repeated itself over several days until finally the scientist had replaced all of the original monkeys with new monkeys. Each time, the new monkey would see the banana and attempt the climb, and each time the other three monkeys would become violent, pulling the climber from the ladder or worse. In the end, the banana remained uneaten, ignored by the four monkeys in the cage, none of whom had ever been sprayed by the scientist with the hose.

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Sound familiar? Most of us have joined a new group at some point in our lives, whether it was as a child or as an adult, in school, or work, or a new social circle. It’s never easy, and it always includes learning not just names and faces but also norms: what the group likes and doesn’t, what it accepts or avoids. In doing so, many of us have heard at some point how things are done and aren’t, and often without explanation. When we asked, we may have even heard the actual words “because that’s how it’s always been done.” Or at least something close.

As an educational leader, I try to remember to approach issues and decisions with a “beginner’s mind” and to ask “why” when examining our collective practice. Why do we deduct a certain percentage of points when students turn in their work late, what are we attempting to accomplish, and are we aligning our practice to our values? Why do we require teachers to fill out these checklists, what legal rule are we trying to comply with, and does that rule actually exist anymore? Why don’t we include student and parent voice in these decisions, how could we do so effectively, and what effect would that have on our culture? These are three somewhat ambiguous but real examples of changes we’ve made at Lincoln School in the past few years after we questioned our cultural assumptions and found that we were making decisions based on outdated or erroneous ideas.

Asking “why” when examining cultural norms or practices does take more time, and it needs to be done respectfully. Often, when questioning why past decisions are made, we find ourselves in the company of those who were there and contributed to that decision. Even if someone didn’t contribute to the decision originally, they may have lived by and even enforced that decision for years. To someone who’s lived said decision, undoing it could feel like a negative judgement about them personally. For this reason, it’s important to explain changes to policy or procedure in relation to the organizational “why” and to explain that organizational change, while sometimes difficult, is a natural and beneficial process.  

Conversely, asking “why” and changing culture also requires that we do our homework. We recently had a conversation as a leadership team about “Chesterton’s Fence Fallacy” and the importance of investigating why a policy or procedure exists before eliminating it to avoid undoing necessary protections. For example, at Lincoln we are accredited by both the Costa Rican Ministry of Education and Cognia Education. There are many, many policies enforced by both organizations and no one has memorized them all. Occasionally, they even seem to conflict and it’s important that we research the policies of each organization to ensure that our students have met the requirements needed to earn the high school diploma. So, due diligence is fundamental in effective decision making, and the difficulty of the work does not negate the need to do that work.   

In the end, asking ourselves and each other why we do things the way we do can be a difficult process of collective introspection. It’s an important process though and one which we must all engage in together, lest we end up as the monkeys: collectively hangry while watching a perfectly good banana go bad.