When an elephant trainer first gets a new baby elephant, they put a chain around one leg and tie it to a solid stake in the groud. The baby elephant soon realizes it can’t get away and stops pulling at the stake. They have learned that “escape” is impossible and you know what they say, “An elephant never …… forgets.”
An adult elephant will not try to pull out the stake its leg
is chained to … even though it could do so effortlessly.
The elephant learned that it was “impossible” when they were a
baby and assume it is still “impossible” today.
This is an excellent example of Assumed Constraints… things we assume are impossible - so we never test them.
On your team, Assumed Constraints show up when someone says,
“That can’t be done” or “That will never work.”
Well… in business, the big winner is usually the first company
to do something others think is impossible.
After all, the telephone, automobile and personal computer were all thought to
be impossible at one time.
And in the business world,
The only way to know if something will work or not
is to Try it and See.
As a leader, you cannot allow your team to assume constraints.
One of your Jobs is to help them identify their assumptions and
test them.
One great way to test your “Impossible” Assumption is with a
Pilot Project.
Design a small project with measurable results, adjust based on
the outcome and deploy it when it works. When you pick just one
aspect of your operations to focus your team on each month, you
will quickly see things you used to think were “impossible” begin
to happen in your company.
Do me a favor though, don’t tell the elephant about the stake -
or we will all be in trouble.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
SR 04.14.09 at 3:01 pm
Sometimes, the leader holds the assumptions and beliefs too. The trouble is, they don’t realize it either. What are some ‘red flags’ leaders can look for to begin to question assumptions and old beliefs?
One idea is to listen for the words ‘IS’ and ‘ARE’…(or the negative versions: IS NOT and ARE NOT.) For example, “The accounting department is difficult to work with.” or “Bob and Sandra are not ready to lead their own projects.” ‘IS’ and ‘ARE’ are cue words that might mean your team believes something to be true. These are fun to challenge! “Can’t” is another fun one!
What else could we watch or listen for?
Dike Drummond MD CPC 04.14.09 at 3:10 pm
One powerful reframe - once you realize you might be harboring an assumption - “No one can work with accounting” for example … is to reword this into an open ended question.
In this example it could work like this.
“How can we bring accounting on board with our project?” When a question like this comes from the leader it can be a source of some serious brainstorming and perhaps forging of new connectiong with accounting … instead of the usual silo’s.
My two cents,
Dike
Dr. Evan Spitzaldo 06.30.09 at 3:51 pm
Having worked a lot with training animals in zoos, I can safely say that this elephant analogy is incorrect at best. Elephants are very intelligent creatures. If there is food, or a potential mate beyond that stake, there is no doubt in my mind that it will test the stake once more. Please try to use accurate analogies.