Five monkeys are sitting inside a cage. A bunch of bananas are hung by a string from the top of the cage with a ladder positioned underneath them. One after another, the monkeys try to climb the ladder to reach the bananas. But each time they try to climb the ladder, they get sprayed with cold water. After several attempts, all the monkeys give up.
One by one the existing monkeys are removed and replaced with a new monkey. The new monkey goes straight to the ladder for the bananas and is immediately and violently pulled off of the ladder by the other monkeys, saving the new monkey from getting sprayed by cold water.
This process continues until there are five ‘new’ monkeys in the room, none of whom have ever been sprayed by cold water. Yet the remaining monkeys continue to stop each new monkey entering the room from climbing the ladder to get the bananas. The monkeys have no idea why they’re doing this; it is now a learned behavior based on life experience.
One day, a new, curious monkey (not George) enters the cage. Before attempting to climb the ladder and grab the bananas, this new monkey consults the sage monkeys with more experience living in the habitat. These wise monkeys happily provide volumes of advice, often waxing poetic, with superior confidence. But without questioning the underlying assumptions of these learned monkeys, the new monkey is one degree away from the truth and lacks the information needed to make a decision on whether to act or not.
If the new monkey had asked the question ‘why?’, the entrenched behaviors and beliefs of the monkey community might have been challenged. Maybe circumstances have changed? Maybe the monkeys won’t be sprayed with cold water if they attempt to climb the ladder again?
Always question key assumptions by asking why. Especially whenever you hear “that’s the way we’ve always done it around here”.