The Five Monkeys Experiment
Five monkeys are placed in a large, caged enclosure. In the middle of the cage is a ladder with a bunch of bananas suspended just above the top rung. Every time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, the experimenter sprays ALL of the monkeys with icy water. Eventually, each time a monkey starts to climb the ladder, the other ones pull him off and beat him so they can avoid the icy spray. Soon, no monkey dares go up the ladder.
The experimenter then substitutes one of the monkeys in the cage with a new monkey. The first thing the new monkey does is try to climb the ladder to reach the bananas. After several beatings, the new monkey learns the social norm. He never knows “why” the other monkeys won’t let him go for the bananas, because he has never been sprayed with ice water, but he quickly learned that this behavior will not be tolerated by the other monkeys.
One by one, all of the monkeys have been replaced, and by the end of the experiment, the 5 monkeys in the cage have learned to follow the one simple rule (don’t go for the bananas!!!), without any of them knowing the reason why. If we could ask these hypothetical monkeys for their rationale behind not letting their cage-mates climb the ladder, their answer would probably be:
I don’t know, that’s just how it’s always been done?
The laws of attrition have governed restaurants longer than we have been working with them. The “Here… You’ve been around the longest… You take the keys” convention is one of the reasons outdated policies stay in place in restaurants long after the need for those strategies has expired.
Let Five Monkeys be your fresh set of eyes. Allow us to ask the tough questions in all areas of your restaurant or bar. Honest answers to these questions will allow us to formulate solutions together that make sense for your restaurant or bar NOW!