Avoid the fate of the frog

So often, people fall into this trap. Like the frog they get complacent: “Benefits are good (water is getting lukewarm), the company is doing well (wow! the water is getting warmer and comfortable; let me take another lap), my bonus targets are good (let me take more leisurely laps), and I will retire here and live happily there after (internal system is almost paralyzed but I don’t notice it).”

While enjoying such perks, they fail to see that the competition (inside and outside) is getting intense; and just like the poor frog, they get boiled without even noticing it.

Hint: you can click on the cartoon to enlarge it.

Comments

[Jerry]

I too suspected the biology of the original frog story was a little off. Perhaps this is one advantage frogs have over complacent types of people? I can imagine a lot of folks formerly employed by tech titans like Sun, SGI felt like the good times would last forever. I wonder if Google is now in this category?

Anyway, I just figured out why those two guys are in a hot tub now... your cartoon is a little obscure but I got it eventually.

[Stephane Grenier]

That's a perfect analogy! Acting alone is 90% of success.

[Learning]

“Learning disabilities are tragic in children, but they are fatal in organizations. Because of them, a few corporations live even half as long as a person-most die before they reach the age of forty.” says Peter Senge in Fifth Discipline, a book on building learning organizations” -- organizations that defy these odds, that overcome learning disabilities to clearly understand threats and recognize new opportunities. Not only is the learning organization the source of competitive advantage, it also offers a marvelously empowering approach to work, one which promises that, as Archimedes put it, with lever long enough…single handed I can move the world.

[Shoshi]

Key is to not wait for someone (boss etc) to light a fire under you but to find opportunities to turn up the heat yourself; get out of you comfort zone and see where it takes you!

[About to be broiled]

THE PARABLE OF THE BOILED FROG
Maladaptation to gradually building threats to survival is so pervasive in systems studies of corporate failure that it has given rise to the parable of the “boiled frog.” If you place a frog in pot of boiling water, it will immediately try to scramble out. But if you place the frog in room temperature water, and don’t scare him, he will stay put. Now, if the pot sits on a heat source, and if you gradually turn up the temperature, something very interesting happens. As the temperature rises from 70 to 80 degrees F., the frog will do nothing. In fact, he will show every sign of enjoying himself. As the temperature gradually increases, the frog will become groggier and groggier, until he is unable to climb out of the pot. Though there is nothing restraining him, the frog will sit there and boil. Why? Because the frog’s internal apparatus for sensing threats to survival is geared to sudden changes in his environment, not to slow, gradual changes.

Learning to see slow, gradual process, requires slowing down our frenetic pace and paving attention to the subtle as well as the dramatic. If you sit and look into a tidepool, initially you won’t see much of anything going on. However, if you watch long enough, after about ten minutes the tidepool will suddenly come to life. The world of beautiful creatures is always there, but moving a too slowly to be seen at first. The problem is our minds are so locked in our frequency, it’s as if we can only see at 78 rpm; we can’t see anything at 33 1/3. We will not avoid the fate of the frog until we learn to slow down and see the gradual process that often poses the greatest threats.
Source:Fifth Discipline

[Mark Dennen]

Reading "About to be broiled's comments" reminds of deer hunting in the woods. Initially, one tramps into the woods (in the dark) making all kinds of noise, hearing nothing, being preoccupied with just finding a suitable place to sit (for most of the day). Upon sitting, the woods seems incredibly quiet (and partially it is as one's entry has disturbed everything), but slowly your senses become heightened and the woods come alive with an incredibly amount of activity, most of which one misses when just "walking through". How similar this is to life as we "work out way through" with such a myopic focus, but hopefully, upon retirement, we can slow down and see those wonderful things far beyond ourselves.

[Bobby]

Reminds me a proverb someone told me a while ago. "A good decision made today is better than a more thought out decision made tomorrow".