The Most Suitable Person in the Most Suitable Position

An experiment had been carried out by the University of California : Put 6 monkeys into 3 empty rooms, 2 in each room. An equal amount of  food was placed inside each room, but at different positions and height.

In the first room, the food were put on the floor. In the second room, the food were placed at various levels, from easily accessible to difficult positions. In the third room, the food were hung on the ceiling.

After a few days, a monkey in the first room was found injured and the other dead. Both monkeys in the third room were dead, while the monkeys in the second room were still alive and healthy.

The reason is : when the monkeys in the first room entered and saw the food on the floor, they started fighting for it resulting in one injured and one dead.

In the third room, although the monkeys had tried hard to reach for the food, they failed due to the height and were starved to death.

For the monkeys in the second room, they obtained the food with their own effort in the beginning. With the complete consumption of food at the easily accessible positions, they had to cooperate with each other by stepping onto the back of their counterpart to jump high to reach for the food. In this way, they had food everyday.

In the eyes of the management of a company, it is difficult to determine the best team. If the hurdle or target is set at a low level, everybody can carry out the assigned duties. The capability of each individual is not easily shown. Instead it may lead to internal fighting and bad competition, just like the monkeys in the first room.

If the hurdle or target is too high, although the team members have tried with great effort, nothing is achieved. Even a person's talent is not discovered and therefore wasted, like the monkeys in the third room.

It is only when the team members are placed in a suitable position according to gradual difficulty, then only a person's capability and wisdom can be unleashed.