Friends of mine were medical missionaries in Cameroon for many years. The local folk had legends about demons that would occasionally arise out of a local lake and steal the souls of the local villagers. Westerners in general tried to educate the locals that there are no such things as demons, and that there was nothing to fear from the lake.
Then on August 21st, 1986 all the livestock and people around Lake Nyos were found mysteriously dead. There was no sign of violence or disease, they had simply dropped dead. Sounds like an episode of X-Files, doesn't it?
It turns out that the lake was actually an ancient caldera and that it periodically out gassed huge amounts of carbon dioxide. The 1986 out gassing traveled at 100 KM/Hour and suffocated everyone in the area. There may not have been demons in the lake, but those legends had helped keep local folks vigilant and safe for centuries. As bizarre as their legends were, the locals needed them. Many cultural legends persist because they are adaptive in some hidden way.
The same may be true in your own organization. Is there an organizational legend or superstition that really annoys you? Be very careful about changing or eliminating it until you understand what the adaptive benefits are. The story may be all wrong but the results may be critical.
© 2008, Mark Ragar Schneider, All Rights Reserved
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