How you can avoid falling victim to the monkey business illusion

Ability to focus is critical for an effective manager. To put all the digital and old fashioned distractions aside, and be able to focus in on one area, or task, is an absolutely essential skill. Multi-tasking is a bit of a myth, in reality you can only focus on one thing at a time. Our brains flit from one thing to another with a neuro-biological switching cost. Processing ability of the conscious mind is limited, estimated at 120 bits per second. All businesses and NGOs focus in, aim at a certain area, could be target group, or focusing in on delivering a particular product or service. That ability to ‘aim’ is dependent on sight, focusing on what the managers’ value, where the investment, and hopefully the expected return will be.

Cognitive psychologist David Simons reported on a revealing experiment in 1999 on ‘sustained intentional blindness’. You can try it yourself, just Goggle the ‘Monkey Business Illusion’ ‘Daniel Simons’ and you will see a simple two minute YouTube clip.

In the easy to do experiment just count how many times the team in white pass the ball back and forth to each other. When test subjects were shown the video most responded that they saw 16 passes, which is the correct answer. They felt good about getting it right, they passed the test. But then Dr Simon asked them if they saw the gorilla ? “What gorilla was the response, are you joking, I did not see any gorilla”. In watching the clip a second time one can clearly see a person dressed in gorilla suit who walks right into the middle of the game for a few seconds. Yet one out of two research subjects missed it, the first time they saw the video.

“That’s how you deal with the overwhelming complexity of the world: you ignore it, while you concentrate minutely on your private concerns. You see things that facilitate your movement forward, toward your desired goals. You detect obstacles when they pop up in your path. You’re blind to everything else and there’s a lot of everything else – so you’re very blind” writes the Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson in commenting on the experiment. “seeing is very difficult, so you must choose what to see, and the rest go” says the University of Toronto professor.

A variant of the ‘monkey business illusion’ happens in business in Kenya. In the early 1990’s, one of the then dominant market leaders, Barclays Bank of Kenya wanted to gradually reduce the number of branches and rely more on ATMs. Makes sense as a way to reduce costs, and hopefully increase profitability. Barclay’s senior management barely focused on the tiny new entrant, Equity Bank, after all why should they ? Equity focused on what was referred to as the ‘unbanked’, a lower income segment that just wasn’t profitable for a large international bank. Today, Equity has roughly half of all the bank accounts in Kenya, and the largest customer base of 9 million customers. The less nimble, London-based, Barclays PLC which had a presence in Africa since 1925 exited the continent.

Clayton Christensen points out the same in his management classic “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. Dominant market leaders get comfortable, without fail they miss, not succeed in seeing disruptive new technologies, or new product opportunities, just the way many people fail to see the gorilla in the video clip, yet it is right there, in plain sight. That is the essence of the dilemma.

It’s not that the senior management of these successful Dow Jones companies are not capable, they are sharp and often perceptive. Just that, they would easily fail to notice a product or service, that is not seen as a threat.

Same thing can happen in the Kenyan donor and NGO community. A real felt need in a community is identified, a programme is funded, yet with time, as long as the funding continues, management are comfortable, saying all the right things. Given the only constant is change, priorities shift, new service providers appear, and the project is no longer having the impact it once had. Eventually, usually a bit too late the donors realise this, and the funding is cut.

What’s the solution ? How does management avoid falling victim to the monkey business illusion ? First – recognise that it happens. Second -- don’t be like the fish in the fish bowl. Try and see the big picture, get outside of the bubble that you work in. With ever increasing complexity, one can only focus on certain areas, and are often blind to the rest.

Einstein would have likely suggested that the problem solving approach would be to work on two tracks. Examine the problem rationally, use frameworks, visualise it on a problem solving tree, charting out all the issues and possible solutions. And, then apply a dose of ‘out of the box’ creative thinking. All of which requires changing established thinking patterns, and switching into a more productive state of mind.

End of the day, let go of the rigid doctrinaire thinking. [Catch is, like the fish in the fish bowl, no one thinks they are inflexible.] Have the ability to change your point of view. In the words of Winston Churchill, whose leadership changed course of Western history: “Those who never change their minds, never change anything.”