Entrenched Mental Model

Let me begin with a story. 

The story is about two men who fish for leisure and the catch will be cooked into palatable dish for a meal.  “Lao Fu Zi” is the elder of the two and the other is “Da Fan Shu”.  They are strangers to each other. 

One fine afternoon, both stood beside each other along a river bank. The spot where they stood was considered a good spot to cast their fishing lines. After some time, there was movement on the fishing line of Lao Fu Zi.  Lao Fu Zi without much effort reeled the fishing line and picked up the fish.  He took a measuring tape and measured the length of the fish. The fish was 1.5 feet long. Lao Fu Zi glanced at the fish and without much thought, released the fish back into the river. Da Fan Shu looked at Lao Fu Zi and he was puzzled at the action of Lao Fu Zi.  

15 minutes later,  Lao Fu Zi again caught another fish.  He reeled in the fishing line and released the fish this time smaller in size but was 1 foot in length and without hestitation, he threw the fish into the river. This time, Da Fan Shu stared hard at Lao Fu Zi. He was still puzzled on why Lao Fu Zi did what he did by releasing his catch back in to the river. Da Fan Shu waited patiently for any movement on his fishing line… but there was none.

Another 15 minutes had passed and luck was not with Da Fan Shu but Lao Fu Zi was again reeling in his fishing line and carrying out his routine of measuring the length of the fish. However, this time Lao Fu Zi decided to keep the smaller fish instead of releasing it into the river as in the previous occasions.

Da Fan Shu was totally confused on seeing Lao Fu Zi keeping the fish. He decided to seek clarification from Lao Fu Zi.

Da Fan Shu asked Lao Fu Zi on why he kept the smaller fish instead of the bigger fishes he had caught earlier?  

Lao Fu Zi explained that he had released the bigger fishes back into the river because their lengths could not fit nicely into his frying pan which had a diameter of eight inches. Thus he needed fishes which measured not more than eight inches.  

Think about the eight inches frying pan in this story.

The frying pan is fixed in size. We cannot change the size of the frying pan unless we replace it with a bigger frying pan. Similarly, our physical environment is which we live is also largely fixed and it cannot be easily change. We feel uncomfortable with the hot and humid weather, can we change  the weather? We cannot change the environment but we can design innovative solutions to overcome the hot and humid weather. The air conditioner is just one of the many innovative inventions.

In the story, can Lao Fu Zi keeps the bigger fish but slices the fish into two  to fit into his frying pan? The answer is obvious but he chooses otherwise. Think about it………….  

In our daily life, how many of us are like Lao Fu Zi with a fixed mindset. We feel comfortable to conduct our business in the way we are used to, we use traditions and customs to justify doing the same thing year after year, we frown and shake our heads in disapproval on innovative ideas departing from traditions and customs, we shun new thinking, we are afraid to speak up for fear of being admonished in public…… etc.  We prefer a status quo.

Our environment is constantly changing and to keep up, we have to review our traditions and customs. Blindly following them is no different from the approach adopted by Lao Fu Zi in the story of not wanting to find solutions to fit his frying pan? If we are fixated to old solutions, we are not going anywhere. We are only giving others an opportunity to level up with us and perhaps bypass us one day.

To move ahead, we need to be smarter and we cannot learn something new by looking at what we already know. We need to innovate and strategise to move ahead.

For people with a fixed mindset, please think again because as a community, we need to move as a team. We need to solve challenges as a team instead of creating own obstacles for the team along the way in view of old mindset.