Evolutionary resolution
Evan Zabawski | TLT From the Editor December 2011
Change the way you behave in 2012.
What kind of monkey will I be?
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WHENEVER I LECTURE ABOUT FRICTION AND WEAR, I cite from Dr. Ernest Rabinowicz’s
A Strategy for Tribology in Canada published by National Research Council Canada in 1986. This document famously stated that Canada was losing an estimated $5 billion per year due to friction and wear—a similar study done later suggested that figure to be $200 billion in the U.S.
What is even more interesting was that Dr. Rabinowicz suggested that 25%-30% of the loss was recoverable using existing technology, and it is with this statistic I try and make a strong point. As an anecdotal aid, I tell the apocryphal tale of the Five Monkey Experiment.
In the experiment, five monkeys are locked in a room with a bunch of bananas hung from the ceiling and a ladder placed beneath them. The room is fitted with sprinklers that will spray the monkeys with cold water if any of them touch the ladder.
Before too long, one monkey approaches the ladder and upon contact all five monkeys are sprayed with cold water. After a couple more of them try climbing the ladder, they soon learn to prevent other monkeys from making the same attempt.
Once this behavior is established, one of the original monkeys is replaced with a new monkey. When the new monkey approaches the ladder, it is attacked by the other monkeys and prevented from touching the ladder. Then another original monkey is replaced and the four other monkeys prevent the next new monkey from touching the ladder.
This is repeated until all five original monkeys have been replaced. Although none of the replacement monkeys have been sprayed with water, they all avoid the ladder. The reason they don’t climb the ladder is because they believe that is just the way things are done around here (sound familiar?).
After I conclude the story and wait for the chuckles and elbow-jabs to die down, I ask, “What kind of monkey are you?” Are you the kind of monkey whose actions reflect direct experience, or are you the kind of monkey who simply follows the old ways without question?
I believe it is this complacent mentality that leaves room for the improvement Dr. Rabinowicz suggested. If you ask a tradesperson where he learned the most about his job, in school or from his mentor, he will most often say it was from his mentor. If you ask how much older the mentor was, the tradesperson will most often answer around 20 years older. Lastly, if you ask the tradesperson where he thinks his mentor learned how to do his job, he will see where you’re going and answer that it was from another mentor who was also around 20 years older.
What this means is that the average tradesperson is being presented with more than 40 years of experience and complacency. They are one of the new monkeys and do not necessarily challenge the old ways out of respect for the older mentors and their experiences.
Now I am not advocating throwing away all that experience but, rather, trying to learn from the experience and not just following the resulting change in behavior. Often the reason was valid at the time, but perhaps it is no longer valid. To this day I still hear the statement “oil is oil,” meaning that any lubricant will suffice in any application. Or I might hear something like, “Well, that gearbox was designed without a filter. Why should I add filtration now?”
I think we can evolve beyond our simian counterparts and act like smarter monkeys: ones who ask questions and seek to understand, not just comply blindly.
As we approach 2012, some of you may be deciding on your New Year’s resolutions, and I am hoping you will consider: What kind of monkey will I be?
Evan Zabawski, CLS, is the senior reliability specialist for Fluid Life in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. You can reach him at evan.zabawski@fluidlife.com.