Ropes & Reflections
A man saw an elephant tied to a tree, beside a brook.
He walked up to the mahout, and asked, “Is this your elephant?”.
The mahout replied, “Yes”.
“Why have you tied him with a rope?”
“So he won’t wander away”.
“Do you think this rope can hold him? It looks rather flimsy for a large elephant. Can’t he break free from this rope easily?”
“Oh, of course”, replied the mahout.
“Then why isn’t he breaking free?”
“Because he thinks he can’t”.
The mahout then went on to explain, “You see, when this elephant was a little elephant, I used the same rope to tie him to a tree to prevent him from wandering away. Whenever he tugged at the rope in an attempt to free himself, the rope hurt his legs, and after a while, he stopped trying! I continued to use the same rope. Now that he is an adult elephant, he has the strength to break free, but his memory of the rope is the same. So he continues to think that he will not be able to break free, and that prevents him from wandering away”.
What you see from the short story above is that it is not the actual rope that is holding the elephant back. It is an imaginary rope that is holding him back! Limiting Beliefs chain you to your current context. Worse, it prevents you from even thinking about possibilities and potential! If the elephant was able to imagine a magnetic future state of being, the sheer energy of that thought would make him tug at his rope and make him free! This is true of an organisation or team or individual.
The key to breaking free of a limiting belief is that you have to challenge your assumptions and beliefs in the first place! Whether you are leading an organization or a business unit or a team.
As a CEO have you felt that the org culture does not allow you to do certain things or that things could be done only this way? If you are a senior manager, have you heard the advice that you are “not yet there” to make the CEO cut? Have you given up on some of your aspirations because you’ve heard “well meaning advice” that you will not succeed there?
The sad thing is most people don’t see it as the belief that’s limiting you. Like the elephant in the story, they see it as their reality and act on it. This is the road to compromise or mediocrity.
Invite you to think :
What are the imaginary ropes holding you or your organization back?
Are you being who you could be or who you are forced to be?
Have you tried tugging at your limiting beliefs?
Hariprasad Menon | Leadership Coach | Organization Culture Change | +91 98809 07070