Teaching the elephant to dance
... Conditioning can be as paralyzing as teaching the elephant to dance. ... Elephant trainers have to resort to chaining young elephants with heavy chains to deeply embedded stakes. In that way, the elephant learns to stay in its place. ... “We’ve always done it this way” is as limiting to an organization’s progress as the unattached chain around the elephant’s foot. ... For even for the elephants who are victims to conditioning, when the circus tent catches fire – the elephant sees the flames, smells the smoke and forgets its conditioning and breaks free of its bonds.