This story was developed for a large organisation that had, at the time, a number of IT outsource partners that needed to work together more efficiently within the same infrastructure. Everyone had a very different view of “what was going on” and there were frequent conflicts and system problems. Rationalisation and downsizing was in the air. A allegorical/anagogic story was developed to get everyone onto the same page – this story is in the African Dilemma Tale tradition.
Once there was, and once there was not, a land where there were 5 very different kinds of ducks that lived on a large sprawling farm in 5 separate ponds. They were all beautiful and exotic in their own way – there was little painted duck who was very wise – he knew where everything was (expand into personaility of individual ducks here).
>And although they never met because there were large hills that separated the ponds, they used to quack loudly to each other over the mountains all day as they went about their business. They lived happily like this for many years, quacking to each other (and only knowing each other through their quacking). There was lots of food around and the ducks grew fat and happy in their isolation over the years. Then one day, one little painted duck overheard a conversation the farmer was having with someone from the Bank. There was trouble. The man from the Bank said that there was little sense in these 5 ducks – as beautiful as they were – each occupying a pond of their own. ‘We need to put all the ducks in the same pond. They are very different, lets see what happens when they get together. Maybe they will breed and make altogether different types of ducks that everyone will want – there are plenty of other farmers who are looking at what you are doing – if you get this right, the farm will make profits.’
‘You are right, said the farmer as they walked away, ‘I can see that one big pond will be much better than 5 smaller ponds – I will only have to visit the one pond every day’.
There was much quacking across the mountain that night. ‘What will become of us?’ quacked the ducks. ‘We don’t even know each other!’ ‘How big will the new pond be?’ ‘How will we get to the new pond?’ ‘What is the water like in the new pond?’ ‘are there fat grubs and juicy worms to eat?’ ‘what happens if we don’t like each other when we are in the same pond?’ ‘who will become the alpha duck?’ ‘where do ducks come from?’ ‘What will the farmer do if we don’t want to mate?’. The ducks didn’t sleep at all that night. And when dawn broke, their calls mingled with the sound of mechanical shovels in the pond downstream. Something was happening at last….but what would happen to the ducks? TO BE CONTINUED…
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