Sometimes nature can teach us some lessons that are worthwhile consideration, even for change management processes. Did you ever hear about the “Hundredth Monkey Effect”?

In 1952 scientists were conducting a study of macaques monkeys on the Japanese island of Koshima. They were feeding the wild monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes. But they found the dirt and sand unpleasant. One day, a young monkey discovered that she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream.

She taught this innovation, this change, to her mother and to her playmates. Gradually this new behavior spread through the younger generation of monkeys – in the usual fashion, through observation and repetition. However, this was a slow process. Only those adults who imitated their own children adopted this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes. The change adoption rate was very low.

A couple of years later, 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes – the exact number is unknown. Let us suppose that one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let’s further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes. Then it happened! That same evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added example of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough for change – and led to the fact that the whole monkey community adopted the change after a very short time.

What can we learn from this story (regardless of whether it is just a metaphor or based on true facts)? The “Hundredth Monkey Effect” gives us an important lesson: If only a limited number of people are familiar of the intended change, it will remain the secret of this minority. But obviously there is a point in time at which only one more person, one more idea, one more project, one more effort is enough, to spread the change spirit among everyone! So in change management, we should actively seek after the hundredth monkey to achieve the breakthrough in change and to spread our new ideas and concepts in the whole organization.