Another Elevator Lesson

One of my favorite memories from an off-site sales meeting was when one of our top sales people decided to “decorate” the elevator in our hotel.  Art was easily the funniest person in our group and he knew how to make any meeting memorable. The accommodations were top notch.  However, for a rambunctious sales team in general and for Art in particular, the resort and was more than a little stuffy.  The facility housed expensive paintings, used tasteful lighting, and everyone in the place went out of their way to give us pleasant greetings.  To some it might have felt over done, but only Art decided that a practical joke was in order to lighten everyone up.

The elevator was an easy target.

The “decoration” of choice was a three-foot-tall concrete pillar filled with large indoor plants.  It was a gorgeous planter, but if there’s one universal truth with every elevator used, elevators are for “active loading and unloading only” – no planters.  And,  this was an enormous planter relative to the floor space.

At first, most of us didn’t think anything about the new “passenger” on board with us.   It gave us a chuckle. However, over the next day or two we realized the absurdity of what was going on.  Nobody was moving this gigantic space-eater back to its proper location.  We waited and waited for the hotel employees to respond to Art’s tomfoolery, but, alas, it remained as the only vertically mobile planter in the state.  Every time we rode that elevator, we couldn’t help but laugh.  I remember riding the elevator with a couple of different employees and it was all that I could do to keep a straight face.

Four days later, on the morning that our group was checking out, the planter had FINALLY returned to its proper place. One- Two -Three – FOUR days later!  For four days guests-  hotel employees – management – bell staff – all rode the elevator and never commented on or corrected the presence of an out-of-place garden planter.  How is this possible?  Perhaps they were:

• inattentive
• used to extravagant behavior from the property designers
• not responsible for that section of the hotel
• letting their guest have fun at the expense of efficiency
• nature lovers

I won’t ever know the explanation for the hotel staff behavior.   In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was different for each employee.  However, as I contemplate this story, I can’t help but conclude that whatever the individual explanation for inaction, it was a group failure.  In Psych 101, the experts would call this a classic case of “diffusion of responsibility.”  In shorthand, that’s the phenomenon of “group think” where everyone assumes that someone else will do something about the problem, so they don’t have to.  Everyone who took that elevator failed to question the reasonableness of having a gigantic container garden on one of the least spacious environments in the whole resort… the elevator.   Each employee let the pot stay.  Each employee had some reason not to act or question something so absurd.  It’s like The Ham Story in a corporate environment. Failure to question is just as ineffective as failing to act.

It is a cautionary tale.  If you see something around you that flies in the face of all logic, do something.  It may be that someone may be stifling a laugh at your expense.