【Butterfly Effect】【Frog Phenomenon】【Crocodile Rule】 【Catfish Effect】 【Herd Effect】 【Hedgehog Rule】 【Watch Law】 【Broken Window Theory】【80/20 Rule】【Bucket Theory】 【Matthew Effect】 【Birdcage Logic】 【Diffusion of Responsibility Effect】【Parkinson's Law】 【Halo Effect】【Hawthorne Effect】【Learned Helplessness Experiment】【Witness Memory】【Rosenthal Effect】【False Consensus Bias】 【Butterfly Effect】
The Butterfly Effect: In the 1970s, an American meteorologist named Lorenz explained the air system theory and said that a butterfly wing flapping in the Amazon rainforest might cause a tornado in Texas, USA two weeks later.
The Butterfly Effect refers to how very small changes in initial conditions can be amplified over time to create significant differences in future states. Some minor things may seem insignificant, but if these are amplified within a system, they can have important implications for an organization or country.
Today’s companies are also affected by the "butterfly effect." Consumers increasingly rely on feelings, so brand consumption, shopping environment, service attitude... these intangible values become factors influencing their choices. Therefore, we often see sentences like this in the corporate philosophies of well-managed companies:
"In your statistics, out of 100 customers, only one is dissatisfied, so you can claim that only 1% is unsatisfactory. But for that customer, what they receive is 100% dissatisfaction."
"You once treated a customer poorly, and now the company needs ten times more effort, or even more, to make up for it."
"In the eyes of customers, you represent the company."
Today, the "butterflies" that can change the fate of enterprises are no longer just the "planned hand." With China Unicom participating in telecommunications competition, private enterprises contracting railway special trains, foreign-funded enterprises in Nanjing participating in bus competition and other news emerging, enterprises' monopoly positions are becoming less secure. Open competition forces enterprises to consider various potential factors affecting development.
Measures such as streamlining institutions, officials leaving their posts, canceling welfare housing, etc., are making more and more people move away from traditional guarantees. As a result, individuals must rely on themselves to determine their fate. The outcome of the combination of organizations and individuals is: whoever can capture the "butterfly" beneficial to life will not be abandoned by society.
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【Frog Phenomenon】
Frog Phenomenon: If you put a frog directly into hot water, because it is very sensitive to adverse environments, it will quickly jump out of the pot. If you put a frog into cold water and gradually heat it up, the frog will not immediately jump out of the pot. The final result is that the frog is boiled alive because when the water becomes too hot for the frog to bear, it is already too late or unable to jump out of the pot.
The Frog Phenomenon tells us that gradual events often easily raise people's vigilance, while what leads people to death is being in a self-satisfied situation, where they fail to notice the gradual deterioration of actual circumstances.
One implication is: the main threat to our organizations and social survival does not come from sudden events, but from slow, gradual, and imperceptible processes. People are short-sighted, only seeing part of the picture and unable to grasp the whole, able to calmly face sudden changes, but unable to detect quietly occurring major changes, which ultimately bring greater harm!
Another implication is: frogs are like ordinary people in our lives. We should look to the future, think about new problems diligently, and learn new knowledge diligently. We cannot live a drunken life of "if I have wine today, I'll drink it today" and "be a monk for a day, strike the bell for a day." In the end, it will be extremely regrettable!
A third implication is: today's society is an era of knowledge explosion and rapid progress. Knowledge also needs constant updates, so we should not indulge in the status quo or be complacent, unwilling to strive for progress. If we continue down this path, we will definitely be eliminated by the times and face the risk of unemployment.
A fourth implication is: we should not simply face dangers from the sky and ignore those slow and subtle dangers, because those slow and subtle dangers are the most terrifying!
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【Crocodile Rule】
The Crocodile Rule: Its original meaning is that if a crocodile bites your foot, and you try to free your foot with your hand, the crocodile will bite both your foot and hand. The more you struggle, the more it bites. So, Zhao Yazhi (a famous actress), if a crocodile bites your foot, your only option is to sacrifice a foot.
For example, in the stock market, the Crocodile Rule means that when you find your trade going against the market direction, you must stop losses immediately without any delay or harboring any luck.
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【Catfish Effect】
In the past, during transportation, the survival rate of sardines was very low. Later, someone found that if a catfish was placed among the sardines, the situation improved, and the survival rate increased significantly. Why?
It turns out that after entering an unfamiliar environment, the catfish becomes restless and swims around everywhere, undoubtedly stirring the mostly quiet sardines. The sardines, noticing the presence of this "outsider," naturally become tense and swim faster. This solves the problem of oxygen deficiency for the sardines, and they do not die.
When an organization's work reaches a relatively stable state, it often means a decrease in employee enthusiasm. A harmonious group is not necessarily an efficient one. At this point, the "catfish effect" plays a good "medical" role. If there is always a "catfish-like" person in an organization, it will undoubtedly activate the employee team and improve performance.
The "catfish effect" is one of the effective methods used by enterprise leadership to stimulate employee vitality. It manifests in two aspects: one is that enterprises continuously introduce fresh blood, bringing in young energetic and quick-thinking new forces into the workforce and even management, giving those who are stuck in their ways and lazy employees and bureaucrats competitive pressure, thus awakening the survival awareness and competitive spirit of the "sardines." Second, constantly introducing new technology, new processes, new equipment, new management concepts, enabling the enterprise to navigate the waves in the market tide, enhancing survival capabilities and adaptability.
Regarding the application of the catfish effect, there are applications in human resource management and leadership activities, specifically including the establishment of competitive mechanisms, promotion of capable individuals, transformation of leadership styles, etc. However, I believe the analysis and application of the catfish effect go beyond these. Different perspectives on thinking about problems lead to different methods of discovering and solving problems.
Firstly, if the catfish represents the leader.
A leader is an individual or group that influences others to achieve tasks. In a dead-end sardine tank, the sardines symbolize a highly homogeneous group with similar skill levels, lacking innovation and initiative, having excessive personnel, and low efficiency, making the entire institution bloated. The arrival of a catfish leader (or the evolution of internal sardines into catfish) brings three decisive actions: reorganizing discipline, standardizing systems, reforming processes, reasonably allocating positions and resources, gradually improving the organization's operation, reducing costs, simplifying bloated structures, eating or driving away incompetent sardines, positively encouraging capable sardines, thus presenting a thriving atmosphere under the leadership of the catfish leader, mobilizing the entire organization's vitality, making the collective strength stronger, firmly occupying and retaining the market.
From this perspective, a catfish leader should possess the following traits:
1 - Decisive action and efficiency: Quickly identifying the symptoms of organizational stagnation and effectively resolving them.
2 - Keeping promises and authoritative style: Scientific decision-making and supervision of its execution, timely evaluation of policy effectiveness.
3 - Advocating innovation and results-oriented: Promoting innovation, shaping an atmosphere that encourages innovation, reflecting innovative thinking in business processes, job design, personnel recruitment and allocation, compensation design and evaluation.
4 - Achievement orientation and forward-looking vision: Having short, medium, and long-term development plans and goals, being able to predict the direction of organizational development and the gap between existing human resources and future needs, effectively identifying future talents, eliminating those dragging behind organizational development.
5 - Systematic perspective and willingness to change: Observing changes and functions in the organizational system from inside and outside the system. Being part of the organization (relative to the fisherman, the catfish leader is also a sardine, the fisherman is the leader), viewing oneself as the leader of a small system, leading the workforce to break conventions and achieve good benefits.
For employees working under a leader towards common goals, if the leader has catfish characteristics, then the way to survive is to get active, stimulating one's energy, at least keeping pace with the catfish, ensuring the same direction (corporate goal), so as not to be caught and eaten by the catfish or squeezed to the back and suffocated by other sardines.
Secondly, if the catfish represents a member of the team.
Then it symbolizes novelty, uniqueness, including different viewpoints, behaviors, and habits. Because of these differences, wisdom is stimulated. A team needs members with different personalities, skills, and work experiences. If all employees are the same, the possibility of the team generating creative ideas and high performance is negligible. Today, with emphasis on team building and communication, appropriately attracting some catfish to join the team will bring a lively working atmosphere, innovation, and win-win outcomes. However, the number of catfish should be controlled; if all are catfish, the team will appear as "all heroes individually, overall chaos," because each catfish wants to maintain its own view, cooperation and communication cease to exist, and the team falls apart. Some Japanese companies believe in the "first-class managers, second-class employees" employment creed; since one catfish can stir up a group of fish, there is no need for a second one. The principle is similar to "two tigers cannot coexist on the same mountain." From this perspective, catfish members in the team should focus on benign communication and influence building, and other employees should collaborate with the catfish based on work.
Thirdly, if the catfish represents invigorating work content.
Nowadays in many enterprises, organizational structure and job design remain key issues in process reform. Unreasonable, monotonous, uninteresting, no prospects, boring work makes people feel like a bucket of crowded sardines, unwilling to think or improve much on their positions, gradually forming collective inertia. If the catfish effect of expanding and enriching work can be applied to job design (Jobdesigning), the financial contribution to the organization is obvious. How to place active, passionate catfish in stagnant work? This is a tricky science. Some suggest expanding work scope horizontally and vertically, deepening work content, allowing employees to experience rich work activities, feeling the achievement of hard work, letting them experience excitement and desire facing challenging, invigorating work; some advocate using job rotation to increase employees' talents, making their catfish swim more happily; I propose that while using these methods, attention should also be paid to matching people with job characteristics. Catfish should do catfish work, sardines should do sardine work, jobs should include both catfish-like and sardine-like content. Most importantly, discover employees' preferences, see which jobs can make them generate catfish-like energy and passion. Only after proper matching can the catfish effect truly play its role; otherwise, even setting catfish-like work content, if it fails to touch or motivate employees, that catfish becomes a dead fish.
From this perspective, work-related catfish represent rich work content, exciting responsibilities and powers, challenging work aspirations, fresh experiences in other positions, etc. For leaders and HR managers, whether to set catfish work and at what level, will be a strategic issue for the organization.
In summary, analyzing from different angles, the content represented by the catfish varies. For a practitioner, the leader might be the catfish, so your efforts should align with the organization's direction, not moving backward, otherwise, there is a risk of being eaten. Always full of passion moving upward, maybe one day you become a catfish, driving a group of sardines to strive upward; your colleague might be the catfish, so compete with them to see whose stirring energy is greater; your subordinate might also be a catfish, so while encouraging subordinates to grow, don't forget to recharge yourself, maintaining strong momentum, otherwise, you might be eaten by your subordinates; your work might also have a catfish, so reasonably arrange your work, distinguish priorities, let the catfish work swim happily, ideally reaching the next level of the position to stir things up.
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【Herd Effect】
Herd Effect: Wherever the head sheep goes, the rest follow.
The Herd Effect originally comes from stock investment terminology, mainly referring to the learning and imitation phenomena investors exhibit during transactions. "Following suit," blindly imitating others, leads them to trade the same stocks within a certain period.
Herd Effect Theory (The Effect of Sheep Flock)
If you place a stick in front of a flock of sheep, the first sheep jumps over it, followed by the second and third. Then, if you remove the stick, the subsequent sheep still jump as if the stick were still there, despite its absence. This is known as the "Herd Effect" or "conformity psychology." It refers to a common phenomenon in management where some companies' market behaviors reflect this tendency. Due to insufficient information and understanding, investors find it difficult to make reasonable expectations about future uncertainties. They often observe the behavior of those around them to gather information. As this information spreads, many people's information becomes roughly the same and mutually reinforcing, resulting in herd behavior. The "Herd Effect" is a non-linear mechanism where individual rational behavior leads to collective irrational behavior.
The Herd Behavior is a relatively typical phenomenon in behavioral finance, which mainstream financial theories cannot explain. Economics often uses the "Herd Effect" to describe the conformity and bandwagon psychology of economic individuals. A herd is a disorganized entity, blindly rushing left and right. But once the lead sheep moves, the others follow without hesitation, regardless of possible wolves ahead or better grass nearby. Thus, the "Herd Effect" metaphorically implies that people have a tendency to conform, which easily leads to blind conformity, often resulting in traps or failures.
The Herd Effect usually appears in highly competitive industries with a leader (the lead sheep) capturing most of the attention. The entire herd then mimics every move of the lead sheep, wherever the lead sheep goes to "eat grass," the others follow to "mine gold."
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【Hedgehog Rule】
Hedgehog Rule: Two tired hedgehogs huddle together due to the cold. But because each has spines, they separate a bit but then freeze again, so they come closer. After several attempts, the two hedgehogs finally find a suitable distance: they can keep warm from each other without getting hurt.
The Hedgehog Rule mainly refers to the "psychological distance effect" in interpersonal relationships.
The French President Charles de Gaulle was skilled at applying the Hedgehog Rule. His motto was "Maintain a certain distance!" This deeply influenced his relationship with advisors, strategists, and consultants. During his more than ten years as president, few people in his secretariat, office, and personal advisory staff worked for more than two years. He always told new office directors, "I use you for two years, just as people cannot make advisory work their career, you cannot make office director your career." This was De Gaulle's rule. This rule stems from two reasons: First, in his view, transfers are normal, while permanence is abnormal. This is influenced by military practices, as armies are mobile and do not remain fixed in one place. Second, he did not want these people to become indispensable to him. This shows that De Gaulle was a leader who relied primarily on his own thoughts and decisions; he did not allow anyone to become permanently indispensable. Only through transfers could a certain distance be maintained, and only by maintaining a certain distance could advisors and strategists retain fresh thinking and vigor, avoiding the misuse of the president's name for factionalism and private gain.
De Gaulle's approach is thought-provoking and admirable. Lack of distance makes leadership overly dependent on secretaries or a few individuals, leading to advisors interfering in politics, and using the leader's name for personal gain, eventually dragging the leader into corruption, with dangerous consequences. Comparatively, maintaining a certain distance is better.
General Electric's former CEO Stone was very attentive to micromanagement, especially regarding middle and upper-level managers. Regarding workplace and treatment issues, Stone was never stingy with care for managers, but during off-hours, he never required managers to visit his home or accepted their invitations. This moderate-distance management allowed General Electric's various businesses to flourish. Maintaining a certain distance from employees neither makes you overly supreme nor blurs identities. This is the best state of management. Distance is maintained through certain principles, applicable equally to everyone: it can constrain leaders and employees alike. Mastering this principle is mastering the secret of successful management.
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【Watch Law】
Watch Law: When a person has one watch, they know what time it is, but when they have two, they can no longer determine the time. Two watches cannot tell a person a more accurate time; instead, they make the wearer lose confidence in the correct time.
The Watch Law gives us a very direct insight in enterprise management: the same person or organization cannot simultaneously adopt two different methods, set two different goals, or even have one person commanded by two people, otherwise, it will leave the enterprise or person confused.
The story of the monkey and the watch
A forest lived with a group of monkeys, who went out to forage when the sun rose and returned to rest when it set, living a simple and happy life.
A tourist crossed the forest and left a watch under a tree rock, which was picked up by a monkey named Mengke. The intelligent Mengke quickly figured out the watch's purpose, thus becoming the star of the entire monkey troop. Every monkey asked Mengke for the exact time, and the entire troop's schedule was planned by Mengke. Mengke gradually established authority and became the king of the monkeys.
As the monkey king, Mengke believed the watch brought him good luck, so he searched daily in the forest, hoping to find more watches. Eventually, Mengke owned a second and third watch.
However, Mengke faced a new problem: each watch indicated different times, which one was the correct time? Mengke was perplexed. When subordinates asked for the time, Mengke stammered and couldn't answer, causing confusion in the troop's schedule. After some time, the monkeys rebelled, deposing Mengke from the throne, and Mengke's collection was claimed by the new king. But soon, the new king faced the same confusion as Mengke.
This is the famous "Watch Law": with one watch, you know the time; with two or more, you cannot determine the time. More watches do not tell people a more accurate time; instead, they make the wearer lose confidence in the correct time.
The Watch Law gives us a very intuitive insight:
For any event, you cannot set two different goals simultaneously, otherwise, it will confuse people; for an individual, you cannot choose two different value systems simultaneously, otherwise, their actions will fall into chaos.
An individual cannot be commanded by more than one person, otherwise, it will confuse them; for an enterprise, adopting two different management methods simultaneously will hinder its development.
In this regard, the merger of AOL and Time Warner is a typical failed case. AOL is a young internet company with a culture emphasizing flexibility and quick decision-making, aiming to rapidly occupy the market. Time Warner, through long-term development, established a corporate culture emphasizing integrity