![]() ![]() “I’m no genius, but I’m smart in spots, and I stay around those spots.” I love the quote from Tom Watson, formerly of IBM: What do we learn from the Tomato Story? Many things, one of which is that we presume too much. “ You didn’t ask” replied the Zambians Lessons from the Tomato Story “ Why didn’t you tell us about the hippos?” The disheartened Italians bellowed ![]() They simply assumed that the Zambian community did not have the savvy to develop agriculture on their own.Īll seemed well until one night, a swarm of hippopotamus came out of the river and devoured the entire field of tomatoes. These tomatoes grew to be twice their regular size (due to the rich soil) and would provide a source of food for the Zambian community.įrom the perspective of Ernesto and his Italian NGO, it was a no-brainer. When he and his colleagues were working in Zambia, they took advantage of the rich African soils to plant tomatoes. His Tomato Story very adequately sums up this failure. He took a radically different approach to aid and impact after seven years without progress working for Italian NGO’s in Africa. The Tomato StoryĮrnesto Sirolli is the founder of Enterprise Facilitation. The mind is made to have ideas, not hold them, and has a limit in terms of its cognitive load – The Iceberg Effect is our brain’s attempt to make the world easier to process, but unfortunately easier does not always mean better. The 90%, or whatever relevant portion that lies dormant and unseen, is typically discounted from appraisals and problem-solving strategies. The reality is, if you fail to understand 90% of a problem, what hope do you have of solving it? What problems will you miss? Where will you imagine issues that aren’t really there? Finally, when will you actually do more harm than good because of this Iceberg problem?ĭiagram of the Iceberg Effect Why the 90% remains unseen Pretty much every problem is like an iceberg in this way. The real depth and core prefers to be beneath the filter, known as the surface, preferring the dark and the cold.īut it is here where real substance tends to live, or where the heart of the issue lives undetected. The 10% above the water is not just any 10%, but the section that is most socially acceptable or most comfortable in the light. This is what I call The Iceberg Effect or The Iceberg Problem the simple reality that for any individual, group or problem, most people will process information, make judgments and react prematurely based on the 10% of the information they see above the surface. All your photographs, recounts and recollections will show is the 10% above the water, the part which you assume to be the whole. Though without knowledge of icebergs, you wouldn’t even realise that so much lies beneath the surface. The Iceberg Effect The thing about an iceberg is that 90% of it is under water. ![]()
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