We all recall the story of the blind men and the elephant. In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement. The problem was that no one man, had the vision that would have allowed him to see the elephant for what it truly was.
Do we see that in the training world today? Oh you bet we do. The problem is that there are some blind men that like to wear what they have done in the past like a flag…or perhaps a billboard, in the hope of giving them more credibility over the other blind men. These guys will grab on to the elephant’s tail hard (or other body part if you will) and exclaim loud and hard, “You see. I have personally grabbed this elephant therefore I, or others who have grabbed this tail right here, like me, can tell you the truth about this animal”.
And the billboards they wear coupled with the vociferocity of their message makes them almost beyond reproach. "Good heavens", their devotees would say. "How could you possibly question him....he was assigned to......"
But the sad part of it is that they do not realize that they themselves are in fact blind to the rest of the massive animal before them. The blind leading the blind.
[ . . . ]
Trunks and tails, eyeballs and a**holes – they are all a part of the animal, but nobody, and I mean nobody, no matter what their background was, has been everywhere and done everything. And if they tell you that, or insinuate that, they are liars my friends.
So where does that leave us. Our goal is still to identify, study and dissect that massive beast – the elephant. Fortunately, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. And the one-eyed man has enough vision to gather all the blind men and debrief them.
