We have a fish pond at our Waste Water Treatment Plant, used as a mini-Lab, to check that the effluent being sent to the environment can support aquatic life. When the fishes are grown, they are used to make pepper soup for everybody in the Brewery – fun times.
This story is not about fun times over fresh fish pepper soup. I wish it was.
The fish pond has 3 different compartments connected at the base by a small hole, which fishes can swim through to access any of the 3 compartments. Usually, there is a screen that ensures fishes do not swim through and that we can separate the fishes into fingerlings/post-fingerlings, juvenile and post-juvenile fishes.
When the screen is not in place, the fishes all try to use the small hole to access the next compartment.
For the fingerlings and adolescents, it is not a problem. The hole is big enough to let them through unscathed.
For the post-juvenile fishes, it is a big problem, because they are usually bigger than the hole and have to squeeze through, thereby sustaining bruises/injuries.
It is the bruises that form the reason for this story.
Any fish that gets bruised/injured, becomes vulnerable to attacks from other fishes. Immediately the other fishes smell blood, they zoom in and kill of the injured fish. They do not just kill off and allow it to rot. No, they eat off everything, leaving only the bones.
It is shocking, because normally the fishes do not even attack eachother, but immediately they smell weakness, they show no mercy.
Same thing applies in most Institutions.
Which is why people hold back on their vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities not shared, and thus not attended to, become the Achilles heel of the institution.
No amount of case studies will unravel Institutional vulnerabilities, if you cannot unravel individual vulnerabilities.
The fear of consequences from sharing vulnerabilities naturally breeds a low trust environment.
What can we do about it?
Maybe people should act their age and stop trying to go through rabbit holes that bruise them.
Maybe people that share their vulnerabilities should be taken to a new compartment to protect them and help them heal.
Maybe we can provide enough alternatives for the people and reduce the need to “eat” eachother.
Whatever the case, we will all still die and be turned to a metaphorical pepper soup for the fun of the gods.
Erigga in his song – Motivation, put it differently when he said, “If trust dey, then water for nor fit dey cook fish”.
We live in a low trust environment, because that is how nature is designed. To tweak it into a high trust environment, requires deep thinking, and some trials with errors.
– Osasu Oviaw