When was the last time you were sick on a plane?
When people first started flying commercially, planes were bumpy, rickety, vomit-inducing rides.
In the 1940s, the waxed paper sickbag was invented and became part of the standard “hello” as you entered a plane until the 80s.
You’d be welcomed with a ticket check, seat location, and would be physically handed your “motion sickness” bag.
It didn’t matter that planes were now pressurised, smoother running and more comfortable. The high rates of passenger vomiting continued to remain consistent across nearly half a century of improvements in travel comfort.
The airlines recognised that this manual process slowed how quickly planes could be boarded.
So a commercial decision was made to place the bags into the seat jackets to save some time.
And a strange thing happened…
The rates of air sickness plummeted to almost zero.
By handing out bags, the airlines had – inadvertently – been psychologically “priming” their passengers; Setting an expectation that it’s normal to be sick on a plane.
And passangers obeyed. They were sick.
Because that’s just how we get things done around here.
How many things do we have in our organisations that set those unwritten expectations of how we get things done around here?
Are we – inadvertently – handing out metaphorical sickbags?
Or have we considered how those unwritten rules, rituals, routines etc. are unintentionally influencing approaches around our organisations?
