It is not in my nature

The design of organisations and products →Go uptown Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Design Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

A scorpion asks a frog to carry it across the river. The frog hesitates, afraid of being stung.

“But,” says the scorpion, “if I sting you, we will both drown”.
“I see!” says the frog. “Hop on!”
They wade into the river. Midway across, the scorpion stings the frog.
With his dying breath, the frog cries, “Why did you do that? Now we both will die!”
The scorpion shrugs. “It’s in my nature.”

A sense check one should always run before proposing a sensible, rational and logical change to a well-established process.

Rational, logical and sensible processes are not always the prime motivating force when you deal with another human. Especially a legal eagle. What is his nature?

Lecter: First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?

Clarice: He kills women —

Lecter: No! That is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does? What needs does he serve by killing?

Clarice: Anger — social acceptance — and — sexual frustrations, sir —

Lecter: No! He covets. That is his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet?

—Silence of the Lambs

Now, let us imagine the same scene, in the legal operations team.

See also

• Innovation
• Frog and the scorpion
• Innovation