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The NYPD, the FBI, and the CIA have engaged for years in serious competition to determine which organization is the most deft apprehender of criminals. The president, wanting to resolve the question once and for all, directs his chief of staff to release a rabbit into a forest, and challenges each organization to utilize its best methods to bring the rabbit in to him.
The CIA goes in.
They place animal informants throughout the forest. They place hidden microphones on all of the trees and motion detectors behind each rock. After three months of intensive investigations, they conclude that rabbits do not exist.
The FBI goes in.
After two weeks with no leads, they burn the forest, killing everything in it, including the rabbit, and they make no apologies — the rabbit had it coming.
The NYPD goes in.
A mere two hours later they come out leading a badly beaten bear by the ear. The bear is yelling, “Okay, okay, I’m a rabbit, I’m a rabbit.”
[Author unknown, but greatly appreciated! If you or anyone you know has a proprietary interest in this story please authenticate and I will be happy to credit, or remove, as appropriate.]
Ha!
Let’s flip the process for this post — what lesson(s) do you take away from this piece? Leave a comment!
(I’m not going to sit this one out! I have ideas — see the tags above for this post…)
johnponders 
High….larious! I’m laughing so hard I’m not sure if I can function any more today. I may as well just go home right now…
Well glad I cracked you up (and made you dysfunctional?) today Mike! Hey; and it’s good to see you here …
I have tears in my eyes from laughing so hard! I’m amazed no one put out carrots or a leafy vegetables in a trap to lure out the rabbit! Seems like they valued what they can do (and have done in the past) more than what they were going after….
This one tickled you Audrey? Ha!! And good gosh you make too much sense with your suggestions … and your explanation is pretty on the money as well!
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Lesson number one . . . don’t dress up as a rabbit this Halloween.
Lesson number two . . . different organizational cultures produce different approaches to problems solving.
Lesson number three . . . it is hard to see the forrest through the trees and you may not know that your approach to problem solving doesn’t work unless you have others to benchmark against.
How am I doing, John?
Pretty darn good Erik! Perhaps we should just tag team each of my posts, where I just serve up a quote or story, and you do the OD interpretation!
One caution though: be careful when in NY, as it doesn’t matter to the NYPD what you dress up as for Halloween!
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