Three men make a tiger

Imagine you are listening to the radio on your way home from work. The DJ is talking about a rumor that a tiger had escaped from the zoo. How worried would you be?

Now imagine as you pull up to your house your neighbor tells you that her cousin swears he spotted a large animal prowling your neighborhood. Would you start to feel just a little bit nervous?

What if later that evening your young son or daughter comes to you and says “Come look! There’s a big stray kitty in the back yard.” Worried or nervous yet? Probably!

Lots of tigers roam the business landscape. A leader must do the hard work of identifying which are real and which are rumor.

An old Chinese proverb says if one person tells you there’s a tiger roaming your neighborhood, you can assume they’re lying. If two people tell you, you begin to wonder and if three say it’s true, you’re convinced there’s a tiger and you panic.

The short and simple version: “Three men make a tiger”. It means people will believe anything if enough people tell them it’s true.

It’s helpful to keep this in mind in the workplace. Do you believe something because you’ve heard it many times? 

Leaders don’t just hear, they understand. They believe when they’ve heard from the RIGHT person, seen EVIDENCE and had the RATIONALE explained to them.