"Fish out of water!"

The Wheeler family used to play a lot of "Sharks and Minnows" in our younger days.  Basically, in our version, the game was played in the pool.  One player was designated as the shark, while the remaining players were designated as minnows.  The minnows lined up on one side of the pool, and the shark treaded water in the middle of the pool.  The object of the game, if you were a minnow, was to get safely to the other side.  If you were a shark, the goal was to "capture" as many minnows as possible before they crossed to the other side of the pool.  

A "capture" occurred when the shark tagged the minnow - though the minnow had to be on the surface.  In other words, the minnows could try to cross the pool by swimming underwater while holding his or her breath.  Once the kids were older, there was usually a wrestling match between the shark and minnow in order to try to bring the minnow to the surface.  Each "captured" minnow would become a shark (so the number of sharks increased, while the number of minnows decreased).

Occasionally, one of the minnows would jump out of the pool to try to run to the other side.  The shark would respond by calling out, "Fish out of water!" I think that we brought that into our own version of the game (it was originally one of the rules in another game, Marco Polo).  

As it turns out, the phrase "fish out of water" is more than just a saying from a fun children's pool game.  The phrase has become an idiom used to refer to an individual who is in unfamiliar, and often uncomfortable, surroundings or situations.  But here is the important point.  There is absolutely no better way to learn, develop, and grow than pushing beyond your comfort zone!  Importantly, you don't have to go very far (and some experts would suggest that you shouldn't get to far out of your comfort zone).

First of all, what is the "comfort zone"?  The phrase was first coined by the management thinker, Judith Bardwick in her 1991 book, Danger in the Comfort Zone.  She said, “The comfort zone is a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviors to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk.”

One of the reasons why we get so uncomfortable being a "fish out of water" is that we are afraid to fail.  See failure for what it actually is, a teacher.  Just as important, leaders need to make sure that they create an environment and culture of psychological safety, where failure is viewed as a learning opportunity.  I learned about the so-called "Inverted U Hypothesis" (more commonly known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law) in one of my undergraduate sports psychology classes.  Basically, if you graph stress or anxiety on the x-axis and performance on the y-axis, you generally observe an inverted U shape.  Too little stress/anxiety leads to boredom, while too much stress/anxiety leads to panic.  The ideal point is in the middle.  In other words, pushing just past our comfort zone can actually help us learn and perform better!

Last comment.  While researching this topic, I came across an interesting study that has absolutely nothing to do with what I just talked about!  There was a study published just a few weeks ago in the journal Behavioural Brain Research entitled, "From fish out of water to new insights on navigation mechanisms in animals".  What's interesting about this study is that they taught goldfish to drive a special car in order to prove that fish can purposefully navigate and explore their environment.  As my undergraduate chemistry professor used to say, "Well damn!  That's science!"  But perhaps too far out of my comfort zone!