25 Jun If Information Were Enough
A few weeks ago, while my family and I were traveling through Australia, someone told us a story about the quokkas on Rottnest Island.
If you’ve never seen a quokka, they’re small marsupials that look permanently delighted with life, as though they’ve just heard some very good news.
They’re also impossibly charming.
At one restaurant on the island, management had posted a sign asking visitors not to let them in. They even posted a photo of the sign online.
“PLEASE DO NOT LET THE QUOKKA IN NO MATTER WHAT THEY TELL YOU.”
Whoever wrote it seemed to understand exactly what they were up against.
Then, a few hours later, they posted another photo.
It was a quokka seated at one of the restaurant tables.
A quokka was sitting upright in a chair, its paws spread across an open menu. It looked completely at home, as though it had arrived a few minutes early for lunch and was patiently waiting for someone to come take its order. And, of course, it was smiling.
The quokka couldn’t read the sign.
The people could.
There is something comforting about believing that information changes behavior. If people knew better, they would do better. If the instructions were clear enough, if the evidence was compelling enough, if the reminder arrived at just the right moment, things would unfold differently.
Sometimes they do.
But most of the time, by the time information arrives, it is joining a conversation already underway. Preferences, habits, hopes, fears, convenience, curiosity, and desire all have a seat at the table.
The restaurant had reasons for wanting the quokkas outside.
The people who opened the door to that friendly marsupial had reasons too.
If a smiling quokka greeted me at the entrance and seemed interested in joining us for lunch, I’m not entirely sure I would have been the person enforcing the rule.
That’s part of what makes change so complicated.
Information matters. Advice matters. Signs matter.
But there is almost always something else sitting at the table.