A prehistoric perspective on IGs

The other day I spoke to a group of contracting professionals at an agency. I presented the following metaphor:

Think of the time people lived in caves, and think about when a few humans first started to venture outside into the bigger world. Many had good experiences and realized that life might really be better outside the caves. But some people who were not used to the light outside the cave faced problems. One person tripped on a rock and hurt himself. One person mistook another human venturing out of the cave for an animal and shot her by mistake.

There was a cave world inspector general following all this. The cave world IG wrote nothing about those who had had positive experiences outside the cave. However, the cave world IG wrote blistering reports on the people who tripped and who shot another human.

If that had been what it was like in the days of cave men, humans would probably still be living in caves.