爱华网Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth
There is a proverb that “too many cooks spoil thebroth,” which means that it’s not good if there are too many peopleworking together.
First, too many people working together without aleader can lead to a mass chaos. Imagine that there is a partywhere a lot of housewives are coming together. Once it becomesdinner time, all of them get together in the kitchen, and thy allwant to make bisque. Then here comes the problem. All thehousewives have their own methods for cooking bisque. Because thereis no leader, everyone just put whatever they want into the bisque.In the end, it becomes a hodgepodge and tastes bad. Similaraccidents appear frequently when group members are eager to dosomething to prove themselves, and no one likes to hear others’opinions or follow the instruments of the leader. Such as in theGlee club, if everyone sings whenever and what he or she likes notfollowing the music, they can by no means be an excellent singingclub. So this proverb suggests people that they should work like ateam, concerning more about the role of each member.
Second,too many people working together may lead to everyone shifting theresponsibility to each other, and then nothing can be successfullydone. There is a famous fable in China, that states:“Oneboyisaboy,twoboyshalfaboy,threeboysnoboy.” Onceupon a time there was a monk living alone in a small tempt on thetop of mountain. He had to fetch water from the foot of themountain every day. A few days later, there came another monk, sothey both carried water together. A few more days later, a thirdmonk came. Then, a problem appeared. They all refused to carrywater and waited for the others to do it even though they were allextremely thirsty. In this story, water is the “broth.” Becausethere are too many people, no one want to take the responsibilityfor cooking the broth; hence, it will never be cooked. This kind ofcase can also be observed in school lives. If there is no onewanting to take the responsibility for the activity “Fear the Bod,”it may never appear, not to mention a great success. So when thereis a team project, everyone should take his own responsibility incase of spoiling the “broth” in the end.
Third, too many people working together may lead to wrongdirections, diverting from the first goal of “making the broth.” Asmentioned above, if those housewives coming together with the goalof making broth, but they were so excited and happy to see eachother, and then began to chat about their husbands, their newclothes, new movies, or new restaurants. Linda mentioned that sherecently tried a Chinese dish called Kung Pao Chicken and shereally enjoyed it, and a few others agreed with her. Then, all theothers became curious and excited to try that. In the end, they maystart cooking that dish, or even went outside for buying andtotally forgot the reason of getting together: the broth. It’snothing serious if just making broth, but considering deeper ifteam members forget their meeting aim and do nothing until the lastminute, we can imagine what kind of grade they’ll have for thatcourse. So people should make a plan and follow it strictly everytime they meet. Then, they will never divert from the direction ofmaking the “broth.”
According to all the reasons above, the proverb“too many cooks spoil the broth” can be regarded as truth. Itreminds people to be more cautious of the leader, theresponsibility and the goal when working together, then there willbe a delicious “broth” for all of them.
