The Lemming That Saved the Branch

A cheerful parable about accidental brilliance, corporate physics, and why some companies survive against all logic.

There is an old scene that should be carved above the entrance of every office tower.
A man sits on a branch high above the ground.
He smiles.
He hums.
And with great enthusiasm, he starts sawing through the very piece of wood holding him up.

Below him, a crowd forms.
Not to warn him.
Not to intervene.
But to debate the saw.

Someone proposes creating a “Sawing Excellence Committee”.
Another insists that the saw must be renamed a “Cutting Experience Interface” because “tool” is not inclusive enough.
A third wonders if the sawing should be added to the quarterly OKRs under “innovation impact”.

Nobody asks the obvious question:
Why is he cutting the branch he is sitting on?

They are too busy polishing the absurdity.

This is where most parables end.
But ours is more optimistic.
Because this tree has lemmings.

The Unofficial Keepers of Reality

Forget the cartoon myth of lemmings throwing themselves off cliffs.
The real lemmings in companies never jump.
They prevent the entire place from jumping without noticing.

They do not have titles like “Senior Vice President of Branch Stability”.
They just see the crack forming long before anyone else smells danger.

While the committee discusses naming conventions, a lemming quietly loops a rope around the trunk.
While someone requests a slide deck on “branch integrity risk”, a lemming reinforces the joint.
While the strategist explains that “falling is not aligned with Q3 goals”, a lemming moves the weight distribution.

No applause.
No spotlight.
Half of them are even told to “stop overthinking”, because nothing threatens a political storyline more than someone who understands physics.

But without them, the branch snaps before the meeting even ends.
And the company snaps with it.

The first secret of corporate survival is painfully simple:
some organisations stay alive only because their engineers refuse to let stupidity finish its job.

Game of Thrones, Corporate Edition

Around the tree, the modern Game of Thrones unfolds.

The House of Compliance duels the House of Product over who truly “owns” the roadmap.
The House of Design attempts a noble invasion of Architecture because surface must rule structure.
Business tries to annex Engineering with vague statements like “just make it scalable”.

Each faction plots in meeting rooms, convinced it is playing 4D chess.
In reality, half of them are just rearranging tokens on the same branch the lemmings are desperately trying to save.

Politics expands.
Egos collide.
Roadmaps mutate.

And yet…
the tree does not fall.

Because in the shadow of all this theatre, the lemmings patch the consequences and keep the heartbeat stable.

Their work is not glamorous, but it is effective.
Their intuition is not loud, but it is correct.

Without them, the entire organisational structure collapses under the weight of its own performance art.

The Accidental Mechanics of Survival

If you reduce it to its bare mechanics, the survival of many companies follows a hilarious pattern:

Leadership chaos creates noise.
Politics distorts gravity.
PowerPoint optimism defies every known law of thermodynamics.

But a handful of lemmings compensate by acting before talking, fixing before debating, and observing reality before negotiating its vocabulary.

They hold enough of the system together to maintain momentum.
Not perfect momentum.
Not strategic momentum.
Just enough momentum to keep customers served and revenue flowing while the nobles argue about the lore of the kingdom.

In physics, this would be a miracle.
In companies, it is Tuesday.

A Joyful Tribute to the Unsung

Let us give credit where it is due, cheerfully and without bitterness.

These lemmings are the people who:

• reboot the failing cluster at 2 a.m. without writing a memo about it
• rewrite the broken script another team abandoned three quarters into the job
• deliver the feature customers actually need, despite three political landmines and a calendar full of distractions
• keep the architecture coherent even as six committees try to redefine the word “architecture”

They do this not because they expect recognition.
Not because they dream of a promotion.

They do it because they understand something essential:
if they do not keep the ball rolling, nobody else will.

This is where the joy lies.
Not in the suffering.
Not in the self-sacrifice.
But in the quiet pride of competence.

The Irony That Keeps Coming Back

The funniest part of the entire story is how it ends.
The branch survives.
The man who was cutting it does not fall.
And he proudly climbs down to present a deck titled:

“How My Strategic Initiative Stabilised the Ecosystem for the next Year.”

The crowd applauds.
They nod.
They admire his visionary thinking.

The lemmings smile politely.
They go back to work.
And they prepare to save the next branch, because the man has already started climbing again.

Corporate physics always resets.

Why This Parable Works on a Friday

Because it is both ridiculous and true.

Because it reminds us that beneath all the noise, enough people still carry genuine understanding, intuition, and responsibility.

Because it celebrates the real engine of organisational resilience:
the quiet minority who act before the system breaks.

And because it gives us permission to laugh at the madness without losing faith in the craft.

Companies do not survive because the politics are clever.
They survive because the lemmings are.

A Final Cheer

So here is to the branch-savers.
To the people who reinforce reality while others debate abstractions.
To the engineers who keep momentum alive through instinct, clarity, and a sense of duty no title can manufacture.
To the stubborn optimists who refuse to let stupidity win by default.

Raise a glass.
Enjoy your Friday.
And do not worry:
the next branch will not break.
The lemmings are already on it.