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> Every apple that gets pulled from the bushel is rotten and there are a lot of apples left.

Yes, that's what happens. If you leave a couple of bad apples in a barrel they off gas ethylene and spoil every apple in the barrel. You have to regularly get rid of bad apples before they spoil the bunch.

It's such a great metaphor, it's too bad it's so widely misused and misunderstood.



And importantly, when viewed with this understanding of "organizational ethylene", it's obvious that anyone who resists, obstruct, or disagrees with routine removal of bad apples is probably themselves a bad apple.




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