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Out of
the Box Coaching and
Breakthroughs with the Enneagram,
Mary R. Bast, Ph.D.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved. Revised:
January 21, 2012
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"Snow"
& "Biscuit:" More of the SameIn
Change: Principles of Problem
Formation and Problem Resolution, Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch tell the following
story:
"'…in May 1940, aboard a British trawler on its way
to a secret meeting with a German intelligence officer, Major Ritter, south of the Dogger
Bank in the English Channel, (were) two "double cross" agents, code-named Snow
and Biscuit… Snow had done excellent work for British intelligence in the past and was
considered by the Germans one of their star agents in Britain. Biscuit, a man with a long
criminal record, had turned into a very reliable police informer and was now to be
introduced to Major Ritter as Snow's subagent, to be trained in Germany and then sent back
to England. For one reason or another, British intelligence considered it advisable that
neither agent should know that the other was also working for the British side, but
apparently both men eventually guessed this fact. This led to a nightmarish impasse:
Biscuit formed the opinion… that (Snow) was acting genuinely in the interest of the
Germans and would undoubtedly reveal his position as a controlled agent as soon as he met
Ritter. Snow… appears to have been… under the impression that Biscuit was a
genuine German agent who would undoubtedly reveal his, Snow's, ambiguous position when
their meeting with Ritter took place. As a result of this he did everything in his power
to convince Biscuit that he was acting genuinely in the German interest, and thereby
redoubled Biscuit's suspicions.'
In this strange situation, then, both parties were trying hard
to do what under the circumstances seemed to be the best thing, but the harder they tried
the more hopeless the situation became. Finally, in the interest of his own safety and to
avoid what seemed to turn into a disaster for British intelligence, Biscuit locked Snow
into his cabin and returned the trawler to Grimsby without attempting to meet Ritter.
Thus, in his sincere attempt to prevent ultimate failure he produced it."
Transformational Change in Organizations
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