At the end of World War I, the Australian government gave land to discharged soldiers and encouraged them to take up wheat farming. But these soldier-farmers encountered a strange new enemy – emus. Drawn by the newly cleared land with abundant water, over 20,000 of these indigenous flightless birds poured in, destroyed fences, forayed into the farms and consumed crops. Rabbits entered through the gaps in the fence to cause further chaos. The hapless ex-soldiers sought help from the Minister of Defence who deployed military personnel armed with machine guns. And thus began the Great Emu War, a bizarre nuisance wildlife management military operation to get rid of emus that were destroying crops in the wheat belt of Western Australia. In the very first operation when the soldiers fired, the emus scattered into small groups making it difficult to target them. The next day when a flock of a thousand emus were sighted, the gunners waited until they were close enough before opening fire. And when they did, the gun jammed after only twelve birds were shot, thereafter the rest of the flock scattered. The soldiers then mounted their machine gun onto a truck, but the truck was unable to gain on the birds, and the ride was so rough that the gunner couldn’t fire. In one operation over two thousand rounds were fired but yielded only fifty dead birds. The results of the Great Emu War were disappointing; the machine gunners were no match for the bird’s guerrilla tactics. The media mocked the soldiers, and in the end, they withdrew from operations, with the only casualty being their ego and dignity.
This absurd tale offers some cautionary lessons for us in business – the trap of the familiar. As ex-soldiers the new farmers defaulted to the solution they knew best, use machine guns to cull birds. In business too, we often default to familiar tactics and don’t pause to check if it’s the right solution for the challenge. When your current ‘weapons’ are not hitting their targets use these frameworks to strip your assumptions, reframe problems and generate new ideas.
*Assumption Audit. The goal is to eliminate inherited thinking; start by writing all assumptions and you either try to flip it (what if the opposite is true?) or delete it (what if this doesn’t exist?).
*Inversion. Break out of mental ruts by looking at the challenge from the opposite angle. For instance, if the goal is in increase customer loyalty, you invert the goal to ask what would destroy loyalty? List the actions e.g. poor customer service or inconsistent product quality and use these to reframe positive strategies and devise creative solutions or tactics.
*Reframing Lens. Reframe the problem applying a new lens of efficiency, budget or user type. Efficiency Lens – what must be true for the user to complete the transaction in two steps (instead of the current eight steps)
Budget Lens – what would we do if the budget is reduced to zero? what if it were infinite?
User Lens. How would we rewrite this experience if the user is a child?
The Great Emu War reminds us that sometimes the most familiar playbook isn’t always the winning one. The enemy might not be the problem at all, sometimes it’s our unquestioned assumptions. And unlike the soldier-farmers, we don’t need more firepower, we just need a fresh set of eyes.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. |
