Hold your horses

In 1942 Britain after 3 years of war was almost on its knees.

Since 1940 it had been fighting Germany on its own.  And although the USA and Russia had now joined in, it was still having to fight and resist on three fronts.

In Europe. In the Middle East. In the Far East.

As a consequence Britain was facing a manpower crisis. It was under pressure to find more fit men of fighting age for its army, navy and air force.

Without taking too many men from vital war industries.

To find the men it needed the War Ministry initiated a review of everything it did to identify duplicated and needless tasks.

This is the kind of thing that today many businesses hire expensive consultants to do to strip out costs.

One of the activities reviewed was the manpower requirements needed to fire a field gun.

The study concluded that it required four trained artillery men to do this.

And yet each battery contained five men.

No one knew why each battery was fully staffed with five. But the commanders insisted that each battery required five men because that was the standard artillery doctrine, the way it had always been done.

With equal adamance those doing the research argued that only four were needed.

A stalemate ensued between the advocates of the status quo and the advocates of progressiveness.

Until some eagle-eyed subaltern identified the reason for the extra man.

For centuries artillery had been taken into battle by horses.

And on the battlefield someone was required to hold onto the horses so that they did not flee when the cannons started noisily to fire.

This was the role of the fifth man.

There was only one problem.

In the years between World War 1 and World War 2 virtually all the horse drawn artillery units had been mechanised. Artillery was no longer taken into battle by horses. There was no longer any horses  to hold. There was no need for a fifth man.

This was a sacred cow.

But it is not just in the military that you will find dogged logic, persistent thinking. Many brands, many businesses share these traits.

A common set of beliefs can be a strength for any brand but having a dominant logic can lock the brand into a narrow way of thinking. And can lead to group think.

This is not good.

We need to develop and systemise an uncommon sense. A different way at looking at the business and its markets.  New thinking to provide competitive advantage.

But to get there requires the sacred cows, the common assumptions of the business and the market in which it operates to be identified, challenged, tested and destroyed.

And by discarding the sacred cows when examination exposes them to be untrue, a brand can liberate itself.

Sam Walton was once told that you don’t place ‘good sized discount stores into little one horse towns’. He did.

And he credited his success to his destruction of this market assumption, this sacred cow.

So what are the things that you never question or challenge in your business, in the markets you serve?

Making a list of these will be a start.

To ensure you are not the one left holding the horses.