About eleven hours into yet another seemingly endless trip between Japan and Chicago, about the time I'd read everything I could find including the label in my shirt, I was down to the rock-bottom of reading material — the ads in the closing pages of the United Airlines magazine.
It was there that I saw the single-column, six-inch long ad with the headline, Fly the Legend. Below the headline was the picture of a MiG-21 flying at a 45 degree angle toward the left side of the page.
Beneath the MiG was copy that read: Find a new love in Moscow. Break the sound barrier in a MiG-21, feel the power of the MiG-29 or reach for the stars in the MiG-25. Your life will never be the same! Call today for a free color brochure. Our incredible Adventures start at $3850.
I was fascinated by this on a number of levels. Hadn't we built an entire modern air force around fighting these very planes? Weren't these the same planes that every enemy of ours around the globe was flying? What must the Russian Air Force be thinking? What do you get for the "starting price" of $3850?
Then it struck me. We'd spent decades and literally trillions of dollars preparing to fight a war with the Soviet Union. Central to those plans had to be air superiority and key to the execution of whatever strategy we chose would be engaging and eliminating all those MiGs. Decades. Trillions of dollars. The best and brightest military strategists the US could assemble.
All that and more to confront . . . . . . . . an amusement park ride.
Guess we never considered that Russia might need US dollars more than they needed a dog fight.
I've used this story over and over again to illustrate the need to look at our absolutes and turn them upside down. Every business has what it believes are absolute truths, those things that will not change, cannot change, couldn't possibly change.
I believe if you'd proposed the scenario that MiGs would be amusement park rides to the Pentagon planners who labored so diligently to build war plans for any eventuality, that proposal would have gotten you laughed out of the room, out of the Pentagon and off the active duty roster. Any eventuality couldn't include Flying the Legend, because it was inconceivable.
During your next strategic planning meeting, force your teams to challenge the "absolute truths" in their plans. Turn them upside down. Look at the impossible, the improbable and ask yourself what you would do if those scenarios became real.
In attempt to diversify its business in the face of pressure from healthcare professionals attacking it's "unhealthy" menus, McDonald's announced today that it purchased Johnson & Johnson. Oh yeah, it could happen.
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